Born Troy Andrews, Trombone Shorty got his start (and nickname) earlier than most: at four, he made his first appearance at Jazz Fest performing with Bo Diddley; at six, he was leading his own brass band; and by his teenage years, he was hired by Lenny Kravitz to join the band he assembled for his Electric Church World Tour. Shorty’s proven he’s more than just a horn player, though. Catch a gig, open the pages of the New York Times or Vanity Fair, flip on any late-night or morning TV show and you’ll see an undeniable star with utterly magnetic charisma, a natural born showman who can command an audience with the best of them. Since 2010, he’s released five chart topping studio albums (his most recent being 2022’s Lifted); toured with everyone from Jeff Beck to the Red Hot Chili Peppers; collaborated across genres with Pharrell, Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson, Foo Fighters, ZHU, Zac Brown, Normani, Ringo Starr, and countless more; played Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk, Newport Jazz, and nearly every other major festival; performed four times at the GRAMMY Awards, six times at the White House, on dozens of TV shows, and at the star-studded Sesame Street Gala, where he was honored with his own Muppet; launched the Trombone Shorty Foundation to support youth music education; and received the prestigious Caldecott Honor for his first children’s book. Meanwhile in New Orleans, Shorty now leads his own Mardi Gras parade atop a giant float crafted in his likeness, hosts the annual Treme Threauxdown shows that have drawn guests including Usher, Nick Jonas, Dierks Bentley, Andra Day, and Leon Bridges to sit in with his band, and has taken over the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’s hallowed final set, which has seen him closing out the internationally renowned gathering after performances by the likes of Neil Young, the Black Keys, and Kings of Leon. In addition to touring across the globe nearly year-round, Trombone Shorty has started a very special tradition: a cultural exchange trip to Cuba with his Trombone Shorty Foundation. The fourth trip of his kind will take place in January of 2025, and includes an ever-expanding group of special guests artists who join Shorty and his Foundation to host workshops and play concerts in Cuba over a 5-day period, as well as nearly 100 students. These exchange programs have previously been featured on NPR and CBS Mornings. Lifted, Trombone Shorty’s second release for Blue Note Records and 5th solo LP, was released in 2022. Recorded at Shorty’s own Buckjump Studio with producer Chris Seefried (Fitz and the Tantrums, Andra Day), the album finds the GRAMMY-nominated NOLA icon and his bandmates tapping into the raw power and exhilarating grooves of their legendary live show, channeling it all into a series of tight, explosive performances that blur the lines between funk, soul, R&B, and psychedelic rock. The writing is bold and self-assured, standing up to hard times and loss with grit and determination, and the playing is muscular to match, mixing pop gleam with hip-hop swagger and second line abandon. Wild as all that may sound, Lifted is still the work of a master craftsman, and the album’s nimble arrangements and judicious use of special guests—from Gary Clark Jr. and Lauren Daigle to the rhythm section from Shorty’s high school marching band—ultimately yields a collection that’s as refined as it is rapturous, one that balances technical virtuosity and emotional release in equal measure as it celebrates music’s primal power to bring us all together. Since the release of Lifted, Shorty and his band have made appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, TODAY and Good Morning America, and CBS Mornings. Shorty has also recently performed at the MusiCares pre-GRAMMY Awards gala, the Roots Picnic with Lil Wayne, on the instantly legendary NPR Tiny Desk featuring Juvenile, and at the White House’s 2024 Juneteenth concert. His recent 2024 summer tour featured special guest Big Boi and included a stop at the legendary Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

“This album is a celebration of everything we thought we lost,” says Trombone Shorty. “It’s a celebration of all that we’ve been through and all that we’ve learned along the way. It’s a celebration of New Orleans.” Released twenty years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Crescent City, Second Line Sunday, the new collaboration from Trombone Shorty and New Breed Brass Band, is more than just a party; it’s a reflection on culture and tradition, on family and community, on survival and resilience. The songs here are steeped in the rich history and vibrant social fabric of New Orleans, and the performances are nothing short of ecstatic, fueled by raucous horns and intoxicating rhythms. The sequencing, meanwhile, is carefully curated to transport you into the heart of the action, tracing the emotional arc of a second line parade from its swaggering start to its funky, freewheeling finish. The result is a spiritual experience as much as it is an album, a joyous cultural travelogue that showcases some of modern New Orleans’ brightest stars paying homage to the scene that raised them, while at the same time pushing it forward with their own distinctive style and sound. “We wanted to make something that could be played in the streets,” says New Breed bandleader Jenard Andrews. “That’s where we all come from, and it was important for us to honor our roots with this record.” For Trombone Shorty, those roots stretch back as far as he can remember. Born Troy Andrews, he made his first appearance at Jazz Fest at the age of four, when he took the stage for an impromptu performance with Bo Diddley. By six, Shorty was heading up his own brass band, and by his early twenties, he’d released the first in a string of critically acclaimed, chart-topping albums that would lead to performances everywhere from the White House and the Grammy Awards to MSG and the Super Bowl. Along the way, Shorty would tour with artists as diverse as Jeff Beck and the Red Hot Chili Peppers; play Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and countless