My profile of Nicholas Payton appears in the May 2013 Jazz Fest Bible issue of Offbeat, the New Orleans Music Magazine (my byline is in the magazine and will be posted on the site at some point):

photo by Golden Richard III

Nicholas Payton, now 39, has been a New Orleans trumpet star almost from the moment he first picked up the horn. The son of revered bassist, composer, and teacher Walter Payton, he was sitting in with local bands by the age of nine and touring at 12. At 20, he released From This Moment (Verve), the first of a string of major-label albums as a leader. There were plenty of side-gigs in between, including an early-’90s stint as a member of Elvin Jones’s band. Through it all, Payton has combined his reverence for the jazz tradition with a desire to forge ahead…[read more]