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Legends Lead the Way
While rooted in history the group embraces new sounds by collaborating with contemporary artists, including the Black Keys, Arcade Fire, and Jim James, while also exploring influences from Afro-Cuban music and Afrobeat.
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Core member Charlie Gabriel
The band's primary mission is to keep the art of traditional New Orleans jazz alive. The current Preservation Hall Jazz Band is led by creative director Ben Jaffe and features a rotating roster of musicians, including core members like Charlie Gabriel, Clint Maedgen, and Branden Lewis, alongside various guest vocalists and instrumentalists
Current Players
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Charlie Gabriel
Clarinet, saxophone, flute, Musical Director
Gabriel is a fourth-generation jazz musician from New Orleans. Raised in a classically trained musical family that emigrated from Santo Domingo in the 1850s, Gabriel began playing clarinet professionally with the Eureka Brass Band when he was eleven years old. During World War II, his father, clarinetist and drummer Martin Manuel “Manny” Gabriel often sent his son as a substitute on gigs.
In a career spanning countless genres, Gabriel has performed with Tony Bennett, Frankie Avalon, Brenda Lee, Mary Wells, Eddie Willis, Joe Hunter, and many other early Motown artists.
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Wendell Brunious
Trumpet,
Master PractitionerTrumpeter and vocalist Wendell Brunious boasts a towering musical family tree primarily flowered with trumpets. He is the son of trumpet master John “Picket” (or “Picky”) Brunious Sr. and Nazimova “Chinee” Santiago, the niece of guitarist/banjoist Willie Santiago.
The talented and dedicated Wendell Brunious credits some of his early development to having worked with the Olympia Brass Band under the direction of his cousin, bandleader/saxophonist Harold Dejan.
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Ben Jaffe
Bass
Creative DirectorAs son of co-founders Allan and Sandra Jaffe, Ben has lived his whole life with the rhythm of the French Quarter pulsing through his veins. Raised in the company of New Orleans’ greatest musicians, Ben returned from his collegiate education at Oberlin College in Ohio to play with the group and assume his father’s duties as Director of Preservation Hall. Today he serves as Creative Director for both PHJB and the Hall itself, where he has spearheaded such programs as the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund.
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Clint Maedgen
Saxophone
Clint Maedgen is a New Orleans-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and band leader with three decades of musical experience that spans rock ‘n’ roll, electronica and traditional jazz. Starting with the saxophone at the age of nine, Mr. Maedgen picked up a wide range of other instruments along the way, including flute, ther in, clarinet, bottle, guitar, and piano. Mr. Maedgen has been a full-time member of The Preservation Hall Jazz Band for seven years as a vocalist and saxophonist, touring the world 150 dates a year.
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Mark Braud
Born in 1973 into the musical Brunious and Santiago families, Mark Braud always wanted to be an entertainer. At age twelve, his uncle Wendell Brunious gave Braud a cornet, and soon after that he began playing jazz with Nicholas Payton. Braud started his career with the Olympia Kids, an offshoot of the Olympia Brass Band for younger musicians, and soon began gigging, recording, and touring with New Orleans legends, including the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, Eddie Bo, Henry Butler, Harry Connick Jr., and Dr. Michael White.
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Joe Lastie
Drums
Receiving his first drum set at age eight, Joe Lastie was destined to carry on the traditions of his highly musical family, which included his mother, both grandfathers, his aunt Betty, and his uncles Melvin, David, and Walter “Popee.” Born and raised in the Lower Ninth Ward, Joe’s grandfather was a minister and is credited with popularizing the drum set in church music.
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Branden Lewis
Trumpet
Branden Lewis was raised playing trumpet: in church, in his school marching bands, and one of the top youth orchestras in Los Angeles. “I have music in my heart and soul. I never planned on playing music for a living – I just always loved playing the trumpet.”
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Gregg Stafford
Trumpet
PHJB Master PractitionerDecades before he began playing regularly at Preservation Hall, Stafford came by to hear the music. But he absorbed much more from the musicians he thought of as fathers; Louis Cottrell, Harold Dejan, Albert Walters, Jack Willis, Teddy Riley, and many more. These men taught him about history, pride, and values. Stafford says music holds the people and the community together; every time he plays, he holds audiences in rapture.
Tickets
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Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Buy Preservation Hall Jazz Band Tickets (Plaza Theatre-ticketmaster)Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Show - 8:00 pm
Saturday, February 21, 2026
Plaza Theatre -
VIP ALL ACCESS Includes all 6 shows and Sunset Jazz Party
$1,000 VIP ALL ACCESS TicketsINCLUDES:
Reserved VIP section - front orchestra seating for all six shows + swag- Thu Feb 19
VIP Jazz party at the historic Franz Alexander House- Fri Feb 20
Ben Sidran
Stanley Clarke and N*4Ever
- Sat Feb 21
Eliane Elias
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
- Sun Feb 22
Lisa Fischer and Grand Baton
Esperanza Spalding
