Journey To Nawlins, Chapter IX – Troy Andrews a.k.a. Trombone Shorty

Trombone slinger

Jazz ? Not in the way you imagine. R&B ? Yes, but not as you'd think. So what ? So, it's New Orleans, the Big Easy, the city where all musics mingle together, where all styles nourish each other, where horn instruments are sacred, where all people of all colors brotherly dance on Mardi Gras, where musicians are laid to their grave in music…

The old French city where slaves were entitled to sing, play percussion and dance on Congo Square on Sundays… The city where jazz is born, where rock'n'roll was born, where rhythm'n'blues was born, where funk was born… The city where unclassifiable musician Troy Andrews aka Trombone Shorty was born in 1986...

When he jumps on stage, he raises up his hands high, a trumpet in one, his trombone in the other, like a warrior brandishing his trophies, and he plays his trombone with the same physical energy as a rock guitar slinger.

Five years old and shorter
than his trombone !

Raised in the famous Tremé district of New Orleans, the first neighborhood in the US populated by “free people of color” (1), he's been immersed in music since his early childhood. A grandson of legendary R&B singer and songwriter Jesse Hill (1932-1996, father of the classic "Ooh Poo Pah Doo"), and a nephew of Walter "Papoose" Nelson who played with Fats Domino, Troy Andrews is the younger brother of trumpet player and band leader James Andrews (born in 1969), known as "Satchmo of the Ghetto", and a cousin of trombonist Glen David Andrews, of the late Travis "Trumpet Black" Hill, and of trumpeter Kermit Ruffins.

At 5 with Bo Diddley

At four he was already playing trombone though his arms were too short to reach the most distant positions of the slide, which earned him his “Trombone Shorty” moniker, and was invited on stage by Bo Diddley at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival !

At age 6, he was already the leader of his own brass band, and in his teens a member of the Stooges Brass Band. Mentored since his youth by Cyril Neville, whom he calls "a second father", he was only 16 when he recorded his first album, Trombone Shorty's Swingin' Gate, released on the Louisiana Red Hot label in 2002. Playing also trumpet, and singing, Andrews joined Lenny Kravitz' horn section for a world tour when he was just 18.

Before reaching 20, he already had several albums or participations behind his belt : his 2002 album, 12 & Shorty with his brother James Andrews and Live at New Orleans Jazz Fest (MunckMix), both in 2004; and in 2005, Trombone Shorty Meets Lionel Ferbos : Two Trumpets, Two Eras, The End of the Beginning with his quintet (Tremé Records) and Orleans & Claiborne (Tremé Records) with his band Orleans Avenue.

Musicians from the Tremé Brass Band going home in Tremé after a performance

In 2002, James Andrews made his 16-years old young brother's dream come true by producing his first album Trombone Shorty's Swingin' Gate on which he also plays trumpet and percussion, and sings. The album also features future members of Orleans Avenue : Shorty's high school mates saxophonist James Martin,  bassist Mike Ballard and pianist Jonathan Batiste. This early work is made of originals written by James and/or himself mixed with standards like his grand-father's “Ooh Poo Pah Doo”, the iconic “St. James Infirmary”, “Hit The Road Jack”, or a cover of Miles Davis' “Four”.

Two years later, in 2004, he joined his elder brother James again for their album originally titled 12 & Shorty where he played trombone, trumpet, sousaphone and drums, next to famous guests among whom Dr John, Donald Harrison Jr, Cyril Neville, guitarist June Yamagishi or New Orleans Indian Big Chief Monk Boudreaux...

2005 was a very prolific period with four parallel projects. First, he proved he was perfectly at ease on trumpet and on classics of the New Orleans repertoire on Two Trumpets, Two Eras, his collaboration with veteran trumpeter Lionel Ferbos, with dixie standards as “Mahogany Hall Stomp” or “Basin Street Blues”, and notable numbers like “St. James Infirmary” or “Closer Walk with Thee”.

He also played trombone with Irvin Mayfield's New Orleans Jazz Orchestra on the album Strange Fruit (Basin Street Records, 2005), and with his own Troy Andrews Quintet (Bill Huntington, James Martin, Jason Marsalis, Michael Pellera and himself) recorded the very pleasant classic bop jazz opus The End of the Beginning, featuring guests Ellis Marsalis, John Boutte on vocals, Irvin Mayfield, and his cousin Kermit Ruffins.

