Remember Katrina the Category 3 hurricane that lashed Louisiana in 2005 is all everyone from outside the Big Easy wants to know about, but it seems that New Orleans residents have put all that behind them. Just ask Trombone Shorty, the latest in a long line of musical ambassadors to emerge from the city that sits astride the Mississippi River’s muddy delta.

“It happened,” he says amicably enough, reached at a Charleston, South Carolina, tour stop. “But I don’t want to keep reminding myself of it. I don’t like to sing about it or play about it; I just want to make music and continue to let that be a positive force and not bring it down with that type of writing. Some people are great at it, but myself, personally, I just want to play and keep the music happy.”

In other words, the young man otherwise known as 25-year-old Troy Andrews has most definitely not got the blues. In fact, he’s rapturously riding the warm response his first major-label recording, Backatown, has been receiving, and he says his birthplace isn’t doing too badly, either.

“Music in New Orleans has always been the heartbeat that drives the city,” he explains. “It was that even before Katrina, and that’s what we had to rely on after the storm. Music brought a high percentage of the people back to the city, because once they couldn’t get Kermit Ruffins and the Rebirth Brass Band marching in the street, they realized that the music was a very essential part of our living there, and it’s a part of what we do.

“So music never changed its role or its importance in the city,” he adds. “It’s just gotten stronger. From the audience standpoint, people are paying attention. It takes things like that to make people realize that we have something very special, and that we shouldn’t take it for granted.”

This simple truth has been evident to Andrews, one of the headlining attractions at this year’s TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, almost since day one. Born into a talented family—his grandfather was pioneering R & B singer Jessie Hill—he grew up with music as the core of his existence. A quick Google search will turn up photographs of him at age four, playing a trombone that’s bigger than he is, and he’d turned pro by the time he was in junior high. The result of this early training—in his home, at school, and on the street—is that Andrews now combines confidence, virtuosity, star power, and humility in equal measure. Although he defers graciously to his fellow Louisiana native Wynton Marsalis—“the best trumpeter in the entire world”, he says—he’s perhaps a more well-rounded musician, especially as he is equally accomplished on both trumpet and trombone.

He’s also more adventurous. Rather than split his time between classical music and classic jazz, Andrews has incorporated the quick-spitting wordplay of hip-hop into his style, and he’s also surprisingly fond of the occasional power chord. The Neville Brothers might have worked rock guitar into their New Orleans funk, but he’s the first to make it an integral part of his approach.

“Rock guitar is one of my favourite sounds,” says Andrews, who’s toured with Lenny Kravitz and recently recorded with Eric Clapton. “I’m always trying to emulate guitar. Especially when I’m playing the trombone, that’s what I think about. Like, I listen to guitar players every day: Warren Haynes, Lenny Kravitz, Prince, different people. And I’m always trying to find out a way how I can get my trombone to sound like that. I’m influenced by that type of music heavily, and I just want to find a way to squeeze in between the power chords with my horn.”

Loud guitars play a prominent role in Backatown tracks “Suburbia” and “The Cure”, but other alien influences can be detected as well—which is one of the reasons why Andrews’s emergence is so important for New Orleans. He’s neither a preservationist nor a futurist; instead, his sound is a true product of the polyglot present.

“I’m always trying to find a way to do something different,” he stresses. “I was around a bunch of music in New Orleans, but I just wanted to find a different way to listen, just because I wanted to hear some different things. I’ve been able to play with some musicians that are not from New Orleans that have influenced me tremendously. So I can take everything that I’ve learned, everything that I hear, and in some type of way it comes out naturally in whatever I’m trying to do.

“New Orleans is like my blood; it’s not going anywhere,” he adds. “And then I just take different things that I’ve learned over the years and add them to what I’m doing with the natural New Orleans sound.”

Maybe that’s nothing new. New Orleans has always been a city where musical miscegenation has been possible, beginning with the day when the rhythms of African slaves met the melodies of Louisiana’s indigenous tribes. Add classical music and you’ve got ragtime; mix blues and Cuban music together and the result will sound a lot like early rock ’n’ roll. Andrews is just continuing that tradition—and in an especially exciting way. -

Trombone Shorty plays the Vogue Theatre on June 27.