Trombone Shorty - Jazz as a Tower of Babel

Young, talented, a complete artist, one of those musicians who manages to win over both a potentially huge audience and a critical establishment that - in jazz more than anywhere else - is often so snobbish it ends up burning out established artists and brilliant newcomers alike. Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews is described on his own website as "the kind of player who comes along maybe once in a generation", and when you consider that he can't be pinned down to any single genre - he moves between jazz, funk, rock, metal and reggae influences with simply astonishing ease - you start to get a sense of the man's stature.

This isn't your typical rock musician who throws a couple of jazz chords, a few reggae intrusions and a dash of funk into his compositions and then calls himself eclectic and open-minded. Troy Andrews is a musician of crystalline talent, born a trombone player on the outskirts of New Orleans and raised on a diet of Black music - throw in all the blues, soul and especially the jazz typical of Louisiana - before moving on to trumpet and drums. He's always kept his ears wide open to catch even the poppier melodies that a very young kid can't help but notice, whatever his musical training. His starting point is therefore jazz, but it's soon broadened by his determination to renew the genre, to avoid repeating stylistic tics that have become overused and that often keep the genre - partly by the musicians' own choice - ghettoized and elitist. "Jazz musicians can have a very closed mindset, and I didn't want to be one of those musicians who keep recycling things that have already been done, because then I'd have no way to grow," Trombone Shorty himself has said.

As for his nickname - the anecdote is as charming as it is useful for understanding the man - you have to go back to when Andrews was under ten years old and was photographed next to a trombone, an instrument he already played so well at that age that he was part of a local band. That trombone was more than twice as tall as the young musician, who thus earned his stage name. The result of so many different influences is a shining example of how, even today, one can still aspire to hear music that is genuinely new and of real quality.

In recent years he's racked up numerous national accolades, and Troy Andrews, born in '86, has been called by many American magazines the most gifted musician of his generation. In 2009, the organizers of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival even added him to the bill of the prestigious event, making him effectively the youngest artist ever to take part. Consider that before him, the youngest had been Wynton Marsalis - who was forty-one at the time!

Trombone Shorty's musical career began extremely early, and his family — particularly his musician brother and his mother, a huge fan of soul and blues — encouraged his natural inclination, evident from his very first steps. New Orleans' famous street parades were Troy's first stage, but it wasn't long before his strong urge to experiment and find his own path took over, leading to his earliest recordings, dating from 2002 and 2004: Trombone Shorty's Swingin' Gate and 12 & Shorty – the latter recorded together with his brother – which mark the first grooves of his musical journey. Both albums are hard to find today, having been released only in the United States with fairly limited distribution, but they already reveal his multi-instrumental leanings and, above all, a jazz vein, the distinctly "black" kind, tied to the roots and traditions of his hometown.

The following year, 2005, proved to be the turning point of his career. After recording the album The End Of The Beginning with a New Orleans quintet, Troy was recruited into the horn section of Lenny Kravitz. The collaboration, crucial to Trombone Shorty's entry into the big leagues of the music business, was made possible by a mutual friend, Sidney Torres. At the time Kravitz was looking for a horn player and had turned to Torres, who couldn't help but rave about the extraordinary talent of the then eighteen-year-old Troy Andrews. Kravitz's initial doubts — he would have preferred a seasoned, experienced musician — didn't last long, and after an audition he welcomed the young trombonist with open arms. The experience of touring with one of the biggest names in world music proved crucial to the artist's growth: performing in front of massive crowds was only the most obvious challenge; according to Troy, the real hurdle was having to learn Kravitz's songs and play them exactly as they were on record. In his musical makeup, rooted firmly in jazz, improvisation was the norm, so having to follow a rigid structure with almost schoolroom discipline forced Trombone Shorty to rethink his whole approach to the stage. Without doubt, merging his free, spontaneous musical nature with the discipline and consistency the job demanded played a decisive role in his artistic life.

Unfortunately, 2005 also went down in history as the year Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana, Trombone Shorty's home state, striking New Orleans right during a break in the Kravitz tour. The young musician didn't just sit back: in his own way he helped his city and his state with a song that appeared on the album "Sing Me Back Home", released in support of fundraising efforts for Louisiana and featuring many American artists. The song is "Hey Troy, Your Mama's Calling You", a cover of "Hey Leroy, Your Mama's Calling You", a latin-jazz-soul hit written by Jimmy Castor Bunch in 1966.

