About Trombone Shorty
Troy Andrews , also known by the stage name Trombone Shorty, is a musician, most notably a trombone player, from New Orleans, Louisiana. His music fuses rock, pop, jazz, funk, and hip hop.
Andrews was one of seven children of James Andrews Jr. and Lois Andrews. He was born in and grew up in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, where was he was exposed to jazz, R&B and music-related traditions such as second line parades. Andrews is the younger brother of trumpeter and bandleader James Andrews III and the grandson of singer and songwriter Jessie Hill. His great-uncle Walter "Papoose" Nelson played with Fats Domino. Andrews's mother Lois Nelson Andrews was a regular grand marshal of jazz funerals and second-line parades in New Orleans, where she routinely encouraged young musicians and was known as the "Mother of Music" and "Queen of the Tremé". Andrews's father James Andrews Jr., a member of the Bayou Steppers Social Aid & Pleasure Club, frequently invited musician friends to visit their home. Other musical family members include cousins Glen David Andrews and the late Travis "Trumpet Black" Hill.
Andrews's brother Darnell, also a talented trombone player, was shot and killed in 1995. Following that tragedy, Trombone Shorty was left in the care of his manager and friend, Susan Lovejoy Scott, who acted in loco parentis, managing and mentoring Andrews as a young musician.
At the age of four, Andrews started playing a trombone given to him by his brother James "because the family already had a trumpet player". In 1990, Bo Diddley heard the four-year-old Andrews playing and invited him on stage at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He participated in brass band parades as a child, becoming a band leader by the age of six. In his teens, he was a member of the Stooges Brass Band. Andrews's parents opened a nightclub in Tremé called Trombone Shorty's, where he would play on occasion as a child, as well as a jam space for musicians called "The Space". Andrews attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts along with fellow musician Jon Batiste. Since his youth, Andrews has been mentored by Cyril Neville, whom he calls "a second father". Andrews graduated in 2004 from Warren Easton High School.
In 2005, Andrews was a featured member of Lenny Kravitz's horn section in a world tour that shared billing with acts including Aerosmith. Andrews was part of the New Orleans Social Club, a group formed after Hurricane Katrina to record a benefit album. He was featured guest on "Hey Troy, Your Mama's Calling You," a tribute to "Hey Leroy, Your Mama's Calling You" a Latin jazz song by the Jimmy Castor Bunch in 1966.
Andrews is interviewed on screen and appears in performance footage in the 2005 documentary film Make It Funky!, released in 2005, which presents a history of the music of New Orleans and its influence on rhythm and blues, rock music, funk and jazz. In the film, he performed with Kermit Ruffins and Irvin Mayfield on "Skokiaan", and was a guest performer with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band on "My Feet Can't Fail Me Now" as well as a guest performer with Big Sam's Funky Nation on "Bah Duey Duey".
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