Jon Cleary was born in London in 1963, but New Orleans claimed him early and has never let go. He arrived in the city in the early 1980s, drawn by a deep love for the piano traditions of Professor Longhair, James Booker, and Allen Toussaint, and he set about learning those traditions from the inside — playing in the city's clubs, studying with its masters, and immersing himself in the musical life of his adopted home.
What Cleary brought to New Orleans was an extraordinary ear and an intellectual curiosity about the piano tradition's roots and ramifications. He absorbed the rhumba-blues of Professor Longhair, the jazz and gospel complexity of James Booker, and the sophisticated R&B arranging of Allen Toussaint, synthesizing these influences into a style that is deeply informed and yet entirely personal.
Over the course of his career Cleary has recorded a series of albums that document his deep connection to the New Orleans tradition while showcasing his own songwriting and arranging gifts. He has performed and recorded with some of the city's greatest musicians, and his command of the full range of New Orleans piano styles — from boogie-woogie and blues to jazz and funk — makes him one of the most complete keyboard players the city has produced in the modern era.
Cleary is also a beloved figure in the New Orleans music community, known for his generosity as a collaborator and his deep commitment to the traditions he has spent a lifetime studying. He teaches, performs, and records with the same seriousness of purpose, and his presence in the city is a reminder that New Orleans music, like all great traditions, is perpetuated by those who love it enough to dedicate their lives to it — wherever they were born.
