Season eight of CBS’s popular The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will have a new bandleader. Oscar and Grammy Award winner Jon Batiste is exiting the Emmy, Critics Choice, and Writers Guild award-nominated series after seven seasons leading the band.
CBS’s official announcement said Batiste is stepping away to pursue personal and professional interests.
“We’ve been so lucky to have a front row seat to Jon’s incredible talent for the past seven years,” said Stephen Colbert. “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.”
Louis Cato’s been handling interim bandleader duties this summer and will permanently replace Batiste when season eight premieres on Tuesday, September 6, 2022. Cato’s been with The Late Show since the series debuted and will be joined by Joe Saylor and house band regulars Louis Fouché, Jon Lampley, Endea Owens, and Nêgah Santos.
“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,” said Colbert.
“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.”
CBS released the following brief bio of Louis Cato:
“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.”