Who Is Louis Cato, the New ‘Late Show’ Bandleader?

Late-night television might sound a little different these days: Louis Cato is the new bandleader for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, taking over for Jon Batiste on a permanent basis after filling in for the Grammy winner this summer.

Host Stephen Colbert announced the changeup on the CBS show on Thursday, August 11, hailing the “musical genius” of Cato, who’s been a member of the house band since Colbert took over The Late Show in 2015.

“Louis has done a great job this summer, and he is very humble, so he won’t say this,” Colbert said. “But I will. He’s a musical genius. He can play basically every instrument over there. Give him an afternoon; he’ll learn how to play Mozart on a shoehorn.”

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As bandleader of the group now called The Late Show Band, Cato will work with continuing band members Joe Saylor, Louis Fouché, Jon Lampley, Endea Owens and Nêgah Santos.

“It has been one of the great honors of my life to work on this show, alongside some of the most talented musicians and creatives I know,” Cato said in a statement, per Variety. “Watching and learning from both Jon and Stephen for these past seven years, I’m genuinely excited to continue the tradition of excellence they’ve established.”

According to his bio, Cato is a Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter who has worked with Beyoncé, John Legend, and Mariah Carey, and toured with Bobby McFerrin and John Scofield, among others. Born in Portugal and raised in a musical household in the Carolinas, Cato was drumming by age 2 and playing wind instruments by age 12, the bio adds. He later added guitar and bass to his repertoire as he worked his way around underground jazz and soul venues in Boston.

Cato played with jazz multi-instrumentalist Marcus Miller at a jam session at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2007 and toured with him for several years. In fact, Cato was touring with Miller in Switzerland in 2012 when their tour bus crashed. Cato broke his back in two places in the wreck. “I’m still here and am very grateful for that,” he told Berklee Today in 2016. “I took away from that that I am still supposed to be here.”

A chance run-in with Batiste years ago near Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where Cato studied for two semesters, led to Batiste calling Cato to produce a session for him in 2015 — and later bringing him aboard at The Late Show. “[Jon] said he was recording theme music for a TV show,” Cato told Berklee Today, recalling that 2015 session. “I almost didn’t do it because I had to get back to Boston the next day to have some wisdom teeth pulled, but I followed my gut and stayed.”

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Cato released his first solo record, Starting Now, which he mixed and produced himself, in 2016. In addition to his new role as Late Show bandleader, the Brooklyn resident is working on a new album, Reflections, due for release later this year.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Weeknights, 11:35/10:35c, CBS