Trombone Shorty

It was after midnight when Trombone Shorty stepped offstage at the House of Blues in New Orleans, but he wasn’t done playing yet. Not by a long shot.

“I had an idea for a new song right after the show,” says Shorty, “so the band and I decided to go straight into the studio and record it that night. We were still sweaty and buzzing from the energy of the gig, and we definitely carried that vibe into the session with us.”

Take a listen to Lifted, Trombone Shorty’s second release for Blue Note Records, and you’ll hear that same ecstatic energy coursing through the entire collection. Recorded at Shorty’s own Buckjump Studio with producer Chris Seefried (Fitz and the Tantrums, Andra Day), the album finds the GRAMMY-nominated NOLA icon and his bandmates tapping into the raw power and exhilarating grooves of their legendary live show, channeling it all into a series of tight, explosive performances that blur the lines between funk, soul, R&B, and psychedelic rock. The writing is bold and self-assured, standing up to hard times and loss with grit and determination, and the playing is muscular to match, mixing pop gleam with hip-hop swagger and second line abandon. Wild as all that may sound, Lifted is still the work of a master craftsman, and the album’s nimble arrangements and judicious use of special guests—from Gary Clark Jr. and Lauren Daigle to the rhythm section from Shorty’s high school marching band—ultimately yields a collection that’s as refined as it is rapturous, one that balances technical virtuosity and emotional release in equal measure as it celebrates music’s primal power to bring us all together.

“I think this is the closest we’ve ever gotten to bottling up the live show and putting it on a record,” says Shorty, whose audiences have grown exponentially in recent years. “Normally when I’m in the studio, I’m trying to make the cleanest thing I can, but this time around, I told everybody to really cut loose, to perform like they were onstage at a festival.”

If anybody knows their way around a festival, it’s Trombone Shorty. Born Troy Andrews, he got his start (and nickname) earlier than most: at four, he made his first appearance at Jazz Fest performing with Bo Diddley; at six, he was leading his own brass band; and by his teenage years, he was hired by Lenny Kravitz to join the band he assembled for his Electric Church World Tour. Shorty’s proven he’s more than just a horn player, though. Catch a gig, open the pages of the New York Times or Vanity Fair, flip on any late-night TV show and you’ll see an undeniable star with utterly magnetic charisma, a natural born showman who can command an audience with the best of them. Since 2010, he’s released four chart topping studio albums; toured with everyone from Jeff Beck to the Red Hot Chili Peppers; collaborated across genres with Pharrell, Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson, Foo Fighters, ZHU, Zac Brown, Normani, Ringo Starr, and countless more; played Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk, Newport Jazz, and nearly every other major festival; performed four times at the GRAMMY Awards, five times at the White House, on dozens of TV shows, and at the star-studded Sesame Street Gala, where he was honored with his own Muppet; launched the Trombone Shorty Foundation to support youth music education; and received the prestigious Caldecott Honor for his first children’s book. Meanwhile in New Orleans, Shorty now leads his own Mardi Gras parade atop a giant float crafted in his likeness, hosts the annual Voodoo Threauxdown shows that have drawn guests including Usher, Nick Jonas, Dierks Bentley, Andra Day, and Leon Bridges to sit in with his band, and has taken over the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’s hallowed final set, which has seen him closing out the internationally renowned gathering after performances by the likes of Neil Young, the Black Keys, and Kings of Leon.

“I owe all that to my mother,” says Shorty. “She passed recently, but she continued to inspire me right up until she transitioned, and that’s why I put a picture of her holding me up at a second line on the cover of this album. She lifted me up my whole life.”

As if his New Orleans roots weren’t already deep enough, Shorty decided to take over a recording studio in the Lower Garden District after the release of his latest album, 2017’s Seefried-produced Parking Lot Symphony. Dubbing the space Buckjump in a nod to the second lines he grew up playing in, Shortly immediately set about converting the studio into a freewheeling sonic laboratory, one where he and his friends could push themselves creatively without any artistic or commercial restraints.

“Having my own studio meant that the band and I could capture stuff in the moment any time we were feeling inspired,” says Shorty. “It meant that we could take chances and experiment. I could call the guys up with an idea in the middle of the night and they’d say, ‘We’ll meet you there in an hour!’”

That sense of excitement and liberation is palpable on Lifted, which opens with the addictive “Come Back.” Fueled by a bottom-heavy rhythm section, buoyant keys, and bright flashes of brass, the track pairs a hip-hop groove with hard rock energy as Shorty delivers silky smooth vocals that float effortlessly above the instrumental fray. As its title might suggest, the song is a reckoning with loss and regret, but like much of the album, it refuses to surrender to disappointment, keeping its chin held high as it presses forward and fights for what it wants. The effervescent “What It Takes” gets profoundly funky as it celebrates the strength and growth that can emerge from times of struggle, while the bittersweet “Forgiveness” leans into the band’s R&B side as it works to move on from pain and betrayal, and the blistering “I’m Standing Here” (which features a mind-bending guitar solo from Gary Clark Jr.) rushes headlong into the maelstrom.

