Keeping the flame alive – Trombone Shorty celebrates funk, nods to The Meters

When Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews was picked to replace The Neville Brothers as the final act on the main stage of the 2013 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, it was both a tribute and a gamble. He would be replacing New Orleans’ premier purveyors of funkified R&B, who had closed out Jazz Fest every year for two straight decades before announcing their retirement in January 2013.

Whoever took their place would be inheriting lofty expectations as Jazz Fest’s signature act, representing both heritage and consistency. That’s one heckuva lot of responsibility to lay on the tall, slim frame of an emerging star still in his mid-20s, with only two major-label releases on his relatively short résumé.

On the other hand, Trombone Shorty is in no way your typical up-and-coming young talent. Schooled on the musical back streets of New Orleans, Shorty acquired his formal music education at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts before touring for two years with pop star Lenny Kravitz.

With uncommon wisdom and genuine humility, Shorty has so far exceeded every expectation of those watching his professional success, electrifying stages around the world—including at the White House—while earning a couple of Grammys, twice landing in the upper stratosphere of the sales charts, and drawing rave reviews from jazz, rock and pop critics.

On his current release, Say That to Say This, Shorty confidently takes an evolutionary step forward, with tracks that are sharply focused and directly tied to New Orleans’ modern R&B heritage. In Shorty’s own words, the resulting music is “like James Brown funk mixed with New Orleans’ Meters and Neville Brothers, with what I do on top.”

Best of all, the centerpiece of Say That to Say This is a cover version of “Be My Lady,” a standout track from 1977’s New Directions, the Meters’ eighth and final album, that also features the full band performing with Shorty.

Musical precursors to The Neville Brothers, The Meters are generally recognized as having forged the signature New Orleans funk sound before disbanding in discord right after finishing New Directions.

“Since breaking up, they’ve only played together onstage a handful of times, and never in the studio,” Shorty recounts. “So I called each band member personally, and in every case, there was this moment of silence on the other end of the phone when I told them what I wanted to do. But all of them said, ‘If the rest of the guys are up for it, I am, too.’ So I called everybody back to tell them it was on.

“And once we got in the studio, at the end of a take, they spontaneously started jamming together. You could see a sparkle in each of their eyes at the amazing music they could still make together. After we were done cutting their track, (bassist) George Porter pulled me aside and said, ‘Thank you. You got us to do something that other people have been trying to get us to do for 35 years.’ For me, it was truly a magical moment I’ll remember all my life because in New Orleans, The Meters are like the Beatles.”

That may be true, but it’s also true that right now there’s no one quite like hometown hero Trombone Shorty, keeping the post-Katrina New Orleans funk flame burning bright, with miles of promise stretching out ahead of him. tromboneshorty.com

About his February 2012 appearance at the White House for a PBS tribute to the blues, Shorty says: “That was a dream come true about 50 times over. When we started playing, I forgot I was at the White House because I was on stage with all this musical royalty—B.B. King, Mick Jagger, and the list goes on. But when I turned to the audience, there’s the President and the First Lady. I’m like, ‘This can’t be happening.'”