NEW ORLEANS — The answer is, No, that was not Ben Jaffe and Trombone Shorty you spotted at the Superbowl LVI halftime show at SoFi Stadium.
Shortly after the NFL tweeted a photo of a sousaphone player with curly hair during the halftime performance, New Orleanians erupted on Twitter with speculation that the musician may be Ben Jaffe of Preservation Hall.
Others also wondered aloud if the musician to his right was New Orleans' own Trombone Shorty. In just a matter of minutes, dozens of Twitter users asked the same question: "Was that actually Trombone Shorty and Ben Jaffe?"
Eyewitness News confirmed with Trombone Shorty's manager that he was not, in fact, playing at the Super Bowl halftime show.
Matt Cornell, of Trombone Shorty's management team, wrote to Eyewitness News, "No, that definitely wasn't Troy. I thought it looked like Ben as well initially but I don't think it was."
The Ben Jaffe lookalike has been identified as Devon Taylor, a multi-instrumentalist who lives in Los Angeles, but does have ties to New Orleans. We have not yet been able to identify the trombone player.
Although this case was just a doppelganger and maybe some wishful thinking, we wouldn't mind seeing some familiar local musicians when the Super Bowl comes back to New Orleans in 2025.