Finally, that same year he released the totally innovative opus Orleans & Claiborne.

Still at the beginning of his precocious career, with his band Orleans Avenue (2), Shorty shows in the 15 tracks of Orleans & Claiborne, his extraordinary skills in bringing fresh blood to New Orleans music by marrying traditional instruments (horns, classic keyboards, bass, drums ― a guitar will come in later) with modern ones (synths, electronic keyboards), instrumental numbers with vocal pieces (”This Love”), and above all by jumping from one style to the other, and often melting them together.

With his band Orleans Avenue

He navigates from pure jazz (“Midnight Creeper”), R'n'B (“I Don't Know”) or funk (“Can't Get Enufa Dat Funky Stuff”, “Dynamite”), to Latin (“Get Down”, “La Chica Dulce”), hip-hop (“Act Bad With It”), Afro-Caribbean rhythms (“Suite Azari”), without forgetting tributes to iconic figures of the New Orleans musical culture like the legendary pianist Professor Longhair (“Gettin' Ready For The Mardi Gras”) and the Mardi Gras Indians chants (“Got To Get Ready”).

Shorty himself is a multi-instrumentalist able to play trombone of course, but also trumpet, keyboards, percussion, and he also sings.

Orleans & Claiborne is a really amazing album, so promising that it might well be his best...

Meantime, he was supposedly captured live at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 (on the MunckMix label), see Discography below.

With Backatown (2010), released on a major national label, Verve,  and produced by Galactic's saxophonist Ben Ellman, Shorty enters the gotha of New Orleans renowned musicians at only 24. His band's line-up has known some changes, it's now composed of bassist Mike Ballard, guitarist Pete Murano, baritone saxophonist Dan Oestreicher, drummer Joey Peebles, and percussionist Dwayne Williams, whose arrival brings a nice exotic touch. Shorty is on trombone and trumpet, and sings on five tracks.

Guitarist Pete Murano & Shorty

Except Allen Toussaint's “On Your Way Down" where Toussaint himself sits at the piano, the thirteen remaining tracks are all originals, mostly co-written by Shorty with different partners from the band or external.

His ex-leader Lenny Kravitz is on guitar and backing vocals on "Something Beautiful". To tell the truth, he was never physically present in the studio but recorded his over-dubbed parts from his Bahamas home. On "Right to Complain", multi-styles Louisiana musician Marc Broussart sings the backing vocals.

Lenny Kravitz

If Shorty's trombone and trumpet are still deeply rooted in jazz, he and his band mates are seasoning their work each with his own spices borrowed from different musical styles, as they had started to do on Orleans & Claiborne : a funky riff here, some Latin phrases there, a Caribbean beat on this title, a Second line mood on that one, a rock guitar line, R'n'B vocals… sometimes in the same number.

Tracks like the opening “Hurricane Season”, “Quiet As Kept”, “Neph”, “Suburbia”, “In The 6th”, “Where Y'At”, illustrate the kind of jazz-fusion made-in-New Orleans cooked by Shorty and his band : powerful brass band foundation, funky bass line, second-line-influenced horns' takeoffs, rock style drums and guitar…

Vocal titles have a more R'n'B, soul or pop-rock feel ("Something Beautiful", "Right to Complain", “Fallin'”, “The Cure”).

The musical mix of Backatown was called “supafunkrock” by Andrews at the time, a reductive label in my opinion, his music is richer than that.

Again produced by Ben Ellman, For True (2011)  starts exactly where the previous album had finished, and stands like its natural extension. Except that the commercial success of Backatown brought Shorty and Orleans Avenue extra means in terms of production, including the possibility to invite more renowned guests : Rebirth Brass Band and 5th Ward Weebie on “Buckjump”, Warren Haynes on “Encore”, Jeff Beck on “Do To Me”, Kid Rock on “Mrs. Orleans”, Cyril and Ivan Neville on “Nervis”, Ledisi on “Then There Was You”.

Jeff Beck (left) with Shorty

Orleans Avenue has welcome a new member , tenor saxophonist Tim McFatter, and Shorty also plays multiple keys including a B-3 organ, synth bass, percussion, and takes a real liking to singing.

