Trombone Shorty Returns to The Egg on September 1st

Trombone Shorty said last year at The Egg he wanted to play here more often. Here’s the pay-off: He returns Friday, September 1, back to The Egg.

In New Orleans, the trombonist, trumpeter, singer and bandleader is THE voice of hometown horn-powered soulful funk. Here, he’s dynamite wherever he plays: 2012 at Mountain Jam, 2014 at The Egg, 2015 at Upstate Concert Hall, 2019 at Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival, then back at The Egg last year. His multi-act Voodoo Threauxdown has become a summer tour staple as warmly welcomed as the Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Wheels of Soul.

First time I saw him play at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, everybody wanted to play with him. His set on the Congo Square stage resounded with hot-riff guests in a fun funk parade: horn-honking brass band stars, sideman from the Neville Brothers.

The Nevilles now retired (elders Art and Charles deceased), Trombone Shorty plays Jazz Fest’s most honored slot – the last set on the last day on the BIG stage; the same top slot he played in Saratoga.

Backstage at The Egg in 2014, I congratulated him on playing Jazz Fest’s primo set. With real modesty and clear view of what this honor means, he said, “I feel like I’m still auditioning for it!” 

Those honors keep coming. At the Sesame Street Gala, his image became a Muppet. He earned the Coretta Scott King Award and the Randolph Caldecott Medal for his autobiographical children’s book “Trombone Shorty.” He even has his own Mardi Gras parade. Giving back, his Trombone Shorty Foundation supports youth music education.

A precocious Jazz Fest star guesting with Bo Diddley at four, Trombone Shorty trained in brass bands in his New Orleans Treme neighborhood, toured in Lenny Kravitz’s band before he left his teens, and has fronted Orleans Avenue onstage and on record ever since.

The band has grown over the years into a high-powered unit with two each of drums, guitars and horns – three, counting Shorty himself – plus keyboard, bass, and vocals. As Mike Stampalia reported here last year, “They took the stage in dramatic fashion – all 10 of them – with the slow buildup of ‘Laveau Dirge No. 1′ lasting perhaps only a minute before launching into the frenzied ‘Buckjump’. From there, it was simply a non-stop party for the next 90 minutes.”

Trombone Shorty gets around on his namesake instrument as capably as any jazz master. Tough or tender, he brings it for real, and he’s equally impressive playing trumpet. His rotary-breathing trick – inhaling through his nose while exhaling, with force and fire, through his mouth, though the horn – allows him to hold a note for what feels like days. His first album – “Trombone Shorty Meets Lionel Ferbos: Two Trumpets, Two Eras” (2005) – features him playing trumpet.

He’s a soulful singer as well, but perhaps his greatest skill is choosing and leading a band so it sounds like one instrument.

His latest album, “Lifted” reaches both back and forward with happy echoes of gleeful Mardi Gras street parades, pure pop invention, jazzy jolts, and hip-hop high energy. It also combines the fire of live performance with technical perfectionism more convincingly than its six predecessors.

“The whole time we were making ‘Lifted,’ I couldn’t help but think about how much fun it would be to get onstage and play it for an audience,” Trombone Shorty said in his website bio. 

“I think this is the closest we’ve ever gotten to bottling up the live show and putting it on a record,” he explained. “Normally, when I’m in the studio, I’m trying to make the cleanest thing I can, but this time around, I told everybody to really cut loose, to perform like they were onstage at a festival.”

Like they’re at The Egg.

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue play Friday, Sept. 1 at The Egg (Empire State Plaza, Albany). 8 p.m. $89.50, $69.50, $49.50. 518-473-1845 www.theegg.org.