“Trombone Shorty will change your life“.
That’s what a 60-something woman from Las Vegas told me as she and her husband sat next to me drinking while slowly revolving at New Orleans famed Carousel Bar. (Carousel Bar, located in the historic Monteleone Hotel, is circular and rotates around the bartenders at a rate of one revolution every 15 minutes.)
She and her husband had seen Trombone Shorty the night before at the NOLA House of Blues and said she couldn’t stop telling people about what a remarkable performer he was. I had seen the show advertised and considered going but ultimately decided against it since I was only getting into town a couple hours before. Now I was kicking myself for missing the opportunity.
I had first heard of Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews when Bono gave him a shout out during the joint U2/Green Day performance at halftime of the reopening of the Superdome after Katrina. Just 20 years old at the time, Shorty was already a household name in New Orleans and was rapidly gaining a reputation internationally, touring with Lenny Kravitz.
After leaving Carousel Bar, my friend and traveling companion Amanda and I ventured down to Frenchmen Street. Frenchmen is a few blocks up river from the French Quarter and is about three blocks of bars and music clubs where dozens of bands and singers perform every night. They say it’s like Bourbon Street was back in the 1960s. Lots of traditional New Orleans jazz, R&B and yes, even some rock.
If you’re looking for live music on Bourbon Street these days, with a few notable exceptions, you’re probably going to get get a cover band that seemingly plays “Play that Funky Music, White Boy” approximately every 20 minutes.
Despite this being my fourth trip to New Orleans, I had never been to Frenchmen Street. How to choose which of the many clubs to visit? Since I was not familiar with any of the bands playing that evening, I based my decision on which club seemed to have the best beer selection. You can’t beat logic like that. A little time on the Internet told me it was a place called D.B.A. and performing that night, was the Glen David Andrews band. During their first set, Glen blew the roof off the dump. How could things get even better?
After they reattached the roof, Glen emerged for a second set and after a couple of songs announced, “We have a special guest tonight. My first cousin Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews”. Wha wha wha?”
Together with his cousin Glen, the two of them burned the place to the f’n ground. (between that and the blown off roof, D.B.A was going to have quite the insurance claim.) it was an amazing show, but did he change my life, like he did to the woman from Las Vegas? Well, both he and Glen made me friends for life that night. So, you could definitely say that was life-changing.
After the show, Amanda and I walked out the front door only to have Shorty walk out right behind us. We told him how much we enjoyed the show and even got him to pose with John Jordan’s Stay Puft Marshmallow Man figurine which we had stolen off of his desk and took photos of all over New Orleans.
Amanda was wearing some kind of Saints’ scarf around her neck. Shorty asked if she was a “Who dat?“ She said she was just for the night because the team had been playing earlier that evening and, “you know, when in Rome, yada yada yada” but that she was raised a Bears fan. (God, you think you know a person!) The next thing you know, the two of them are reenacting the Saturday Night Live Super Fans sketch about Polish sausages, Da Bears and mini-Ditkas. After getting him to agree with me that, the Bears still suck“ he said he had to go.
And where did he go? To The Spotted Cat, the club directly across the street. We followed him in to the place, no more than 15 seconds behind him. Shorty was already on stage blowing the roof off another dump. You’d think that for a city that has so many hurricanes they would find a way to keep their roofs better fastened.
I would see him again about 16 months later at New Orleans Jazz Fest where he and his band, Orleans Avenue, seemingly changed the lives of tens of thousands of fans who turned up for their electrifying set.
Check out a couple of clips of Shorty and the band in action. The first, performing Nirvana‘s In Bloom, accompanied by, who else but Dave Grohl. The second from their appearance on Jimmy Kimmel just last week.