“I grew up watching wrestling as a kid,” Shorty says with a laugh, “and I if I was a wrestler, ‘I’m Standing Here’ would be the song they played when I came into the ring. It’s all about standing tall no matter what life throws at you.”

Shorty makes sure to celebrate the good times on the album, too, reveling in the joy of love and friendship and family throughout. The spirited “Might Not Make It Home” commits to letting go and living in the moment; the playful “Miss Beautiful” embraces the thrill of desire while offering a twist on the second line tradition, with an electric bass stepping in for the tuba; and the feel-good “Everybody In The World” (which features the New Breed Brass Band) finds common ground in our universal desire for love and acceptance. But it’s perhaps the electrifying title track, which lands somewhere between Earth, Wind & Fire and Shorty’s old tourmate Lenny Kravitz that best encapsulates the spirit of the album, wrapping earnest emotion in a high-octane package that offers you no choice but to move your body.

“The whole time we were making Lifted, I couldn’t help but think about how much fun it would be to get onstage and play it for an audience,” Shorty recalls. “Usually when I make an album, I record the songs first and figure out how we’re going to present them live afterwards, but with this record I was in the studio imagining the lights flashing on the hits and the audience singing everything back to us. I could see the whole thing in my head.”

For Trombone Shorty, the show never ends. Not by a long shot.

Awards

*2011 GRAMMY Nominee for BACKATOWN - Best Contemporary Jazz Album /// *BACKATOWN was ranked in the top 5 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz chart for a year and a half, including 10 weeks at #1 /// *2012 DownBeat Readers Poll - Winner - Best Trombone Player category and FOR TRUE ranked in the Top Ten Jazz Albums of 2012 /// *2012 DownBeat Readers Poll - Winner - Best Trombone Player category and FOR TRUE ranked in the Top Ten Jazz Albums of 2012 /// *2012 DownBeat Critics Poll - Scored high with rankings in 7 categories including Jazz Album of the Year for FOR TRUE, Best Trombone Player, Rising Star Jazz Artist, Rising Star Trombone, Beyond Artist or Group and Beyond Album for FOR TRUE /// *Honored at Tulane University's commencement ceremony on May 19, 2012 with The President's Medal /// *Most awarded artist in OffBeat magazine's 2012 Best of The Beat Awards with SIX WINS. For the 2nd year in a row Trombone Shorty won the awards for Artist of the Year, Album of the Year (FOR TRUE), Best R&B/Funk Artist, Best R&B/Funk Album, Best Trombonist in addition to a 1st time award for Best Music Video /// *Topped Australia's Rhythms Magazine Reader's Poll 2012 for Jazz Album of the Year - International for FOR TRUE, and Winner of the Gig of the Year - International for his performance at Australia's Byron Bay Bluesfest

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Live Review

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Album Review

Trombone Shorty: Parking Lot Symphony

Read "Parking Lot Symphony" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
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Troy “Trombone Shorty" Andrews is the kind of player that's taken Duke Ellington's philosophy of genres truly to heart--the outlook that “there are two kinds of music, good music and the other kind." His jazz and jny: New Orleans roots run throughout most everything he does, though they often share equal space with modern rhythm and/or blues, pop, hip-hop and anything else that gets hips shaking. Guests from the rock and roll world (Lenny Kravitz, Warren Haynes, Jeff Beck or ...

Live Review

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue at The Space at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
June 19, 2015

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Extended Analysis

Trombone Shorty: Say That to Say This

by Chris M. Slawecki
January 19, 2014

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Live Review

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue: Denver, CO, December 29, 2012

by Geoff Anderson
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trombone Shorty

Source: Michael Ricci
January 2, 2023

All About Jazz is celebrating Trombone Shorty's birthday today!

It was after midnight when Trombone Shorty stepped offstage at the House of Blues in New Orleans, but he wasn’t done playing yet. Not by a long shot. “I had an idea for a new song right after the show,” says Shorty, “so the band and I decided to go straight into the studio and record it that night. We were still sweaty and buzzing from the energy of the gig, ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trombone Shorty

Source: Michael Ricci
January 2, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Trombone Shorty's birthday today!

