Stephen Colbert Announces Louis Cato as New Bandleader on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”

On tonight’s THE LATE SHOW, host Stephen Colbert announced that Academy and Grammy Award-winning artist Jon Batiste is leaving after seven seasons to pursue personal and professional interests. Said Colbert, “We’ve been so lucky to have a front row seat to Jon’s incredible talent for the past seven years. And will we miss him here? ‘Yeaaa!’ But we’re happy for you, Jon, and I can’t wait to have you back on as guest with your next hit record.”

Congratulations to our new band leader @realLouisCato and The Late Show Band!! pic.twitter.com/seLY92jeee

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) August 12, 2022

In turn, Louis Cato, who has served as interim bandleader this summer, will take over on a permanent basis with “THE LATE SHOW Band” when the show returns for its eighth season. Colbert stated tonight, “Louis has done a great job this summer, and he is very humble, so he won’t say this. 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.”

“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,” said Cato. “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.”

Cato, who has been with THE LATE SHOW since its launch, will be joined by Joe Saylor, who has performed alongside Louis since the show’s inception, and longtime house band members Louis Fouché, Jon Lampley, Endea Owens, and Nêgah Santos.

The eighth season of THE LATE SHOW with STEPHEN COLBERT will premiere Tuesday, September 6.

Louis Cato is a Grammy-nominated and internationally acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter. He has worked with an array of artists including Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, John Legend, Talib Kweli, Snarky Puppy, David Sanborn, George Duke, Bobby McFerrin, Marcus Miller, John Scofield, and A Tribe Called Quest. His love of music started at age 2 when the purchase of his first drum set evolved into an appreciation of the southern gospel from his native North Carolina and continued into his education at the Berklee College of Music. Cato has an undeniable ability to craft sonic landscapes into timeless masterpieces. After two decades of lending his talents to other projects, Cato released his first solo record Starting Now (2016), which he also mixed and produced entirely by himself. He is currently in post-production on his newest album Reflections, due out later this year. He is repped by manager and creative producer Sam Goldberg and Jake Levy at Levy Law PLLC.

The Peabody Award-winning series THE LATE SHOW has dominated as the most-watched program in late night for the last five consecutive years and was recently honored with five Emmy Award nominations including Outstanding Variety Talk Series and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series.

THE LATE SHOW is a production of The Late Show Inc. and CBS Studios. The series airs weeknights (11:35 PM-12:37 AM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network and is available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+. Fans can also listen to episodes of Webby Award-winning THE LATE SHOW POD SHOW with STEPHEN COLBERT wherever you get your podcasts. THE LATE SHOW is executive produced by Stephen Colbert, Tom Purcell, and Jon Stewart.