2025 ARTIST LINE-UP
Quantum Leap Music Festival
DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND THE HEADHUNTERS
LEO NOCENTELLI OF THE METERS ZACCAI CURTIS
BIG CHIEF DONALD HARRISON JR & THE CONGO SQUARE AFRO-
NEW ORLEANS GROUP PRESERVATION HALL LEGACY BAND
ERICA FALLS DONALD HARRISON'S NOUVEAU SWING EXPERIENCE
CJ CHENIER & THE RED HOT LOUISIANA BAND
VASTI JACKSON KYLE ROUSSEL NEW ORLEANS KLEZMER ALL-STARS
DONALD HARRISON'S SOUL MUSIC SUMMIT wsg TBA
QUANTUM LEAP Music Festival ALL-STAR JAM BAND
FEATURING DONALD HARRISON, WIL BLADES, WILL BERNARD,
RAYMOND WEBER, NORI NARAOKA, AND MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED!
the legendary cyril neville
plus DJ ANTWIGADEE!
DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND
Saturday, August 16
Celebrating over 45 years since their founding in 1977, the GRAMMY Award-winning New Orleans-based Dirty Dozen Brass Band has taken the traditional foundation of brass band music and incorporated it into a blend of genres, including bebop jazz, funk and R&B/soul. This unique sound, described by the band as a “musical gumbo”, has allowed the Dirty Dozen to tour across five continents and more than thirty countries, record twelve studio albums and collaborate with a range of artists from Modest Mouse to Widespread Panic to Norah Jones.
45+ years later, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band is a world-famous music machine whose name is synonymous with genre-bending romps and high-octane performances.
LEO NOCENTELLI
Saturday, August 16
Guitarist Leo Nocentelli reigns as one of the founding fathers of funk. He is the recipient of a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee for his work as co-founder and lead guitarist for The Meters, the legendary New Orleans band whose 1970s hits like "Cissy Strut" and "Fire On The Bayou" built a foundation for a large swath of American pop music, and are among the most sampled classic songs in music history today.
Beyond his award-winning work with The Meters, Leo has recorded and performed professionally since his teens with top local and international artists such as Allen Toussaint, Etta James, Dr. John, Jimmy Buffett, Patti Labelle, Otis Redding, Earl King, and Motown greats like The Supremes, Temptations, and Spinners.
As a composer, Nocentelli has contributed to numerous records and soundtracks, including "White Men Can't Jump," "Blaze," and "Heartbreakers," as well as appeared on Saturday Night Live.
Tonight, he presents his own touring band.
THE HEADHUNTERS
SUNDAY, August 17
Having formed around Herbie Hancock's classic recordings, "Head Hunters" in 1973, "Thrust" in 1974, and "Man-Child" in 1975, the legendary jazz-funk ensemble was reborn in 2022, celebrating the band's 50th Anniversary with its first release in 10 years and a refreshed quintet, featuring veterans Mike Clark and Bill Summers leading the new Headhunters with Donald Harrison, plus bassist Chris Severin and young gun Kyle Roussel on keys.
The prolific new outfit has already released three records since 2022, clocking an album a year, and steady touring internationally again.
ZACCAI CURTIS
Thursday, August 14
Zaccai Curtis is an acclaimed recording artist and producer, recently honored with the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. He leads his own groups, the Zaccai Curtis Quintet and Sonido Solar, and after five successful releases, is set to drop his new album Sonoluminescence this year.
A native of Connecticut, Zaccai moved to NYC in 2005, where he's performed with renowned artists including Christian Chief Adjuah Scott, Donald Harrison, Santana, Cindy Blackman, Eddie Palmieri, and more.
In addition to his performance career, Zaccai is a respected educator, teaching at the University of Hartford's Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Division.
Preservation Hall
Legacy Band
Sunday, August 17
Gregg Stafford is a beloved New Orleans trumpeter, vocalist, bandleader, mentor, educator and culture bearer. Mr. Stafford has been traveling and performing New Orleans music for over 40 years. He carries the torch that was passed on to him by his early mentor, Danny Barker.
Mr. Stafford is one of the honorary bandleaders of the Preservation Hall Legacy Band, an ensemble of lifelong Preservation Hall musicians inducted into the Preservation Hall Foundation’s Legacy Program for reflecting the values and practices from Preservation Hall’s more than 60 year history, which is to say, for their outstanding contributions to the New Orleans community and enduring jazz heritage traditions that one has the pleasure of experiencing through Legacy Band performances.