More funky and much more oriented towards R'n'B vocal songs, For True is, in my modest opinion, globally less exciting than Backatown despite outstanding tracks of pure New Orleans brass music as the very Neville Brothers “Nervis”, "Dumaine St.", “Lagniappe” (part 1 & 2) or “Big 12” with it's Pink Panther family air. Maybe it's the kind of album that requires many more playing to reveal its hidden gems...

After the rather experimental two previous opuses, Say That To Say This (2013) marks a return to a more classical Meters-like New Orleans funky R'n'B.

Music critic Thom Jurek saluted the release of the album by writing that “Say That to Say This might be the one he [Shorty] should have cut first. Backatown and For True ― both produced by Galactic's Ben Ellman ― were as steeped in rock and hip-hop as they were jazz and funk; they were actually very experimental records.”

The Meters: Modeliste, Porter, Art Neville
& Nocentelli (Cyril Neville absent)

Co-produced with multi-instrumentalist & singer Raphael Saadiq, Say That To Say This even features the original Meters (Art Neville, Leo Nocentelli, George Porter Jr., Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste & Cyril Neville) on the romantic "Be My Lady", while Orleans Avenue's tenor saxophonist Tim McFatter was replaced by BK Jackson.

Much more disciplined and condensed than the previous albums (10 tracks in only 35 minutes), more polished, and also more vocal, recorded half in Hollywood half in New Orleans, completed by multiple overdubs, this opus could have sounded loose. It's all the contrary : Saadiq has ensured that the songs sound as tight as possible.

Mike Ballard

The result of this high-precision work is a superb piece of New Orleans funky R'n'B taking us back to the golden years of the Meters and the Neville Brothers. (Note : the track “Fire And Brimstone” is not a remake of the identical title from the Nevilles but a totally different song.)

The most appealing aspects of the whole album, apart from Shorty's horn parts, are certainly the exciting bass-drum-percussion foundation of most of the tracks. Concerning Shorty's performance, I'll underline outstanding numbers like the title track “Say That To Say This”, “Sunrise”, “Shortyville” (a word game on New Orleans' Red Light District known as “storyville”), and on top of all “Vieux Carre” (another name for New Orleans historical French Quarter) with a great horn riff.

This third Verve opus is certainly less wildly innovative than Backatown and For True but musically, it's less chaotic and the groove flows nicely in your ears.

Though now on Blue Note and produced by Chris Seefried, Parking Lot Symphony (2017) brings the same R'n'B style of Say That to Say This a step further. Indeed the production and mixing gave a kind of symphonic dimension to most of the twelve tracks through the way the instruments (horns, classic and electronic keyboards, guitar...) are arranged (they sometimes sound as if they had been doubled to produce such a big band impression) and also by the use of a six-singer choir on five titles.

Ivan Neville

This results in a rich deep sound, enhanced by a number of guests like Chris Seefried himself (guitar, piano, mellotron, and “exotic” instruments like sitar and glockenspiel ― a kind of vibraphone), Paul Cartwright (violin), ex-Meters Leo Nocentelli (acoustic guitar), Ivan Neville (piano), Glenn Hall (electric piano), Juan Covarrubias (synthesizer), and Ramon Islas (percussion).

In addition to his sacred trombone and trumpet, Shorty himself has widened his panel of instruments to electric pianos, B-3 organ, guitar, tuba, glockenspiel and drums. Orleans Avenue's long-serving bassist Mike Ballard, in the band since the beginning, has disappeared and was replaced by Tony Hall.

Parking Lot Symphony starts and ends with two different versions of the “Laveau Dirge” : the first in a somber jazz funeral style simply featuring the horns of Shorty, Jackson & Oestreicher, grounding the album in the purest New Orleans tradition; the second as a more orchestral take with choir, electric piano, glockenspiel and vibraphone.

The album features modern energetic covers : the Meters' “It Ain’t No Use”, sung by Shorty carried by a resonant choir vocals and upbeat guitar from ex-Meters Leo Nocentelli, and “Here Comes the Girls”, a 1970 Allen Toussaint song originally recorded by Ernie K-Doe, and featuring here Ivan Neville on piano.

