Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Irma Thomas, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Pete Fountain, Allen Toussaint or Al Hirt are some of the artists that Joe Lastie has played with.
Lastie is currently one of the most important active drummers on the New Orleans music scene.
Born in this city into a family of musicians (as a relevant fact in the history of jazz, his grandfather, Frank Lastie, was the first to play drums in gospel churches). Lastie started playing drums at the age of 8. Later his family moved to New York, there he studied with Clyde Harris and began to develop his style while continually listening to traditional New Orleans Jazz records that he found at the public library. Captivated by this music, hereturned to his hometown where he continued studying with Willie Metcalf and at the same time began to play professionally with trumpeter Gregg Stafford among others until he replaced the legendary Cie Frazier in The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, a band of which he is the drummer for more than30 years and with which he has recorded several albums and toured worldwide.
His personal style, faithful to tradition and technically impeccable, has been praised by prestigious artists. He also participated in the Broadway musical set in New Orleans in the 1920s, “One Mo’ Time” alongside Topsy Chapman.
In 2019 he released an album with his own band titled “Jazz Corner Of The World” in which, like his familydid for decades, he preserves the rich musical tradition of New Orleans and which includes a song of hisown authorship and in 2008 the album titled, “Joe Lastie And The Lastie Family Gospel”.
