Artist: Louis Hayes

Louis Hayes is an American jazz drummer and band leader. 

He worked with Yusef Lateef and Curtis Fuller from 1955 to 1956. He moved to New York in August 1956, to replace Art Taylor in the Horace Silver Quintet and, in 1959, joined the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, with which he remained until mid-1965, when he succeeded Ed Thigpen in the Oscar Peterson Trio. He left Peterson in 1967, and formed a series of groups, which he led alone or with others; among his sidemen were Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Kenny Barron, and James Spaulding. He returned to Peterson in 1971. 

The Louis Hayes Sextet, formed in 1972, became, in 1975, the Louis Hayes-Junior Cook Quintet and the Woody Shaw-Louis Hayes Quintet (Cook remained as a sideman until Rene McLean joined); in its last form the quintet played successful engagements throughout Europe.

Hayes has appeared on many records throughout the years, and played with John Coltrane, Kenny Burrell, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Timmons, Hank Mobley, Booker Little, Tommy Flanagan, Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner, Ray Brown, Joe Henderson, Gary Bartz, and Tony Williams. 

He was with McCoy Tyner's trio for more than three years. Since 1989 he has led his own band, and together with Vincent Herring formed the Cannonball Legacy Band. He is part of the NEA Jazz Masters awards class of 2023. 

Hayes is a paternal uncle of the musician Prince.