via Downbeat
As Los Angeles Times jazz critic Don Heckman wrote in a May 1, 2000, review of a Nicholas Payton concert: “It was appropriate that Payton was leading a seven-piece ensemble in a program billed as “The Nicholas Payton Armstrong Centennial Celebration.’ In addition to his extraordinary mastery of the Armstrong trumpet style, he actually bears considerable physical resemblance to the great jazz innovator.” Though some, including the iconic 91-year-old trumpeter Doc Cheatham, maintained that Payton more favored King Oliver.
His appearance alongside Cheatham on a 1997 Verve album of jazz standards, recorded when Payton was 23, earned the rising star trumpeter a Best Solo Jazz Performance Grammy for “Stardust.” And as the elder statesman said of his mentee at the time: “He’s the greatest of the New Orleans-style players that I’ve ever heard. He’s pure, he’s not fooling around. He’s gonna scare all the trumpet players. I haven’t heard anybody like him since Louis Armstrong.”