Kermit Ruffins: The Happiest Trumpet in New Orleans

The Happiest Trumpet in New Orleans

Kermit Ruffins is what happens when a city's entire philosophy of life gets concentrated into a single human being. He plays trumpet, he sings, he cooks barbecue on a trailer-mounted grill that he hauls to his gigs, and he approaches every performance with the infectious joy of a man who genuinely cannot believe he gets to do this for a living. In a city full of musicians who take their craft seriously, Kermit Ruffins takes the fun seriously, and the result is one of the most beloved live acts in New Orleans.

He started playing trumpet in eighth grade at Lawless Junior High School in the Ninth Ward, and by the time he was a student at Clark High School in the Tremé, he had co-founded the Rebirth Brass Band in 1983. Rebirth would go on to become one of the most important brass bands in New Orleans history, helping to revitalize the brass band tradition by infusing it with funk, hip-hop, and the energy of a new generation. Ruffins was there at the beginning, blowing his horn and grinning the grin that would become his trademark.

Rebirth and Beyond

Ruffins eventually left Rebirth to pursue a solo career that has been less a conventional music career than a decades-long celebration of everything that makes New Orleans worth living in. His music draws heavily on Louis Armstrong — not just the trumpet style but the entire philosophy of entertainment as joyful communion between performer and audience. He sings with a gravelly warmth that echoes Satchmo, and he accompanies his songs with the same kind of between-song banter and storytelling that made Armstrong beloved.

But where Armstrong conquered the world, Ruffins has been content to conquer New Orleans, and that is not a small ambition. He plays regularly at local venues, often for smaller crowds than his talent would command elsewhere, because he would rather play for his people in his city than tour the world and miss Tuesday night at Vaughan's. He has turned down opportunities that would have made him famous nationally because they would have required him to leave New Orleans, and leaving New Orleans is something Kermit Ruffins does not do.

The Barbecue and the Trumpet

The barbecue is not a gimmick. Ruffins is a genuinely accomplished cook, and his habit of grilling before, during, and after his shows has become as much a part of his identity as his trumpet. Show up early to a Kermit Ruffins gig and you might find him outside the venue, standing over a smoking grill, flipping ribs and talking to anyone who wanders by. The food is free. The music is about to start. And you are about to have one of the best nights of your life, because Kermit Ruffins has made it his mission to ensure that everyone who comes to hear him play leaves happier than they arrived.

He is New Orleans distilled — the music, the food, the generosity, the refusal to be anywhere else. In a city that has produced musicians who changed the world, Kermit Ruffins chose to stay home and change the mood, one gig at a time.