Since the release of their Grammy-nominated 2010 debut album, Backatown, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue have grown creatively while winning hordes of new fans performing nonstop on five continents. Their latest album, For True, offers substantive proof of their explosive growth, further refining the signature sound Troy “Trombone Shorty" Andrews has dubbed “Supafunkrock." “There was excitement from everywhere," says Andrews (now 27) of the experience on the road and how it ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trombone Shorty

Source: Michael Ricci
January 2, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Trombone Shorty's birthday today!

Festival

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Source: Dalmath Associates Inc.
March 18, 2020

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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trombone Shorty

Source: Michael Ricci
January 2, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Trombone Shorty's birthday today!

Festival

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Source: Dalmath Associates Inc.
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Video / DVD

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Trombone Shorty

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
June 1, 2019

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring Trombone Shorty and his band Orleans Avenue, who will be returning to St. Louis to perform next Friday, June 7 at The Pageant. Since he last played here in 2015, Shorty (aka Troy Andrews) has continued to enjoy crossover success, touring frequently in the USA and overseas and putting out the album Parking Lot Symphony, released in 2017 on Blue Note Records. This year, he also was selected as the ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trombone Shorty

Source: Michael Ricci
January 2, 2019

All About Jazz is celebrating Trombone Shorty's birthday today!

Place our Musician of the Day widget on your website or ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Trombone Shorty

Source: Michael Ricci
January 2, 2017

All About Jazz is celebrating Trombone Shorty's birthday today!

Place our Musician of the Day widget on your website or ...
read more

Festival

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Source: HypeBot
May 6, 2016

For the last decade, live music has been a ray of sunshine in the music industry's otherwise often cloudy skies. In the last few years, mega-festivals seem to be cropping up everywhere often generating huge revenue for both presenters and the host town. By Steve Baltin for The Grammys April is festival month at the Empire Polo Fields in Indio, California with two weekends of Coachella, followed by country music fest Stagecoach. As large as the names are at the ...
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When the horns blow, it's all you need to know. - Rolling Stone, Will Hermes They set a blistering pace on this guest-laden follow-up to last year's Grammy-nominated Backatown. - USA Today, Steve Jones' 4-star review of For True brass band, funk, rock and even some gospel-drenched soul music.. in many ways, he is a genre unto himself. - Billboard hailed as New Orleans' brightest new star in a generation. - NPR, Talk of the Nation ...the Jimi Hendrix of the trombone. - Rhythms (Australia), Brian Wise ...one of the best entertainers out there, period. He's an incredible horn player. - Zac Brown (Billboard, July 7 2012) Troy possesses the rarest combination of talent, technical capability and down home soul. I'm his biggest fan. - Wynton Marsalis Don't get me wrong, we got it goin' on in New Orleans, he's just better. - Allen Toussaint I was completely blown away... the crowd went wild. Troy and his band have just supported me on some UK dates. A sensational group of musicians. Trombone Shorty is one to watch! - Jeff Beck in MOJO Magazine's The Best Thing I've Heard All Year (January 2011) What was the most-talked-about act leading up to this year's Monterey Jazz Festival? ...Trombone Shorty seemed to be the name on everybody's lips by festival's end. Simply put, Trombone Shorty is one of the most exciting young talents in all of music. Apologies to whatever act has to follow him onstage. - Jim Harrington, San Jose Mercury News Trombone Shorty...flaunted the presence of a rock star...He played trombone with almost combative postures... - Jon Pareles, The New York Times Nobody exuded more rock-star charisma than Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews ...He and his band, Orleans Avenue, delivered a blistering set of bold, exuberant and cutting edge jazz-rock fueled by funk and hip-hop. - Edna Gundersen, USA Today AWESOME MUSICALITY MEETS SERIOUS PARTY. True American music's next superstar, from New Orleans obviously! Take my word for it: A new generation of jazz fans is on the way!!! - André Ménard, Montreal Jazz Festival Trombone Shorty is so ready for his close-up... a native prodigy destined for breakout success. "Backatown," with its blend of tight funk, power-chord rock and slinky R&B, builds on that premise, presenting him as an unstoppable force. - Nate Chinen, New York Times ...Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews is already a New Orleans MVP. Backatown is both deeply rooted and culturally omnivorous ... - Will Hermes, Rolling Stone ...Orleans Avenue slaps down a wallop- ing groove behind Shorty, who is spitting fire on trombone. - Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle Of all the amazing New Orleans, Louisiana, musicians, my favorite could be Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews. - Sean Callebs, CNN Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews was greeted like a conquering hometown hero by a romping, stomping, capacity crowd. Even so the roar that erupted when the 24-year-old strutted onstage, trombone and trumpet audaciously hoisted over his head, was no match for what followed: a near- deafening, funk-charged blast of percussion, brass, reeds and guitar distortion that might have knocked the crowd sideways had there been any room to move. - Mike Joyce, Washington Post

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