Jerry Jones participates in a NFL broadcast with a headset.
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ARLINGTON, TEXAS - AUGUST 16: Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in interviewed prior to an NFL Preseason 2025 game against the Baltimore Ravens at AT&T Stadium on August 16, 2025 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images)
Freddie Jones has long set the ceremonial tone at Jerry’s World, but that is coming to an end.
Since 2014, Jones has been performing the “Star Spangled Banner” to open Dallas Cowboys home games at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The Cowboys are hosting the Baltimore Ravens in a preseason matchup on Aug. 16 and there was a new trumpeter performing the national anthem for the first time in more than a decade.
“Longtime Cowboysnational anthem trumpet performer, Freddie Jones, has retired,” said Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter Nick Harris on X. “Moving forward, the national anthem will be performed by a different member of the military — still by trumpet.”
The performer before the game on Saturday night was United States Air Force Airman First Class Christopher Stein.
Jerry Jones participates in a NFL broadcast with a headset.
GettyARLINGTON, TEXAS – AUGUST 16: Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in interviewed prior to an NFL Preseason 2025 game against the Baltimore Ravens at AT&T Stadium on August 16, 2025 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images)
Freddie Jones, Jazz Musician by Trade, founded Trumpets4Kids
Jones is jazz musician, composer and producer born in Memphis, Tennessee, but went to college at the University of North Texas Denton and has long resided in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex ever since, according to the Jazz Journalists Association.
Jones has been playing the trumpet at a professional level since the age of 15 and the band he started at the age of 13 stayed together throughout high school, according to a 2014 interview of Jones by the Dallas Observer. His band played Catholic jazz mass at church on Sundays and any gig they could grab over the weekends.
Now as an accomplished musician, he has given free lessons, access to workshops, and opportunities to hear and meet other professional trumpet players. Jones founded the Trumpets4Kids Foundation after meeting two young Grapevine, Texas, girls in 2007. He gifted them trumpets, and became aware of other children in similar circumstances and started donating horns to underserved children and teens. The foundation now offers a music education program for at-risk youth.
The Freddie Jones Jazz Group has toured the U.S., including Austin, Chicago, New York, and local festivals around the country. The group has also played in Europe, including Paris, The Hague and Rotterdam, according to the Dallas/Fort Worth Professional Musicians Association. Jones has performed with such greats as David Sanborn, Freddie Hubbard, Chuck Magione, George Benson and Najee.
Jones Didn’t Expect to be Cowboys Official Trumpeter
Jones said he was asked by the Cowboys to perform the anthem on an exclusive basis after seven consecutive years of the Cowboys booking performers.
“I got a call, and I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll come do it,'” Jones told the Observer.
“I just wanted to play it with no tricks. And it’s fun,” he added. “I didn’t wake up one morning and go, ‘Oh my god, how cool would it be to play the national anthem?’ Nah, I didn’t do that. It was the last thing I would think I was gonna be doing.”
Tommy Loy was the first trumpeter for the Cowboys, from Thanksgiving Day 1966 to 1989. The tradition ended following his death and until Jones was offered the gig.
The Cowboys host the Atlanta Falcons for their final preseason game on Aug. 22. Although Dallas opens the entire NFL regular season on the road at the Philadelphia Eagles on Sept. 4, the Cowboys’ home opener is against the New York Giants at 1 p.m. EST on Sept. 14.