Also featuring particularly inspiring moments as the appropriately titled soul “Parking Lot Symphony”, the stirring funky “Tripped Out Slim” and “Fanfare” built on powerful horn riffs, or the pounding “Where It At?”, this engaging album might well be Shorty's best so far…

Parking Lot Symphony was a winner, so why change the recipe for its follower Lifted, released in April 2022 ? Same producer (Chris Seefried), same kind of repertoire, even funkier, same “symphonic” sound coming out of the mingling of the instruments with choir backing vocals, but a new bassist again (Mike Bass-Bailey) and a few renowned guests (guitarist Gary Clark Jr., singer Lauren Daigle, the New Breed Brass Band) each on one track… As many ingredients that should produce a fine dish.

Unfortunately, the album smells obvious commercial concerns, falling too much into the hard-to-swallow post-Michael Jackson contemporary hip-hop influenced R&B, the one of the likes of R. Kelly and Beyoncé, that has trusted the FM for the last decades. It culminates here with a song like “Might Not Make It Home”…

Mixing this “modern” funky R&B with rock inspired rhythm, powerful horns riffing and lead, and choir backing vocals, yet Lifted is partly saved by its New Orleans feel : Pete Murano's funky wah-wah guitar introducing the opening “Come Back” featuring powerful horn and bass lines, and ending on psychedelic flavored organ waves; the kind of African chant introducing and concluding “Lie To Me”; the definite rock favor brought to “I'm Standing Here” by guitarist Gary Clark Jr, or by Murano on “Lifted”; the brass atmosphere of “Everybody In The World” from the New Breed Brass Band...

Fortunately, “Miss Beautiful” stands out as the hottest example of Shorty and band's electrifying style : volcanic beat of the bass and percussion, blazing horns riffs, lead vocals enhanced by backing choir, superb trumpet solo...

Still, I wouldn't rank Lifted among Shorty's best work, far from that. Did he sell his New Orleans/Tremè soul to the devil of mainstream as Robert Johnson did a century ago at a Mississippi Delta crossroads to become an accomplished blues guitarist ? Let's wait for his next album ― why not a live, that would be a good idea ― to have the answer... ■

(1) According to some musicologists, jazz originated in the Tremé rather than in the sole Congo Square (in the south part of Tremé, just across Rempart Street from the French Quarter) as generally accepted.

(2) Trombone Shorty : trombone, trumpet, keyboards, percussion, vocals. James Martin : tenor saxophone, vocals. Jonathan Batiste : keyboards. Mike Ballard : bass. Joey Peebles : drums, vocals.

 The Education of Trombone Shorty

► A short illustrated interview : https://youtu.be/ZRYUhh0y4tA

Discography (YT audio playlists)

► Trombone Shorty's Swingin' Gate (Louisiana Red Hot Records, 2002)
► James & Troy Andrews - 12 & Shorty, recorded live at Tipitina's (Keep Swingin' Records, 2004) (re-issued in 2019 as James Andrews and Trombone Shorty - Brothers) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lF38Ok43BLOhGXfCSzxZRAOixhABP6tA4
► Live at New Orleans Jazz Fest (MunckMix, 2004) (*)
► Trombone Shorty Meets Lionel Ferbos : Two Trumpets, Two Eras (2005)
► The Troy Andrews Quintet - The End of the Beginning (Tremé Records, 2005) : https://youtu.be/sCx4D0XJ6uo
► Orleans & Claiborne (Tremé Records, 2005)
► Jazzfest Live 2006 (MunckMix, 2006) (*)
► Live at Jazz Fest 2007 (MunckMix, 2007) (*)
► Live at Jazz Fest 2008 (MunckMix, 2008)
► Backatown (Verve Forecast, 2010) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mdN17HH_1pA72OENOMkRSxAyix59Sxl1Q
► For True (Verve Forecast, 2011) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n-jouBJd20X3tw2Xud2y_dgvM9S3nSEKs
► Say That To Say This (Verve, 2013) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ktZb7IlLzumXQ7DwTHoPdMUx2LvychPu4
► Parking Lot Symphony (Blue Note, 2017) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m_zZSUcVnXBpwfaiUbRuFEYudQdRIuL10
► Lifted (Blue Note, 2022) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k7jzHnLKIjC-iBFa9QzvRkcHBYJGLzQfs

(*) The live at the JazzFest released by MunckMix in 2004, 2006 and 2007 are mentioned in several documents, but to be honest, I didn't manage to have any tangible proof of their existence, nor could I determine if they are “real” live albums or just features in compilations...

