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trombone shorty
Lenny opened his eyes to a lot.” Andrews returned with a new focus and
applied it to Orleans Avenue. Percussionist Dwayne “Big D” Williams
believes that touring with Kravitz put everything into place for Andrews.
“After he went on tour, came back and started playin’ this music, we were
like, ‘Whoa, you took a chance,’” says Williams, who grew up banging on
makeshift instruments with his neighbor, Troy. “His chance paid off.”
Musicans whom Andrews had emulated since childhood noticed the
change, too. As Rebirth Brass Band bass drum stalwart Keith Frazier
points out, “When you’re a kid, you wanna rush and do a whole lot all at
once. As he gets older, he’s hearing how to take his time.”
The Rebirth Brass Band provides the foundation for “Buckjump” on
For True. On the increasingly rare occasions when Andrews and Rebirth
find themselves sharing a second line, Frazier says Shorty’s creative choices
are more careful now than they once were. Still, he says, Andrews is
“technically astute” enough to take plenty of risks with his music.
“When you’re in a brass band playing on the street, you can do a lot of
stuff you wouldn’t do on a stage,” says Frazier, tracing Andrews’ development
back to his parade experience. “You can experiment a little. There’s
a lot of improvisation going on, a lot of call-and-response. You really have
no idea what they’re going to play [on the street], so you’re taking the
chance that it’s gonna come off.”
In the afternoon quiet of Tipitina’s, Andrews pauses at the top of the
stairs to the club’s second level. The worn patches and missing tiles of
a floor roughed up by decades of dancing lend the space an air of a cozy
neighborhood barroom before its regulars trickle in. He looks at the stage,
now eerily awash in a few rays of 3 o’clock sunlight.
“Man, one thing I have learned is that every place in New Orleans
looks different during the day,” he says, prophetically.
Three days later, that same lovingly bruised floor is invisible, bearing
the weight of nearly 1,000 fans. The only light pouring in from outside on
Tchoupitoulas Street comes from four rotating searchlights. As the diverse
crowd chatters in front of the dark stage, a skronking scramble of intentionally
mismatched power chords announces that Orleans Avenue has
arrived. Dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, Andrews takes center
stage with a trombone in one sinewy arm and a trumpet in the other.
Without a word, he gets to work, shaking milliseconds of vibrato into
a hard-hitting trombone attack, as guitarist Pete Murano and bassist Mike
Ballard keep things firmly rooted in rock. Almost immediately, the floor
seems to pulse with ricocheting hips and a flurry of feet. Andrews’ swagger
energizes a mix of head-spinning unison horn lines while the band
gracefully rolls into tune after tune. Melodies and bass lines merge as the
band kicks into a booming rendition of “Buckjump,” complete with local
bounce artist 5th Ward Weebie’s teasing, breathy staccato rhymes.
Delving into the Backatown material, Andrews punctuates “Hurricane
Song” with numerous bars of circular breathing, a reliable trick that intesifies
the fans’ dancing frenzy. For more than two hours, Andrews seamlessly
shifts from trombone to trumpet solos, leading the band through
instrumental funk jams replete with long percussion breakdowns. The forays
into neo-soul show off his syrupy vocals.
At a recent New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest performance, Andrews’
originals had been complemented by a rock-meets-traditional rendition of
“On The Sunny Side Of The Street.” Tonight’s gig is more focused. It has
the feel of a show that could appeal to arenas, TV audiences, festivals and
rock clubs. The fact that jazz only comprises part of the menu is a nonissue
for Andrews.
“We get a lot of flak from certain people that say we’re not keepin’ the
tradition alive,” he acknowledges. “That’s not our responsibility. Louis
Armstrong and Miles Davis sounded very different even during those
times. We get a lot of young musicians that get caught up into trying to
re-create what those people have done, not knowing that the people who
made that music were always trying to move it forward. I think that’s part
of the thing that hurt the jazz community. Because people just started
recycling after a while.”
Andrews and his bandmates know that certain audiences will always
tag them as a jazz group because the bandleader wields two horns. “My
rhythm section might be laying power chords, but I’m still playing influences
of jazz on top of it. But it’s just music. One thing I’ve noticed is that
the whole world will never be my audience.”
If misperceptions about Andrews’ music exist, they’re likely to fuel
new ideas rather than cause him to rethink previous ones.
“You can’t worry about it,” he says. “You just gotta do it.” DB
30 DOWNBEAT DECEMBER 2011