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Creole Christmas Lights Up Nashville as Preservation Hall Jazz Band Takes the Schermerhorn Stage
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band served up their flavorful Creole Christmas to Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, December 15, 2025. Their concert at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center featured their timeless New Orleans classics along with spicey takes on well-known holiday songs.
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band brought their Creole Christmas to the Schermerhorn Stage. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band is a New Orleans jazz assemble founded in that city in the early 1960s. The place and band have a rich history and through various incarnations they have shared the sounds of the French Quarter with the world. Over the years, this collective has collaborated with artists from other genres while continuing to tour and cook-up new NOLA music for the masses. Their latest For Fat Man is a celebration of where the brass band tradition at Preservation Hall was at and where it's going. It is described as "a joyous link in the chain that is the story of New Orleans and its music. It's for the ancestors, for the culture, for the people in the street, for those that mourn and those that celebrate and everybody somewhere in between."
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band was well-branded on the drums and tuba. The assemble included a tuba player received a warm southern welcome as they took the stage. They opened with an upbeat instrumental that showcased solos from each artist. "White Christmas" had a flavorful NOLA flair as did "Christmas Tree" which incorporated audience participation. Next, the saucy "I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of My Jelly Roll' was a nuanced nod to the past. Throughout the night, the history of the genre was touched upon as the band presented a number of jazz classics during the concert. The collective reminded us that Christmas is a time of celebration and remembrance, so they dedicated the hymn "Free As A Bird To The Mountain" to those no longer with us. Another historic tune was "Rich Woman" which was first recorded by Li'l Millet and his Creoles, for Specialty Records back in the 1950's. That song won a Grammy many years later when it was covered by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (2007) and in Nashville Preservation presented their own spicy spin on that standard.
Trumpeter Branden Lewis was celebrating a birthday in Music City, too. The second set featured the bluesy "Please Come Home For Christmas" that flowed into a potent piano solo. They read the story about the night before Christmas adding a few comments of their own while punctuating the prose with jazzy instrumentation. "We Wish You All A Merry Christmas" was the festive closer followed by "When The Saints Go Marching In" a Christian anthem enhanced by the band's creative touches to close a Creole Christmas on a spirited note. In Nashville, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band carried a living lineage that stretches directly back to its founders, Allan and Sandra Jaffe, who established Preservation Hall in the early 1960s as a sanctuary for New Orleans' top players. Today, that legacy continues through their son, Ben Jaffe, who serves as the band's Creative Director and tuba/bass player, embodying the family tradition of nurturing and perpetuating New Orleans jazz for new generations. The band's lineup has long included musicians whose own roots trace back to the early giants who played the Hall making it a multigenerational ensemble shaped by oral histories, mentorship, and the passing down of style, phrasing and spirit from elder legends, In this way, Preservation Hall isn't just a venue or a band - it's a family tree of New Orleans jazz, with branches that keep growing while staying deeply connected to the roots.
A Creole Christmas put a different spin on the holidays in Mid-Tenn. In addition to celebration their musical gumbo known as Creole Christmas, Trumpeter Branden Lewis was also celebrating a birthday and he was presented with a candle lit keto cake prior to intermission allowing him and the rest of the crew some time to take in a mid-show snack. Now one of the leading voices of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Branden carries a powerful musical lineage of his own. His grandfather, James Victor Lewis, was a New Orleans-based, Grammy‑winning saxophonist making his presence in the group a modern continuation of a long, storied and glorious musical that continues to be expertly preserved for future generations on the hand of the wonderful Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The Schermerhorn continues to showcase an eclectic range of artists such as The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Centrally located in downtown Nashville, this beautiful concert hall that opened in 2006, hosts classical, jazz, pop, operas, rock and world musicians. Please check their website for a complete list of upcoming events.
The Schermerhorn Symphony Center continues to be one of our favorite places to see a show in Nashville. Related Links: For more information on the PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND and the other organizations mentioned please visit the following links - Preservation Hall Jazz Band | Nashville Symphony
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