BrandenLewis

Branden Lewis is a trumpeter, vocalist, composer and arranger — and since 2022, the leader of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Music runs in the family. His grandfather, James Victor Lewis, is a Grammy award-winning saxophonist known for his role in one of New Orleans' most iconic R&B bands, Li'l Millet & His Creoles. Branden was raised in Los Angeles playing trumpet in church, in marching band, and in one of the city's top youth orchestras.

In 2012 he moved to New Orleans to find out what he could do with the horn. Taken under the wing of Delfeayo Marsalis, with regular gigs at Snug Harbor — Frenchmen Street's modern jazz proving ground — he was soon recording on Bobby Rush's Grammy-nominated Decisions with Dr. John, co-founding the international Trumpet Mafia collective, and touring with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra.

He joined the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in 2016 and recorded So It Is with the band the following year, cutting his own debut as a bandleader — BLQ — at the historic Esplanade Studios in 2017. A decade on, he has been the band's leader since 2022, carrying the Hall's tradition onto stages well outside it.