'The Craziest Things' and 'Dumaine Street' showcase Shorty's and Orleans Avenue's collective ability to create locking, complementary grooves they play funky second-line rhythms countered by a jazz horn chart and improv in an R&B tune on the former, and a marching stepper on the latter. “Do to Me” has a melody constructed around Shorty's smoking bone solo and a knife-edged guitar solo from Jeff Beck. The title track, one of the album's brief musical interludes, features Shorty's solo with a killer trumpet break.

'Encore' (written with Motown's Lamont Dozier) showcases some of Shorty's B-3 and soulful vocal skills, as Warren Haynes lends his trademark guitar sound. NOLA's Weebie chants in tandem with the break-heavy rhythm track. The Rebirth Brass Band guest and play a big funky horn chart as Shorty's big trombone solo greases the skids. “Buckjump” is the first clue that this is part two - it could have been the closing track on Backatown. Though Shorty handles some tracks playing all the instruments himself, or with a guest or two, OA bear the lion's share with gravitas. They are tighter, even more confident, and perhaps even more adventurous here. In addition to trombone, Shorty plays trumpet, organ, piano, drums, synths, and, of course, sings. It's production is crisper, but the musical diversity more pushes further. Chock-full of cameos it is an extension, but sonically different. For True hits while Backatown is climbing again. Entering at number one on the jazz charts, it stayed there for nine straight weeks, and was in the Top Ten for over six months. He finally signed to Verve Forecast and released Backatown in April of 2010. He took his time, assembling, rehearsing, and touring Orleans Avenue, a band steeped in brass band history, jazz improv, funk, soul, rock, and hip hop. Hounded for years by friends and music business types to jump into the game, he understood the lessons of his lineage elders: too many had been been ripped off and discarded.

New Orleans' Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews knows the music biz inside out.

Troy trombone shorty andrews