Videos
Note : On all these videos TS is playing with his band Orleans Avenue.

► Selection on YT Music : https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nkxFfGhp41Jjuql_BuOkk97K_39m5H-2I

► Concert for the release of the album “For True” with numerous guests, Tipitina's, New Orleans, 2011 : https://youtu.be/G1MbKD1DRwM
► Jazzwoche Burghausen Fest., Germany, 2011 : https://youtu.be/v6HBnrJ0rVg
► Montreux Jazz Festival, 2011 : https://youtu.be/oDQxwQGLfxM?t=26
► Jazzbaltica, Salzau, Germany, 2011 : https://youtu.be/ci0xkibDJxU
► Gloria Theater, Köln, Germany, 2011 : https://youtu.be/OOHIO9blAis
► Park West, Chicago, 2011 : https://youtu.be/AdZVcfT5gmw
► Rochester International Jazz Festival, NY, 2011 : https://youtu.be/zdKdtO1k8vU
► Philadelphia Folk Festival, Schwenksville, PA, 2012 : https://youtu.be/87a3Myy8sTg
► Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, 2012 : https://youtu.be/BZye86a6Rps
► Shakori Hills Grassroots Music Festival, Pittsboro, NC, 2012 : https://youtu.be/563VOIf6LfY
► New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2013 : https://youtu.be/pjyrm8Q4dXQ
► Paris Jazz Festival, France, 2013 : https://youtu.be/ZEBpEOSwz9s
► Olympia, Paris, France, 2013 : https://youtu.be/_U_fVJzi9pg
►”Jazz des 5 Continents” Festival, Marseille, France, 2014 : https://youtu.be/SmLCSINbahM
► Candler Park Music & Food Festival, Atlanta, GA, 2014 : https://youtu.be/VjjOHJxgHuE
► Lockn' Festival, Arrington, VA, 2015 : https://youtu.be/vZGigz-3ZJ0
► Toronto, Canada, 2015 : https://youtu.be/6Lp5x9Wvaac
► New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2015 : https://youtu.be/5nicIamsDdU
► Baloise Session Fest., Basel, Switzerland, 2015 : https://youtu.be/lNVQ4mJoQug
► Columbia Theater, Berlin, Germany, 2017 : https://youtu.be/KrXZhAB71PM
► Olympia, Paris, France, 2017 : https://youtu.be/pxLVyfCnH_o
► E-Werk Erlangen Kulturzentrum, Germany, 2017 : https://youtu.be/otaqqNVNqPI
► The Aztec Theater, San Antonio, TX, 2017 : https://youtu.be/3pTwnd3EkYA
► 20 Monroe, Grand Rapids, MI, 2017 : https://youtu.be/RmUIlDZ8Srg
► Big Bang Block Party, Terminal West, Atlanta, GA, 2019 : https://youtu.be/Chv1iGDiG3M
► Sweetwater Brewery, Atlanta, GA, 2019 : https://youtu.be/pQ7KfTW4ZMs
► Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, 2021 : https://youtu.be/VRhAmwBuNEI
► Berlin, Germany, 2022 : https://youtu.be/oVuCoWXeNrA
► In Concert for Cancer, San Diego, CA, 2022 : https://youtu.be/mOU3LrCKlEs?t=72
► Red Rocks Fest., CO, 2022 : https://youtu.be/PVnxCrfBgRc?t=32 (raise up the volume)
► Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Vienna, VA, 2022 : https://youtu.be/5ZzwwlF2ewg
► Ancienne, Belgium, 2022 : https://youtu.be/IbUKru3iVAM
► Mavis Staples, Ziggy Marley & Trombone Shorty (at 22:36), The Rooftop at Pier 17, NYC, 2023 : https://youtu.be/ZGL2NchVA84
► Greek Theater, Los Angeles, CA, 2023 : https://youtu.be/U6vXT5LDKzc
► Rochester International Jazz Festival, NY, 2023 : https://youtu.be/CenVm5XzwVM