Sam Kuslan sings and plays with the ease of someone raised on the great American songbook and the New Orleans tradition at the same time. His music sits between jazz and pop — lyrically driven, piano-forward, and built for connecting with a room — and OffBeat magazine has called his playing “New Orleans masters–style piano (playing).”
Runaway Love (2024), his first solo album, collects nine originals written and arranged by Kuslan, moving from the raucous title track to the ballad “Without Your Love” to the country-tinged “(I Wanna Call Love An) Old Thing.” Recorded at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa, Piety Studios, and 248 Studios, it features a deep cast of New Orleans players: vocalists Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph, Kayla Jasmine, and Sasha Masakowski; the Naughty Professor horns; Brad Walker, Scott Frock, and Mark Mullins; and a rhythm section of Kevin Nolan, Max Bronstein, Calvin Morin-Martin, and Shawn Myers.
Kuslan is one of the city's busiest sidemen: a featured artist with jazz-funk sextet Naughty Professor, a touring sideman for Nashville's Sean McConnell and rocker David Shaw, and the musical director and leader of the National Park Service Centennial Band. He has shared stages with Anders Osborne, Marcus King, Chali 2na, Shaun Martin, Isaiah Sharkey, and Leroy Jones; his playing has turned up on NCIS: New Orleans and Showtime's I'm Dying Up Here; and back in 2013 he played for Bill Clinton and James Carville. His regular rooms include residencies at the Roosevelt Hotel and the Hilton Riverside and steady dates on Frenchmen Street.
On September 30, he duos with veteran pianist Lawrence Sieberth at Snug Harbor — a night that pairs the city's deep piano bench with one of its rising songwriters.