New Orleans Klezmer
All-Stars
Thursday, August 14
The New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars are entering their 27th year as an active performing ensemble. In these times when folk music has meant rigidly sticking to a cliched format or collecting hackneyed stylistic features, the Klezmer All-Stars have attempted to challenge and stretch boundaries... but without sacrificing the most exciting features of social music; driving rhythms, passion, and clear melodies that are sublime but remain memorable.
Using the inspiration of the city where they began, the band has formed a unique approach to traditional melodies and, even more unusual, a way of writing in the style that leads to a sort of Yiddish Impressionism – keeping audiences dancing but cutting to the depths of their cultural imaginations,
even where they didn't realize they had one.
CJ CHENIER & THE RED HOT LOUISIANA BAND
FRIDAY, August 15
Clayton Joseph Chenier /aka/ Clifton Junior (C.J.) is Creole music royalty. His father, the legendary Clifton Chenier, invented the style of music we know today as Zydeco and was the first Creole musician to be recognized with a Grammy Award.
Raised in this indigenous American culture with its own distinctive language, cuisine and music, C.J. delivers soulful vocals along with jaw-dropping masterful accordion-driven Rock, Zydeco and Blues.
He joined his father's band at age 21 and toured with them until being passed the torch as the new leader of the Red Hot Louisiana Band upon his father's death in 1987.
Since then, C.J. has released a slew of his own records with the band, was hand-picked by Paul Simon (alongside members of The Beatles) for his Grammy-nominated Rhythm of The Saints project in 1990, and continues to wow crowds around the world with sultry southern good time.
Vasti Jackson
Saturday, August 16
Mississippi born and bred Grammy Award winner Vasti Jackson is a world renowned guitarist, vocalist, composer, producer and educator with more than 50 years of experience as a professional musician.
As a consummate performer, songwriter and arranger, he moves effortlessly from blues to soul to jazz to gospel to world music and beyond. Vasti has performed with all time greats such as BB King, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Bobby Rush, Dr. John, Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Steve Vai, The Doobie Brothers, and more.
He has composed music for Martin Scorsese and more than a dozen other film and television productions, and as an actor himself can be seen in"Simply The Best: The Tina Turner Story" playing the role of Ike Turner. Don't miss this incredible opportunity to experience this Living Blues Legend Award recipient for this intimate set.
Kyle Roussel
Sunday, August 17
Multi-hyphenate talent Kyle Roussel is the spirit of New Orleans itself. The musician, producer, composer, instrumentalist, and performer is a cross-genre tour de force, proficient in piano, organ, keyboard, and drums – whether it’s in jazz, soul, gospel, funk, or any other genre under the sun. Roussel is a modern voice for New Orleans music, and is aiming to put the unique musical texture of the city he loves on the map in a big way for his generation. His work has already taken him from New Orleans to over 40 countries across the globe, gracing stages from Coachella to Carnegie Hall and Montreux Jazz Festival to Madison Square Garden.
Roussel performs regularly with stalwarts such as the rebirth of The Headhunters, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Irma Thomas, Jon Batiste, Tyler Perry, Christian aTunde Adjuah Scott, Terence Blanchard, Tank and the Bangas, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Donald Harrison Jr, Herlin Riley, Delfeayo Marsalis, Victor Goines, Shannon Powell, and many more.
Hot on the heels of his independent debut solo album in 2023, entitled “NOLA à la Mode,” Kyle has put his stamp on his city's global musical influence this year with the release his second album, "Church of New Orleans," featuring an all-star cast of collaborators, including Quantum Leap Music Festival artistic director Donald Harrison, along with several other artists performing at the 2025 festival. To experience one of Kyle's solo sets up close and personal is to witness divine talent and incredible discipline at once.
ERICA FALLS
FRIDAY, August 15
GRAMMY Award-winning vocalist Erica Falls has left an indelible mark on the music scene, performing with icons such as Allen Toussaint, Joe Sample, Dr. John, Sting, No Doubt, Jennifer Hudson, John Fogerty, Preservation Hall Jazz Band and The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. Recently, her work on the "Take Me To The River" documentary film score earned her a 2023 GRAMMY Award as a songwriter and supporting vocalist. In cinema, Falls was chosen by Lee Daniels to feature as the lead singer in his 2013 blockbuster "The Butler."
Falls has been a consistent nominee and winner of Offbeat Magazine's Best of the Beat Awards and Gambit Weekly's Big Easy Awards since 2016, earning over 6 awards as a solo artist, and more as the lead singer of renowned New Orleans funk band, Galactic, with whom she toured from 2014-2019.
Following the release of her debut solo album in 2019, Erica is now currently touring her latest 2024 record, "Emotions," a testament to her gift as an incredible storyteller.
MORE SOON!
NEXT ANNOUNCEMENT: JUNE 03
Stay tuned here for our next waves of 2025 artist line-up announcements this spring!
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