Download - Downbeat

No Guts,
No Glory
Brash Brassman Trombone Shorty’s
Experimental Attitude Yields Major Payoffs
By Jennifer Odell " Photography by Jimmy and Dena Katz
Most Sundays in New Orleans, the streets of one neighborhood
give themselves up to the bamboula-based
rhythms, brassy improvised melodies and gravitydefying
dance moves that define a second line. As the
multi-generational social aid and pleasure club roves
jubilantly from block to block, its dancers leap onto sign posts or
hurl themselves on the pavement, experimenting with the possibilities
afforded by strutting their stuff at various altitudes while a brass
band improvises over a mix of jazzed-up traditional hymns, soul
jams and hip-hop hits. From the music to the dance moves to the
parade route, the more inventive the improvisation, the better.
24 DOWNBEAT DECEMBER 2011