Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Like a Melody in My Head

It can be hard to earn street cred when you’re a 4-year-old playing a trombone twice your size. That doesn’t seem to have been a problem for Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, now a twentysomething “so ready for his close-up,” as the New York Times puts it. In fact, his Grammy-nominated album, Backatown, references his historic Tremé neighborhood and blends old-school New Orleans jazz with streetwise hip-hop beats. Alternating trombone and trumpet with smooth vocals in a style he’s dubbed “supafunkrock,” Shorty and his band, Orleans Avenue, kick-start the fall season of Kingdom County Productions on Thursday. Mississippi blues singer Eden Brent opens.