Franklin man will join band mates at Jazz Fest

Jazz Fest in New Orleans annually features some of the biggest musical acts from around the world, and 2023 is no exception.

While the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival will be headlined by such diverse artists as Ed Sheeran, Lizzo, Ludacris, Dead & Company, the Lumineers, Mumford & Sons, Santana, and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, a band with local ties will perform at the second-largest stage of the event on May 5.

Undivided Band, a Lafayette act that includes lead guitarist Scott Burdett of Franklin, will play on the second Friday of the two-week music festival.

“It’s real big for us,” Burdett said. “We’re all looking forward to it.”

Burdett, 31, is a 2009 Franklin Senior High graduate and a Louisiana Tech graduate who teaches and coaches at Centerville High School. The band plays a variety of musical genres, but most of its original music is a country/hip-hop/rock fusion.

“We play music,” he said. “The term we’ve kind of coined is Hick Hop, but it’s a mixture of rock, rap and country. When we do our cover songs, we cover everything from Brooks & Dunn to Dr. Dre. We’ve got a little something for everyone.”

John Breaux, who performs under the stage name Jay Da Wizard, is a vocalist and DJ for the band. Jerad Bridges is a vocalist and plays acoustic guitar. Kevin Dorr is the basist. Austin Bodenheimer plays rhythm guitar, and Ian Willis plays drums for the band.

Jay and Burdett were in a band together in around 2014, and when Jay Da Wizard and Bridges got together to do a one-off country/hip hop mix tape, they called Burdett to play guitar on one of the tracks.

“About two weeks later, I got a call from Jay saying that they were putting a whole band together, and he asked me to be the guitarist,” Burdett said.

Burdett is the only local resident in the band. Jay Da Wizard is from Lafayette, and Willis grew up in Crowley, though he has some family from St. Mary Parish. Bodenheimer, who is Dorr’s nephew, is from
Seattle and lives in Ponchatoula. Dorr is from Mandeville, and Bridges is originally from Zwolle.

Burdett said that Bridges and Dorr have both played big stages before.

“Jerad was signed twice into Nashville and cut an album,” Burdett said. “Kevin’s the original bassist for a band called 12 Stones that was real big in the early 2000s, so they’ve kind of done that before, but for the rest of us, it’s huge.”

The band’s music and videos can be found on all streaming services, Burdett said, and the band has a website (www.undividedband.com) and a Facebook page (found by searching Facebook for Undivided Band official).

In addition to the band’s music, Jay Da Wizard has a song called “Neck,” dedicated to LSU, that has more than a million streams on Spotify, and Bridges has a song called “She Ain’t You” that’s playing on country radio stations in Texas, off an album entitled “Boys Become Men.”

Breaux sent an application in to Jazz Fest officials to perform, and although he sent it after the due date, the group was told they’d be performing.

“I guess they liked what they heard, because they put us on the second-biggest stage at the festival,” Burdett said.

The band won’t be playing any cover songs at Jazz Fest.

“It will be all 100% our originals and some of Jerad Bridges’ originals,” he said.

In addition to teaching, coaching and playing music, Burdett finds plenty of other things to do with his time. He’s one of former Franklin Senior High Head Baseball Coach and Principal Ty Burdette’s two sons, and played multiple sports at Franklin Senior High. He still stays active in sports as well.

“I shoot in the Acadiana Pool League, I play football for the Louisiana Bayou Hurricanes out of Lafayette,” he said.