February 2017 - Turn it Up: Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
The Lensic proudly presents New Orleans icon Trombone Shorty and his jazz/funk/rock/hip-hop band Orleans Avenue, on Friday, March 3, 2017, at 7:30 pm. Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue have toured the world, performing with legendary artists like Lenny Kravtiz and Hall & Oates. The group has also performed for President Obama and made appearances on television shows such as The Late Show with David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Conan. In 2017, they will tour with funk-rock band The Red Hot Chili Peppers, taking a break to visit the Southwest and bring their infectious grooves to Santa Fe.
New Orleans native Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews began his career as a bandleader at the tender age of six and toured internationally for the first time at age 12, before joining Lenny Kravitz's horn section at the age of 19 for a world tour. He is the bandleader and frontman of Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, a hard-edged funk band that employs hip-hop beats, rock dynamics, and improvisation in a jazz tradition.
His third album for Verve Records, Say That To Say This, co-produced by Shorty and R&B titan Raphael Saadiq, was released in September 2013. In 2010, Trombone Shorty released the Grammy-nominated Backatown, followed in 2011 by the album For True, which topped Billboard Magazine's Contemporary Jazz Chart for 12 weeks.
In January 2014, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue performed on the 56th Annual Grammy Awards with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Mary Lambert, Madonna, and Queen Latifah, and the band has made guest appearances on Conan, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Arsenio, and at Austin City Limits.
Shorty also played himself in a recurring role on the hit HBO series Treme. In 2012, he performed at the White House in honor of Black History Month with music royalty such as B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, Booker T. Jones, Susan Tedeschi, and Derek Trucks, and Gary Clark Jr. Later that same year, he received the President's Medal from Tulane University in recognition of his charitable work with his own Trombone Shorty Foundation, which preserves the unique musical culture of New Orleans by passing down its traditions to future generations of musicians. Tickets start at $39 (Lensic.org or TicketsSantaFe.org).