Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews was, in his own words, a New Orleans journeyman for many years. But in the past 18 months the young horn player has naturally transitioned into a star in his own right thanks to an appearance on the HBO show Treme and the endorsement of more than a few living rock legends. Along with his band Orleans Avenue, Andrews has recorded two of the most successful New Orleans brass albums of the past decade and now packs clubs he once only visited for the occasional sit in. In January, Trombone Shorty sat down with Jambands.com to discuss his recent success, future plans and how Prince factors into his future.
Only a few days into 2012, you were onstage at Carnegie Hall playing with Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Mos Def. I know you and Mos Def recorded a single together a few years ago in the wake of the Gulf Coast disaster. When it comes to an event like Preservation Hall’s 50th anniversary, how much time goes into your rehearsal?
“It Ain’t My Fault?” Yeah, we re-did it to raise some money for the fishermen during the BP thing. That was the first time we ever played it besides that night with Mos Def. Mos Def re-recorded that song together with Lenny Kravitz so we all know the material. We rehearsed a little bit. It wasn’t really a [formal] rehearsal, since we know the music already. We just ran through it just so we all know what arrangement we were going to do. But it was just great to be there with all types of different musicians, different genres. You know, just playing with them and learning some things. I was very happy to be there.
Of all the moments during the Carnegie Hall show, I thought that one showed the diversity of the New Orleans music scene.
Yeah, it all came together with the whole community. It was like a dream come true. Myself and Lenny are great friends and great men, too and I’m a big, big fan of Mos Def.
After that show you went to New Jersey’s Meadowlands to play “The National Anthem” during a playoff football game. What was that experience like?
Yeah, it was great. I was supposed to just go up there to do the benefit because I was supposed to be off the road right now. I was supposed to go up there to do the Preservation Hall thing and I couldn’t pass up that opportunity to play at Carnegie Hall. And then they were like, “Ok, well we have another thing for you that’s coming together.” And it was that “National Anthem” at half-time for the Giants game. I’m like, “If you want me to come do it, “I’m flying my band up.”
It was a great experience. To be able to play in front of New York, in front of all those people on national television and just do what we do. It was great and I was very honored and blessed to be able to have the opportunity to do it. It’s New York, what can we say?
Speaking of your band, during the past few years Orleans Avenue has really come into its own. When I first heard of you, you were a sideman for Lenny and playing around New Orleans as an auxiliary musician. Can you give us a little background on how your group first came together? I know you have actually led your own band since you were a kid.
I’ve been a band leader since I was seven. But in New Orleans some people become journeymen. We just play with everybody and then focus on something later on in life. You know, I just want to play music so it doesn’t matter if I’m marching up and down New Orleans. Whatever it may be I’ll play anyway. In 1999, I went to New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. I come from a brass band community so we didn’t really have guitars and bass. We had tubas and single drums, a bass drum and snare drum. So when I got to the school and started to put together my own band I was very influenced by my brother and he had older musicians that played with him. So I wanted to just be like him.
When I got to NOCCA, I was already using A-List musicians in New Orleans who were older musicians around town. I had gigs because of my brother—he would give me some shows when he couldn’t do it, and I was developing my own name at the time. I would hire different musicians every weekend to play with me.
But [with that gig] we would have to play standards or whatever—standard New Orleans funk music. So when I got to NOCCA I picked the best five or six people in the class and asked them to join my band. They were just coming from learning. They weren’t really playing gigs like I was doing so I got with them and started putting together these bands and shows.
And then I told them that we got an offer the next day to play at the Maple Leaf Ball. But we were really just jammin’. We had no idea, but it’s been a while. But it’s been great because I was happy to be in a situation with other younger musicians that was challenging me—we challenged each other.
You mentioned that for many years you were a journeyman, playing with different bands and different musicians. In many ways, 2010’s Backatown is what turned you from a journeyman into a solo artist who happens to come from New Orleans. When it came to time to record its follow up, 2011’s For True, do you hope to pick up where the last album left off or showcase a completely different approach?
I knew I wanted to work with Ben [Ellman] from Galactic because I’ve been a big fan of those guys for a long time. We’re family. I always felt that Galactic understood how to make records and also keep the live aspect of their show. That might be the hardest thing for us to try to capture—our live energy on the record, which I don’t really think you can really do. But you can get close. And I doubt there was better person than Galactic to help us out.
So we got with Ben and did the record in New Orleans, so everybody could stay home. The album is always done first and, whenever I write songs, I always leave space if I want to take another solo or if somebody else wants to solo. I invited Lenny and Jeff Beck and different people in there and they just filled it up and joined our band for that one song.
Did they actually record their parts studio with you? Or do you do it while you’re around the world?
Lenny played with us in the studio on this last record—on the bass. He happened to be in New Orleans. We just sent in some files to everybody else because we were traveling and they were traveling and they would email it back to us. I mean, technology…I could record an album or idea right now in this time.
Given that you are on the road so much, did you write this album in the studio or while you were on tour?
Both. I was writing on my computer—I got a little MIDI keyboarding thing. We’ll write on the computer, and we’ll play it live. But by the time we get to the studio it’s a different set of lyrics. Sometimes we’ll make a song up on the spot, and I’ll freestyle the lyrics and remember them the next night and it becomes a regular thing. And then when we get in the studio we redo it because the lyrics may be a little elementary. Live it is a party atmosphere. So we’ll go back and do the lyrics over.
We also do some writing at the soundcheck jam, just some ideas. We record it and go from there. We even write on the airplane. I’ll take my computer, put something down and send it back three or four rows to my bass player. He’ll put something in and send it back to me.
You mentioned that Jeff Beck is on the album. I know that he’s become kind of a mentor to you. How did you guys first meet?
