Richard Scott grew up in Virginia in a musical family — piano lessons as a child, trombone in elementary school, bass and tuba in high school, accordion later on. His first full-time gig was at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, followed by stints on Carnival cruise ships. In 2000 he made his ultimate-destination move: New Orleans.
He romps on the piano, is the trombonist with the Dukes of Dixieland, and is probably the most well-rounded accordionist in the city.
— Tom McDermott, OffBeatHe played Bourbon Street's Maison Bourbon, then the Steamboat Natchez dinner cruises, worked with the National Park Service, and is now a regular at Fritzel's Jazz Pub on Bourbon Street — solo or with his Twisty River Band. He was the longtime pianist, and later trombonist, with the Dukes of Dixieland. OffBeat's Tom McDermott calls him 'one of the freaks of the New Orleans trad-jazz scene.'
Scott writes his own tunes, too — 'Painting My Apartment Blue,' 'The Sazerac Song,' 'Awful Nice People,' 'Birthday in New Orleans' — and his bandleader albums include the accordion-heavy Late Lunch, Jambalaya Town (2014, with 16 sidemen including Tom Fischer, Bruce Brackman, Gerald French, and Anais St. John), and Port of New Orleans (2019) with the Twisty River Band.
