A biography for Trombone Shortyhasn’t been written yet.
“Whenever we can, we try to talk to students. If I can, I'll invite kids from a school to a sound check and take questions from them. I want to show them it's cool to play the trombone. Kids are influenced by what's accessible to them. It's hard for kids to be introduced to music other than what they see on TV and video.”
“I was nurtured to play music pretty much from birth.”
“I've had a strong will power to become one of the best. And I'm not gonna let nothing stop me from going to my dream.”
“There's a lot of music at my fingertips that I can be influenced by. And just because I play a horn, I don't need to sound, or try to capture, what was happening before me. I can just respect it and learn from it.”
“It's very important to me that I at least know the history of the music.”
“I may be taking a different approach, being a guy leading a band with a trombone, but if you take that out of it and put in a guitar or keyboard, it would be considered funk-rock music.”
“I've dreamed a lot of things and a lot of them have come true. The Grammy nomination was the last thing on my list before I had to write a new one. So I'm working on a new one.”
“All New Orleans music is based off dance music, even jazz.”
“I always dreamed of playing a show with Bono and Edge and the guys in Green Day.”
“Everything is a learning experience for me.”
“I just don't like looking at the crowd and seeing them just staring and listening to the music. When I get them involved, whatever type of music I'm playing, they leave there feeling better.”
“If people aren't dancing, we're not doing our job.”
“It was just music all day... My neighbors were musicians, and my brother and my family and everybody... It was just a musical neighborhood. I think the neighborhood was such a good family type of vibe for me that I didn't even realize some of the people weren't my real family till later on in life.”
“If I have to be considered any type of jazz artist, it would be New Orleans jazz because New Orleans jazz never forgot that jazz is dance music and jazz is fun. I'm more influenced by that style of jazz than anything else.”
“I just want to spearhead and lead a new style of New Orleans music.”
“Everyone who hears our music loves it, but how many people get to hear it?”
“Everywhere I go around the world, we have fans of New Orleans. Sometimes we go places, and people don't really know who we are, but they know New Orleans, and once we say we are from New Orleans, we have a lot of supporters.”
“I love to play. That's always been my passion.”
“Music brings unity.”
“Rock guitar is one of my favourite sounds.”