He came to my show in New Orleans during JazzFest two years ago. It’s 2 AM, I get there, and I walk into my dressing room and there’s Nicholas Cage, Tim Robbins and Jeff Beck. I was like, “Am I in the wrong place?” He’s friends with a friend of mine in New Orleans and they told him to come to the show and he hung out for a while. Then he invited me to do some things with him. I did a Les Paul tribute with him. And then we went to Europe and opened up for him in the UK. And then he came back to Jazz Fest and we’ve been just keeping in contact. Great guy.
Did he give you any advice that you’ve taken particularly to heart?
I mean, just listening to him on stage is inspiring. He told me to go in and be honest with what you came here to do, which is music. He said, “Don’t worry about nothing else. Continue to improve your craft.”
It’s a blessing, you know. For them to even know who I am and come to the show and hang out for five, six hours is just cool. It let us know that our work is reaching people.
You mentioned that your brother is a big influence on your music and you had originally started by playing with his band. Does he still play music professionally?
Yeah, yeah. Today is his birthday. He’s 43 today—I talked to him. Actually, before we left to go to New York, I played a gig with him. And I hadn’t played with him—played a full show with him—in years. It was cool and just taking me back to my roots. He’s still playing, he always shows up whenever we play in New Orleans. He’ll just show up on the stage with his trumpet. And he wants to battle me to let me know he’s still the big brother. His band is called James Andrews and the Crescent City All Stars.
Do they still play a lot of standards?
They do a lot of their music and they might do one or two songs. But he put out a new record and they got a lot of original stuff. It is a cool band: Dr. John plays with them sometimes and Walter “Wolfman” Washington has sat in. The lineup changes a bit every once in a while. He’ll add some special guests. It’s funky now.
Obviously you literally grew up playing JazzFest and some other local New Orleans festivals but you’ve now become a staple on the international festival circuit. What was the first of the major US festivals you played besides JazzFest when you led your own band?
When I was playing with my brother, we were doing all types of festivals—Montreal Jazz Festivals and stuff. I was like ten, nine, maybe 14 or 15 years old. I don’t know. I’ve done hundreds of them now. We did the Bonnaroo. We did the Playboy Jazz Festival. About every one you could think about. I’m lost!
In terms of your new album, being that the last album reached so many listeners outside of New Orleans and even outside the traditional, jazz/funk world, did you try to include some songs that would bring in listeners who normally listen to over types of music?
The only thing I knew was that we’ve been on the road for a year and I wanted to grow as a musician and songwriter. I think the way we present the New Orleans music—our interpretation of it—makes it a bit easier for people to understand because it’s so close to whatever else they’re listening to. Then when we get into some other New Orleans stuff it’s cool because sometimes New Orleans music in certain cases don’t really translate on a record. So I wanted to be able to just think about how can I make this New Orleans but still keep it to where if someone had never heard of us before and just heard our song on the radio that they will become a fan and then see us live.
So I wanted to be able to keep our live show people that’s been following us before we put out records [happy], and I also wanted to be able to reach people in the standard music industry.
Your showmanship is definitely a great way to draw in new people. You’re not just playing the horns and singing, you’re out there running the stage and engaging the crowd.
Well, I’ll tell you what; I would be pretty bored with myself if I was just playing. I think I got bored a long time ago just playing all day. And my brother’s an entertainer and he’s a big crowd person. But I got bored some years ago. I was like, “This is boring. This can’t be the normal out there—it has to be redundant for them.” So for me it became redundant. I wanted to become an entertainer.
At one point I wouldn’t even speak on the mic I was so shy. But just watching my brother work the crowd and watching James Brown I learned how to be an entertainer. I really opened up just watching Lenny and being able to see that live. I just wanted to make it a show because sometimes you get some horn players and they think playing all them millions of notes that the people can’t really understand…But if you present it in a different way they can react to it. If every song is instrumental then they don’t understand.
Coming from New Orleans we’re just about dance music, having fun and really I have to give a lot of credit to my brother. He’s an entertainer. He got that from my grandfather, Jessie Hill. So it was just passed down. And I was just trying to imitate him and over the time I’ve developed my own things and started studying James Brown and Prince and all those people.
Have you played with Prince before?
About a month ago—right before Thanksgiving—he called me to go to studio. So I went in the studio and got a chance to work with Prince of all people. I was like, “Wow.” So check it out. In the studio, limo picks me up, Maceo’s (Parker) in the limo, and we go over to the studio. And it’s just me, Prince, the engineer, Maceo and a girl that he’s working with on some music named Paisley Park. That was a great way to end the year and start the year. It was fun. And I’m like, “Wow, it’s Prince!”
Myself and Maceo, after the session, we were in the grocery store until 3 AM just going “wow.” It was a dream come true.
Do you plan to promote your new studio album with a traditional tour?
Well, we’re going to continue to promote the record. And we’re going to continue to play. Actually, I just got a call from my manager today saying that we have hundreds of offers that we have to accept or pass. So I don’t know what’s in the stack but I just like to play. So I don’t really have anything planned besides just get back out there and touring and writing new music and trying it out. In that position, something like the Prince thing that wasn’t planned, he just called. You know, Jeff Beck wasn’t really planned.
Sometimes just doing things and getting into different music circuits you meet different people, you get turned on to people. But other than that I’m just excited to be able to do that. My band and I are very blessed to be able to go from Jam Cruise to Playboy Jazz Festival to Montreal. It’s just a beautiful thing so we have nothing planned so far.
I’m not thinking up anything yet but the music will just take us there. It’s a blessing. As long as they want us to come we’ll play and present the new music, our interpretation of New Orleans music and draw more people to the city.
