Joe Cabral is a founding member of The Iguanas, a saxophonist, bajo sexto player, bassist, and sculptor who arrived in New Orleans from Fort Collins, Colorado in 1989 and became one of the most quietly indispensable musicians on the city's scene — playing in The Iguanas, Alex McMurray's band, the New Orleans Klezmer All Stars, and the reggae outfit 007.
Biography
Joe Cabral was born in Omaha, Nebraska and grew up playing music, eventually landing in Fort Collins, Colorado where he met guitarist and accordionist Rod Hodges. The two became fast friends and musical partners, sharing a deep love of Tex-Mex conjunto, Latin music, New Orleans R&B, and roots rock. When friends in the Subdudes — a New Orleans band then based in Fort Collins — told Cabral and Hodges they would love New Orleans, they took the advice. Both moved to the city in 1989, separately but with a shared plan, and within a year had started The Iguanas.
The Iguanas found their footing at the Rock 'N' Bowl and quickly attracted René Coman on bass and Memphis drummer Doug Garrison, completing a lineup that has remained remarkably stable ever since. Their self-titled debut on Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Records in 1993 established them nationally, and the follow-up Nuevo Hombre cemented their reputation as one of the most distinctive bands in America — a group that could move between cumbia, bolero, straight-ahead rock, and New Orleans second-line without ever sounding scattered. Cabral's tenor saxophone is at the heart of the band's sound: René Coman has described it as having "great rock 'n' roll tenor saxophone tone." His bajo sexto — the Mexican twelve-string guitar at the core of norteño and conjunto music — gives the band a texture found nowhere else on the New Orleans scene.
Beyond The Iguanas, Cabral has built an impressive web of collaborations across the city. He plays bass in Alex McMurray's band, bringing his characteristic musicality to McMurray's sardonic New Orleans singer-songwriter world. He is a member of 007, the reggae and rock-steady ensemble co-led by McMurray and drummer Jeffrey "Houseman" Clemens. And he is a member of the New Orleans Klezmer All Stars, the city's pioneering klezmer ensemble, which speaks to the breadth of his musical range. The Iguanas have also had their music featured in Homicide: Life on the Street and David Simon's Treme.
Away from music, Cabral is a working sculptor — a dimension of his creative life that rarely makes it into his musical biographies but speaks to the same restless inventiveness that animates his playing. He remains one of the essential, if undersung, figures in New Orleans music: someone whose presence in a room — any room, any genre — reliably makes the music better.
Discography
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