Photo By Jeroen Komen
Trombone Shorty
The New Orleans jazz influence rings on the bourbon-sounding end of Trombone Shorty's horn. Brought up in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans, he became the leader of a brass band at six years old. His love for his city is certain on the relief tracks recorded by what later became known as the New Orleans Social Club. From his earliest album, Trombone Shorty’s Swingin’ Gate, to his latest, Say That to This, he continues to deliver the flavor from the mouth of the Mississippi Delta.
In a recent interview on NPR, he tells Host Peter Sagal how a six year old leads a band:
"Well, my brother taught me a bunch of things and I wanted to imitate him so I got some of my neighbors together and I put together this brass band and we would go out to Jackson Square. And then whatever I couldn't play or whatever they couldn't play, I learned it and taught it to those guys."
Trombone Shorty, whose real name is Troy Andrews, keeps a busy tour schedule that includes a recent gig at the White House.
Andrews, along with iconic musical legends such as Buddy Guy and Smokey Robinson, performed in honor of the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Arts. The music special, “A Celebration of American Creativity: In Performance at the White House” airs on PBS January 8, 2016.
In an interesting aside, Andrews plays the adult voices on the soundtrack of the new Peanuts movie. The original voices were produced by a trombone so nothing less than that would do for director Steve Martino. Andrews, came to the production with different accessories like plungers and mutes to reproduce the famous sound. The gig was so successful that a Web app was made using the new recordings to translate words into Peanuts adults' "wah-wah"s. Check it out.
