Stage Talk with Rick Koster

Where every show has something to say.

 

For most of the world, knowledge of the musical history and seductive harmonic charm of the brass instrument called “the trombone” can be boiled down to this:

Seventy-six of them led the big parade.

Yeah, well all we need is one.

As in Trombone Shorty, who brings his band Orleans Avenue to the Garde for a 7:30 p.m. performance on Thursday, Nov. 13.

Y’see, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews is from New Orleans, the city that invented jazz, where kids grow up playing in brass bands as a joyous rite of passage. Walk down any French Quarter street – or in Treme or the 9th Ward – and you’ll see Young Persons playing trumpets and tubas and … trombones.

Can a kid even carry a trombone at the age of four? Shorty did – onto his hometown Jazz Fest stage to sit in with Bo Diddley. He had his own second-line band at six, released his first album as leader when he was sixteen – and has since, in determinedly and happy fashion, seduced the ears of the world.

Now 39, Shorty & Orleans Avenue have released numerous chart-topping albums of Music as Exclamation Point – blues, funk, rock, soul, urban and R&B all deconstructed and caramelized in heretofore unimagined fashion.

A partial resume: Grammy and Blues Music Award citations, international headlining tours and appearances at the Coachella, Bonnaroo, the Newport Folk and Jazz festivals; television and film appearances, and guest work with U2, Jeff Beck, Lenny Kravitz, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pharrell, Bruno Mars, Foo Fighters, Zac Brown and more.

As for New Orleans’ beloved Jazz Fest, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue are now the annual closing act – picking up the mantle for the late, great Neville Brothers. There’s no higher praise.

The evening is sponsored by the Cornish Family, whose spokesman, Rod Cornish, owns Charley’s Place and The Local Art Gallery. A frequent visitor to New Orleans, Cornish recently met Trombone Shorty when both were standing in line to eat at the city’s legendary Dookie Chase restaurant.

“Shorty was just very gracious and the nicest guy in the world,” Cornish remembers. “When I heard he was coming to the Garde and Jeanne Sigel asked about sponsorship, I was all over the opportunity! It’s a world-class show and it’s amazing that we get to see it right here in New London.”

Oh, and in similarly charitable fashion, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue are proud to include the Memphis family band Southern Avenue on this tour. With the hometown pride of the New Orleans headliners, Southern Avenue celebrates Memphis’s rousing musical sorcery with a distinct nod to the present and future.

WARNING: Do not plan to spend much time sitting at this concert. It’s just not possible.