Leslie Martin, a native of Chauvin, Louisiana, is a fluid and adaptable pianist at home as both a bandleader and a sideman. He came to New Orleans in the late 1980s to play piano and has worked successfully as a jazz pianist ever since — capably crossing genres from jazz to Cajun to country to rock.
Martin has played with a host of high-powered artists including Pete Fountain, Jon Batiste, Lena Prima, Germaine Bazzle, and Jewel Brown. Alongside his solo work and sideman gigs around New Orleans — from Three Muses on Frenchmen Street to the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone — he can also be heard on tour with the raucously joyful Squirrel Nut Zippers.
Martin is also a self-taught painter whose work honors his bayou roots: his 2018 retrospective Paupieres in Oil at the Brand New Orleans Art Gallery paid homage to the shrimpers, oyster fishermen, crabbers, and netmakers of Bayou Petit Caillou. Whether at the keys or the easel, his subject is South Louisiana.