other iconic festivals; earn his first Grammy Award; appear on The Tonight Show, The Late Show, Conan, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, HBO’s Treme, and even an episode of The Simpsons; and collaborate with an eclectic mix of stars including Pharrell, Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson, Jon Batiste, Lenny Kravitz, Foo Fighters, ZHU, Zac Brown, Normani, and Ringo Star. In 2011, he launched the Trombone Shorty Foundation to support youth music education, and in 2016, he received the prestigious Caldecott Honor for his first children’s book. At home in New Orleans, Shorty now leads his own Mardi Gras parade atop a giant float crafted in his likeness, hosts the annual Treme Threauxdown shows (which have drawn guests including Usher, Nick Jonas, Dierks Bentley, Andra Day, and Leon Bridges), and has taken over Jazz Fest’s hallowed final set, which has seen him closing out the internationally renowned gathering after performances by the likes of Neil Young, the Black Keys, and Kings of Leon. “Growing up, I was surrounded by this music before I could even play a note,” Shorty reflects. “I heard it and I saw it and I felt it as a kid, and it was just completely infectious.” While they represent a more recent addition to the scene, the members of New Breed Brass Band were similarly born into the music (Andrews is, in fact, Shorty’s nephew). After getting their start playing festivals and parades around New Orleans, the group began developing an eclectic, adventurous sound that fused their Louisiana roots with elements of rock, funk, soul, jazz, hip-hop, and Caribbean music. Under the mentorship of Shorty (who performs as a member of the band whenever possible), New Breed released their Grammy-nominated debut, Made In New Orleans, to widespread praise in 2023, with Offbeat raving that it “truly captures the spirit of this city’s ‘we are one’ street culture that has been vital to their lives.” The following year, New Breed took the stage at Jazz Fest ahead of the Rolling Stones, and the resulting live album led to the band’s second Grammy nomination. “We never wanted to put any limits on our sound,” says Andrews. “We wanted to step outside the box and maybe surprise some people who think they know what a brass band can do.” Between albums, New Breed continued to regularly jam at Shorty’s studio in the Lower Garden District, where the music never stops. “We’re always in there working, rehearsing, catching up, playing just for fun,” says Shorty. “We’re all fans of each other, so we’re always thinking up new ideas and bringing in stuff that moves the culture forward, which is what gets us excited.” For Second Line Sunday, though, Shorty and New Breed decided to look backwards for a change, returning to the unique sounds of the second line parades that first captured their imaginations all those years ago. “This album is dedicated to my late mother, who put me in the music in the first place,” Shorty explains. “This is the sound she lived and breathed and loved so much.” Shorty’s mother wasn’t alone in her passion for second line music, which has become not only a hallmark of the city, but also a sign of its slow and steady recovery post-Katrina. “After the storm, we didn’t know if the musicians would come back,” Shorty reflects. “We would have kept on playing this music wherever we ended up, but there’s something about it that has to happen in New Orleans for it to really click. There’s something about the people, something about the atmosphere that you just can’t replicate anywhere else.” That sense of place is palpable from the outset on Second Line Sunday, which opens with the invigorating “Line Em Up.” Evoking the “big reveal” moment at the start of a second line, when the band kicks in and the parade-goers all file out the door, the track is big and bold, announcing itself with an undeniable confidence and charisma. From there, the music makes its way through the city, delivering rapturous, relentless energy as it invites one and all to join in the revelry. The exhilarating “Good Time” delivers on its titular promise, coasting on an addictive groove that underpins its smooth, breezy vocals; the rollicking “Street Music” evolves from a straight-ahead brass band blowout into something more subtle and nuanced; and the playful “Party Pack” gets the crowd moving with euphoric percussion and chanting. “These songs really capture the essence of the streets,” says Andrews. “The crowds out there know exactly what they want, and you have to deliver.” Listeners familiar with New Orleans will no doubt recognize several stops along the way here: the tight, punchy “Tambourine and Fan” tips its cap to the Treme summer camp founded by Civil Rights activist Jerome Smith, who’s taught local kids about Black history and culture since the late ’60s; the electrifying “6th Ward” draws on rhythms particular to the neighborhood and its musical traditions; the rousing “Way Downtown” heads east over the canal thanks to an appearance from Big Chief Romeo of the 9th Ward Hunters Mardi Gras Indian tribe; and the triumphant “Under The Bridge” captures the unbridled exuberance that breaks out when any parade finally makes its way beneath the Claiborne overpass. “If you’re from here, you can start to tell what part of town a band is from just by the way they play,” Shorty explains. “It’s an intricate thing, but there are certain drum patterns that represent certain subgenres of New Orleans music, and we had some fun bringing them together on this album.” That local color carries over into the album’s final track, “End of the Line,” which finds the band cutting loose for the kind of impromptu, off-the-cuff jam that might mark the final minutes of what could easily be a four-hour parade. “By the time we finish, you can hear the sounds of everybody out in the street, of the police sirens and the DJ rolling by on a trolley playing bounce music,” explains Shorty. “We wanted it to feel like you’re right there with us.” In the end, that’s the magic of Second Line Sunday. It doesn’t bring New Orleans to the world, it brings the world to New Orleans. And when it comes to celebrations, nobody does it better.