Trombone Shorty Quotes

In New Orleans, people are still influenced by one another. You got these bands that play every week on Frenchmen Street, and on their breaks, they might go see the reggae band that's right next door. You might get the musicians from the reggae band to sit in with the brass musicians. Everyone is having fun.

But an innovation, to grow organically from within, has to be based on an intact tradition, so our idea is to bring together musicians who represent all these traditions, in workshops, festivals, and concerts, to see how we can connect with each other in music.

The Batiste family is a large musical family in Louisiana, out in New Orleans. People go to New Orleans, and if they go to any club, four days out of the week I guarantee you that you will find a Batiste playing in the ensemble.

I find Indian music very funky. I mean it's very soulful, with their own kind of blues. But it's the only other school on the planet that develops improvisation to the high degree that you find in jazz music. So we have a lot of common ground.

Many cities make music, but no city breathes music quite like Memphis. The songs and sounds that come from here are uniquely American.

I am part of an age-old profession of musicianship. I believe these times require grounding, real-ness and fun. Let's do it. Whatever happens is all good.

I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridised.

The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.

You'll find little schools of musicians experimenting with different ways of making music in Brooklyn, all through Manhattan, in Queens, in Jersey, you know? The city is still bubbling with creativity.

Guys like me and Ray Charles, when we was coming up through our days, country music and soul music was just a very thin line between the two.

My roots and Victor's are jazz, basically, but these two young fellows that we have with us come out of rock bands. And they're tremendously exciting players.

Originally, we had a band known as Steely Dan. As we moved away from the band, we got whoever was appropriate for specific tunes. In a lot of cases, we gravitated toward jazz players who had more sophisticated harmonic concepts.

Orchestras are like people. They're the sonic embodiment of their community.

Truth of the matter is, jazz is American music. And that doesn't mean bebop. Jazz is really about improvising. All the music that's been created in America has been pretty much improvised... Whether it's hillbilly or rock n' roll for blues, it's basically jazz music... It's basically about another way of hearing what comes out of America.

In the neighborhood that I grew up in - in New York on Long Island - there were a lot of musicians. For some reason, that time in history in our town in New York, everybody played. So it was all around me.

The only thing we try and do is just be a part of the gumbo that New Orleans is.

New Orleans is like my blood; it's not going anywhere. And then I just take different things that I've learned over the years and add them to what I'm doing with the natural New Orleans sound.

I always look for the weirdest note to land on. I felt that that was the least I could do for the great musical traditions which I've spawned.

We grew up with musicians coming over jamming. We had tons of instruments. So holidays were always like, 50 people would come over, and there would be a jam session with everyone playing jazz.

I never started out as an R&B singer. I grew up on all types of music - jazz, rock, pop, country, folk - and I wanted to bring that to my stage.

People don't play music in New Orleans for the reasons they do in Nashville or L.A. - to become stars or to get rich - they play because they've got to. It's in the streets, in their family, in their blood.

There was a lot of freedom, so bands in those days did not have to play for the public. They played for club owners that enjoyed music. You know, what happened - there was a lot of clubs that had bebop music or different forms of music. It was great for musicians.

My father being a theatre person used to compose music for his plays. He noticed me singing one of his compositions at a young age and he was amazed. From then on, he taught me the little things that he knew about music.

I listen to many forms of music. And I come from a very particular style and tradition of music, which has certain elements that are absolutely unique and, therefore, important to the world.

Everybody in Lynyrd Skynyrd loves different styles of music, and our minds are very open when it comes to writing our songs and making the band true to what the band is, but also stepping out and doing something current.