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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > March > 14 > Entry
SXSW Review: Trombone Shorty
OK, here’s the set-up: A horn player from the inner-city wards in New Orleans walks into a faux-Irish bar deep in the heart of Texas… The punchline? A smokin’-hot set by Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and his band, Orleans Avenue.
Any metaphors about blowing like a hurricane would be heavy-handed in referring to any musician from the Crescent City. Suffice it to say, however, that Shorty is living proof that the musical spirit of the city remains unbroken and unbowed, despite the travails of its citizens.
The scion of a musical family (his older brother, James, is a mainstay of the Treme Brass Band) and the product of a musically rich downtown neighborhood, Shorty alternates between trombone and trumpet and layers his Second Line beats with funk, rock, Latin accents, hip-hop and soul. Beyond his New Orleans tutelage, tours with Lenny Kravitz have clearly helped open his musical horizons.
Playing off, and in tandem with, saxophonist James Martin (who kills in his own right) and the rest of his ensemble, Shorty exhorted the crowd in the tiny venue as though he were playing for a sold-out Jazzfest crowd. Blowing clean, hard, precise lines over a stew of funky grooves, he romped through his own “Like Mike,” Rebirth Brass Band’s “Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” and a jazzy version of “St. James Infirmary,” among other tunes. Sometimes, he jumped up and down in tandem with the crowd, or just put down his horn and surfed the band’s musical wave. His enthusiasm was, to say the least, contagious.
He proved himself a sly and canny showman, too. Prior to a Herculean effort at pulling the highest notes humanly possible out of his trumpet, he pulled a tube of lip balm out of his pocket, dabbed some on and cautioned, “Kids, don’t try this at home…”
Here’s another bit of advice: Run, don’t walk, to catch this guy next time he comes to town.
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