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Reggie Houston (born July 2, 1947, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States) is an American musician who plays soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, alto saxophone and baritone saxophone. He is best known for his association with the New Orleans pianist Fats Domino.
A seventh generation New Orleanian, Houston was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to Ralph Houston, a pianist and acoustic bassist, and Margarete Houston, who was both an educator and social activist. At the age of 10, Reggie Houston began studying the saxophone.
Houston's first professional gig came at the age of 12 when he joined the Batiste family band, The Gladiators, widely considered to be one of the pioneering bands of funk.
Houston continued to perform with The Gladiators throughout high school and while home on holiday from his undergraduate studies at Southern University and Xavier University of Louisiana. Although performing jazz, blues and funk throughout New Orleans during this time, it was forbidden to practice these musical styles in any African American university in the United States.
After returning from fighting in the Vietnam War, Houston learned that his former Southern University music professor, Alvin Batiste had just begun a jazz program at Southern University. Houston made a phone call to Southern University and one day later was studying with Alvin Batiste in the country's first university jazz program . (Years later Houston returned to Southern to reunite with the former students of that class, and to be inducted into The Music Hall of Fame at Southern University where Alvin Batiste worked until his death in 2007.)
While Houston was preparing for graduation from Southern, Batiste was being consulted about the organization of the first annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Alvin convinced Quint Davis (who would become the main creative force behind the festival) to hire some of the graduate students from Southern's jazz program. Upon his graduation in 1973, Houston returned to New Orleans and was immediately put to work in the jazz tent at The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Over the next ten years Houston became an integral part of the festival, and as a paid employee of the festival, he worked as stage manager, booking agent, and emcee.
While working for the festival, Houston continued to gig with artists like New Orleans' soul queen Irma Thomas.
In 1982, Houston joined The Survivors, whose other original core members included keyboardist Sam Henry, drummer Zigaboo Modeliste, The Neville Brothers, Charmaine Neville, and Ramsy McLean. Other players with The Survivors included guitar virtuoso Steve Masakowski, drummer Ricky Sebastian, Bobby McFerrin, and a teenaged Harry Connick Jr.
In 1983, Houston joined The Fats Domino Band, and aside from a three-year hiatus that began in 1988, was a permanent member of Fats' band for the next 22 years.
During that hiatus, Dr. John, with whom Houston occasionally gigged in New Orleans, offered Houston the baritone saxophone role in his band. But by that time Houston, who had been playing sax with Charmaine Neville, had accepted her offer to lead her band, which he did until moving to Portland, Oregon in 2004. Other collaborators in the Charmaine Neville Band included pianist, Amasa Miller and drummer, Raymond Weber.
Today Houston lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is an arts educator and continues to gig regularly with The Charmaine Neville Band and his own bands, The Box of Chocolates, The Earth Island Band, The Crescent City Connection, and The Reggie Houston Arkestra.
James Carroll Booker III was an American New Orleans rhythm and blues keyboardist and singer. Flamboyant in personality and style, and possessing extraordinary technical skill on the piano, he was dubbed "the Black Liberace."
Galactic is an American funk band from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Alvin Batiste Sr. was an American avant-garde jazz clarinetist, who was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. He taught at his own jazz institute at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Charmaine Neville is a New Orleans-based jazz singer.
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is an American brass band based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The ensemble was established in 1977, by Benny Jones and members of the Tornado Brass Band. The Dirty Dozen incorporated funk and bebop into the traditional New Orleans jazz style, and has since been a major influence on local music. They won the Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance in 2023.
Edward "Kidd" Jordan was an American jazz saxophonist and music educator from New Orleans, Louisiana. He taught at Southern University at New Orleans from 1974 to 2006.
Alvin Owen "Red" Tyler was an American R&B and neo-bop jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger, regarded as "one of the most important figures in New Orleans R&B".
Troy Andrews, also known by the stage name Trombone Shorty, is a musician, most notably a trombone player, from New Orleans, Louisiana. His music fuses rock, pop, jazz, funk, and hip hop.
Robert "Bob" French Sr. was an American jazz drummer and radio show host at WWOZ, from New Orleans, Louisiana. French led The Tuxedo Jazz Band from 1977 until his death in 2012..
George Porter Jr. is an American musician, best known as the bassist and singer of the Meters. Along with Art Neville, Porter formed the group in the mid 1960s and came to be recognized as one of the progenitors of funk. The Meters disbanded in 1977, but reformed in 1989. The original group played the occasional reunion, with the Funky Meters, of which Porter and Neville are members, keeping the spirit alive, until Neville's retirement in 2018 and death the following year.
Dumpstaphunk is a funk and jam band from New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.
Joseph "Smokey" Johnson Jr. was an American drummer. He was one of the musicians, session players, and songwriters who served as the backbone for New Orleans' output of jazz, funk, blues, soul, and R&B music.
David Russell Batiste Jr. was an American drummer based in New Orleans. Batiste played drums for the bands the funky Meters, Papa Grows Funk, and Vida Blue.
Herbert Hardesty was an American musician who played tenor saxophone and trumpet. He is best known for his association with the New Orleans pianist Fats Domino and the producer Dave Bartholomew, beginning in 1948. He released six 45-rpm records as Herb Hardesty between 1959 and 1962. His first CD of these recordings, together with others made but not issued in 1958, were released worldwide in July 2012 by Ace Records as The Domino Effect.
Charles Neville was an American R&B and jazz musician best known as part of The Neville Brothers. Known onstage as "Charlie the horn man", his saxophone playing helped earn the group a Grammy Award for best pop instrumental performance.
Ed Frank was an American jazz and rhythm and blues pianist who performed and recorded for more than forty years.
Rosalie Marie Ashton-Washington, known as Lady Tambourine, is an American gospel musician from Louisiana, known for her skill at the tambourine.
The Batiste family of New Orleans includes twenty-five or more musicians, including
[Jon] Batiste has been in the zone since before he was born. He comes from a long line of New Orleans musicians, including his father, Michael, a bassist who performed with Jackie Wilson and Isaac Hayes on the "Chitlin’ Circuit" in the ’60s and ’70s. His dad also co-founded the Batiste Brothers Band: seven brothers who played R&B, soul, funk and New Orleans music. He says his father was his first mentor, as was Alvin Batiste, the late clarinetist, “who taught everyone from New Orleans music over the last 40 years.” Add to that lineage "Uncle" Lionel Batiste from the Treme Brass Band, Milton Batiste from the Olympia Brass Band and his cousin Russell Batiste Jr., who played with the Funky Meters.
Make It Funky! is a 2005 American documentary film directed, written and co-produced by Michael Murphy. Subtitled in the original version as "It all began in New Orleans", the film presents a history of New Orleans music and its influence on rhythm and blues, rock and roll, funk and jazz. The film was scheduled for theatrical release in September 2005, but was pulled by distributor Sony Pictures Releasing so that they did not appear to take commercial advantage of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.
Clarence Joseph Ford, Sr. was an American saxophonist and clarinetist, who played and recorded with many of New Orleans' leading R&B and jazz artists in a career spanning more than 40 years.
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