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 NaTION 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
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plus DJ sets by 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
CYRIL NEVILLE
Sunday, August 17
Lifetime Achievement GRAMMY Award winning Neville Brother,
Cyril Neville has been called a philosopher, a poet, and the last great Southern soul singer. In 1970, he released his debut solo single, which included backing music by brother Art Neville’s new outfit, The Meters. It just so happened at the time that The Meters (Art Neville, Leo Nocentelli, George Porter Jr, Zigaboo Modeliste) were looking to expand their lineup, and asked Cyril to join on vocals and percussion, contributing to the classic Meters albums such as 1972’s Cabbage Alley and 1975’s Fire on the Bayou. Later that year, The Rolling Stones invited The Meters to support the band's world tour.
Cyril has co-written songs with Bono of U2, Taj Mahal, Trombone Shorty, and Allen Toussaint, to name a few. He was the one that Daniel Lanois credits as the musical catalyst that led to the Nevilles’ Grammy Award-winning record, Yellow Moon. In recent years, he’s guested with New Orleans funk band Galactic, The Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars, Royal Southern Brotherhood, The Neville Brothers, and with his own outfit, Swamp Funk.
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He has appeared in a handful of TV shows between 2010-2019, and toured the world with collectives such as The Foundation of Funk and the Amnesty International Tour.
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Catch Cyril on Sunday with The Headhunters, and you never know which other jam sessions he'll pop up in over the weekend.
CHIEF ADJUAH
FRIDAY, August 15
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott), is a two-time Edison Award winning and five-time Grammy Award nominated musician, composer and producer. He is the nephew of jazz innovator and legendary sax man, Donald Harrison, Jr. His musical tutelage began under the direction of his uncle at the age of thirteen. After graduating from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) in 2001, Adjuah received a full tuition scholarship to Berklee College of Music where he earned a degree in Professional Music and Film Scoring.
Since 2002, Adjuah has released 12 critically-acclaimed and award-winning studio recordings, 3 live albums and one greatest hits collection. According to NPR, Adjuah “ushers in new era of jazz."
He has been heralded by JazzTimes Magazine as "Jazz's young style God." Adjuah is also the progenitor of “Stretch Music,” a jazz rooted, genre blind musical form that attempts to “stretch” jazz’s rhythmic, melodic and harmonic conventions to encompass multiple musical forms, languages and cultures.
Since 2006, he has worked with a number of notable artists, including Prince, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, McCoy Tyner, Marcus Miller, Eddie Palmieri, rappers Mos Def (Yasin Bey), Talib Kweli, and Vic Mensa, as well as heralded poet and musician Saul Williams.
Catch Chief Adjuah as featured guest with his uncle Big Chief Donald Harrison Jr's Congo Square Nation Afro-New Orleans Group on Friday, August 15th.
BIG CHIEF DONALD HARRISON JR
& THE CONGO SQUARE NATION
FRIDAY, August 15
The specific traditions, rituals and cultural expressions of
The Congo Square Nation are unique to New Orleans. Big Chief Donald Harrison Jr. and his group retain many aspects of Congo Square's musical and cultural roots and merge them into ground-breaking musical experiences. Congo Square is the only place in the United States where people of African descent openly continued their homeland culture (music, dance, spirituality, language, art, trade) from the 1700s to present day.
Harrison's most popular record dealing with this template, 1992’s "Indian Blues," created a new music category by merging R&B, soul, funk, and jazz, which can now be streamed on popular platforms such as Spotify. The story of how Harrison came to create this concept was also chronicled in two characters on David Simon's HBO drama, Treme. In the 1990s, Harrison began adding hip-hop elements to the sound of his culture with his recording, “The New Sounds of Mardi Gras,” and in 2015 composed and recorded the three-movement “Congo Square Suite” with his tribal members, his jazz quartet and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.
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The group has performed at prestigious venues such as The Hollywood Bowl, New York City’s Central Park, and Chicago’s Millennium Park. But this weekend, they bring their one-of-a-kind live performance for the first time to Long Island’s North Fork here.
Syndee Winters
THURSDAY, AUGUST 14
In addition to her most recent music release with Grammy Award-winning bassist Ben Williams as Butterfly Black, Broadway, concert and recording artist Syndee Winters now adds 2024 first runner-up in the esteemed Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Jazz Competition to her roster of noteworthy accolades. But perhaps, most may know her as Nala from her Broadway debut in Disney’s The Lion King, or since then in her other Broadway roles in Hamilton, Motown the Musical, and Pippin. Or perhaps you saw her on NBC Live’s
Jesus Christ Superstar, or Law & Order SVU.
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As a singer, Syndee has performed at countless jazz clubs nationwide, and with renowned orchestras in Taiwan, Dubai, the Boston Pops, the L.A. Phil, and the Kennedy Center. Her forthcoming recording, Syndee Winters Sings Lena Horne
pays homage to the American icon.
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Ms. Winters is also a graduate of Long Island's Five Towns College, where she is a recipient of their Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Syndee performs as special guest with Donald Harrison’s Nouveau Swing Quartet today, a serendipitous collaboration, as Harrison played sax with Ms. Lena Horne herself during her final era of performance in the early 1990s. Don’t miss this set!
ANTWIGADEE!
FRIDAY, August 15
Born and raised in New Orleans as Antoine Barriere,
ANTWIGADEE! is an arranger and musician that uses a DJ controller as his instrument. He is no ordinary DJ, but rather a “GROOOVE!MASTER” that bonds with his crowds by collaborating in dance, by entrancing them with his transitions, and immersing them in music from various decades and genres.
Known for electrifying sets that capture the pure sound of energy and diversity, he was named 2024’s New Orleans “Young Emerging Artist to Watch,” hot on the heels of receiving the city’s
Gambit Weekly “Best DJ” award in 2023. In addition to spinning as one of the official DJs for the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans, most recently he had the opportunity to open for the world-renowned
DJ Questlove of The Roots in New Orleans.
ANTWIGADEE! spins his debut DJ set at the Quantum Leap Music Festival on Friday, August 15th. Get ready to get down.
MORE SOON!
NEXT ANNOUNCEMENT: JULY 15
Stay tuned here for our next waves of 2025 artist line-up announcements this spring & summer!
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