Andrews’ music ‘lessons’ came from some of best

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music Critic
• Published: May 2, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05am

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Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews comes from New Orleans’ Treme neighborhood, a richly musical place prior to Hurricane Katrina.
The 22-year-old singer and multi-instrumentalist grew up around his trumpet-playing brother, James “Satchmo of the Ghetto” Andrews, the late Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen, the Rebirth Brass Band and many more New Orleans musicians, including singer-trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, a neighbor who lived just down the street.

“Those are my idols,” Andrews said recently. “I came up under all those cats and they passed it along to me. I wouldn’t be who I am today, Trombone Shorty, if I didn’t come from New Orleans. It’s something about this place, the different cultures, different food.
Things come together like a gumbo.”

Andrews and his dynamic band, Orleans Avenue, carry New Orleans music tradition forward in a big way, expanding horizons and taking the music to a worldwide audience.

Andrews shared the stage with U2 and Green Day when the New Orleans Saints returned to the Superdome following Hurricane Katrina. He also appeared in the NBC television series, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, leading a New Orleans band in a holiday performance of “O Holy Night,” and toured with rock star Lenny Kravitz for two years.

“The tour with Lenny answered every question I had about playing pop music and playing in arenas, everything that I was guessing as a teenager,” Andrews said. “Lenny took me under his wing. I call him my uncle, he calls me his nephew.”

Following his road work with Kravitz, Andrews applied lessons learned to his own band.

“My ears were trained to listening to actual parts,” he said. “There wasn’t much jamming.”

Andrews began banging on drums as a small child. His big brother, James, gave him a trombone when he just 2 years old. Andrews later taught himself to play bass, piano, trumpet and tuba.

“I had all types of instruments in the house because of my brother,” he said. “Tuba Fats actually lived with us, so I would crawl in his tuba and press on buttons and blow on the mouth piece.”

Trombone became Andrews’ favorite instrument, even though he was too small to actually hold it. He got his nickname, Trombone Shorty, at 5 or 6, and shortly thereafter became the trombone player in his brother’s band. At 8 or 9 years old Andrews was leading his own brass band in Jackson Square. He got his formal music training at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts.

Getting too busy to rely on the availability of pickup musicians, Andrews formed Orleans Avenue in 2000 while attending NOCCA.
“I was introduced to a bunch of kids who were my age and I picked the best people I could to put a combo together,” he said. “I was a bit more experienced than them, because I’d been doing it my whole life. But now the cats are killing. They’re tight, they’re beautiful.”

After working with Kravitz, U2 and the Neville Brothers, Andrews wanted his own band to have the similar impact upon a crowd.
“I want to capture an audience like that,” he said.

Andrews and Orleans Avenue recorded an in-concert CD Thursday at Tipitina’s in New Orleans. Meanwhile, they continue working on their first studio CD since 2004.