Tom Saunders & The Hotcats is a five-piece band performing authentic 1920s traditional jazz, led by longtime New Orleans trumpet and tuba player Tom Saunders. Saunders worked as a professional musician and bandleader in Detroit until 1984, when he moved to New Orleans to play in the Banu Gibson Band, and has worked in the Crescent City ever since with Jacques Gauthe's Creole Rice Jazz Band, the Sensation Jazz Band, the New Orleans Classic Jazz Orchestra, the Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble, the New Orleans Jazz Vipers, and many others.
Saunders founded his own 12-piece big band, Tom Saunders and the Tomcats, in 2010, playing 1920s hot dance and 1930s swing from New Orleans and Harlem, while the smaller Hotcats lineup focuses on five-piece 1920s traditional jazz. The band has played the Satchmo Summerfest weekend closing night at Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro and performs regularly around New Orleans, including aboard the Steamboat Natchez with the Steamboat Stompers and with the Shotgun Jazz Band.
The Hotcats' Snug Harbor lineup has featured Saunders on tuba with Corinne Saunders on vocals, Jack Pritchett on trumpet, Tom Fischer on reeds, Haruka Kikuchi on trombone, and Hunter Burgamy on banjo.