2006 saw Trombone Shorty's confirmation as an international artist. His collaboration with producer Bob Ezrin and with U2 only boosted his standing among many artists on the world music scene. That same year, Trombone performed alongside U2 and Green Day at the show marking the reopening of the New Orleans Superdome football stadium.

Up to that point, Andrews had been part of many groups, sometimes made up of friends, other times of seasoned professionals. What was missing, though, was that decisive step capable of pushing a rising star of world music to the next level. The crossroads Trombone Shorty faced was now clear, and, paradoxically, it would be the following two years — the quietest in terms of public appearances — that steered the New Orleans kid toward the brightest, most radiant artistic path.

Trombone Shorty poured his energy into an ambitious project involving some exceptionally talented young musicians: guitarist Pete Murano, bassist Mike Ballard, Joey Peebles and Dwayne William on drums and percussion respectively, and saxophonist Dan Oestreicher. His creative drive was fresh and his intent crystal clear: make quality music without imposing conceptual limits or sticking to a single direction. Every influence was meant to feed into the project to generate a positive energy spanning rock to jazz, by way of blues, soul and electronic music. Under the skilled guidance of producer Ben Ellman, Backatown was thus brought to light — arguably Trombone Shorty's first true solo album.

The album is a fine example of new music, certainly a distinctive sound that could well pique the interest of listeners coming from more rock and alternative territory. As should be clear by now, this isn't standard jazz fare, and often just as a track seems to be heading in one direction, the next one shifts radically elsewhere. A tight, precise rhythm section — precise and punctual enough to recall a certain James Brown — serves as the musical bed, at times for one of Andrews' solos, at times for a far more straight-ahead number, and elsewhere as the backdrop to a soul vocal. "Where Y' At" has the bite of rock guitars, the charm of horns played in unison, and some genuinely well-judged improvisation; "The Cure" sounds like something a noise-metal band might have spawned, before opening up into something more classically rock; "Quite As Kept" has everything needed to make jazz more palatable to a wide audience.

There's no point listing track by track every reference and influence at play — it would be an endless list, and perhaps the beauty of it is precisely that each listener can pick up on details another ear might miss. Guest Lenny Kravitz also makes an appearance, returning the favor from their earlier collaboration.

The album reached number three on the Billboard Jazz Albums Chart and was nominated for the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

Troy Andrews' name spread quickly across America, and show after show his spectacular performances won over audiences. In July 2011, Trombone Shorty and his band set Perugia alight at the Umbria Jazz Festival with a truly fantastic concert that even overshadowed a performance by the divine B.B. King. King himself, taking the stage after an hour and forty minutes of Andrews' set, appeared stunned by his performance and admitted to feeling almost intimidated at having to impress an audience still rubbing its eyes after the dazzling notes that had poured from Andrews' trombone.

Trombone Shorty's pen runs hot, and barely a year after the release of Backatown came time to welcome a new album, For True. The formula seems unchanged on the surface, and the melting pot of influences keeps bubbling away, suggesting that whatever gets thrown into it will find a place somewhere in Andrews' scores. The band sounds even sharper than on the previous album, and Trombone Shorty's solos come across noticeably looser, perhaps thanks to the confidence gained on recent tours. The album doesn't suffer at all from being recorded in a studio — a notable feat for a genre built to explode with energy on a live stage — and offers a selection of thoroughly first-rate tracks. "Back 12", "Buckjump" and "For True" blend every influence with real skill, delivering a range of sounds and arrangements rarely found in such abundance on a single record; "Nervis" starts from a funk foundation and simply becomes something we might by now just call "Trombone sound".

Lenny Kravitz, Kid Rock and Jeff Beck are among the guests featured on the album, proof of Trombone Shorty's growing fame and importance on the music scene. Perhaps global popularity still eludes him, partly because this kind of music finds a perfect breeding ground in America but less so in Europe. Yet it's probably only a matter of time, since the quality is undeniable and the shows Andrews takes around the world are incredible — the kind of concerts where you can feel the air and energy of music's all-time greats. We'll see whether the Old Continent discovers Trombone Shorty first, or whether he conjures up yet another musical melting pot before that happens.

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