Every genre has an artist that is once in a lifetime. Those that are born with a performance and artistic ability like none before. For pop, it was Michael Jackson. For soul, it was Aretha Franklin. For hard-edged jazz with rock dynamics and brass-band beats, it’s none other than Trombone Shorty.

Known for bridging the gap between old and new sounds, Trombone Shorty got his start at an age far earlier than most. With his very first appearance before an audience at the young age of four, he performed at Jazz Fest with Bo Diddley. Advancing in his craft with unmatched aptitude, he was leading his own brass band at the age of six. It was in his teenage years that his life would ultimately take off when Lenny Kravitz hired him to join the band he assembled for his Electric Church World Tour.

Winning his first Grammy Award in 2022 for his work as a featured artist on Jon Batiste’s We Are, New York Magazine wrote that “Trombone Shorty takes in a century-plus worth of sounds—ragtime and jazz and gospel and soul and R&B and hip-hop—and attacks everything he plays with festive fervor.”

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New York Magazine Quote