Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue bring funk/jazz sound to Billings and Missoula
Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue make two September stops in Montana: Joining Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings Sept. 10 at The Wilma in Missoula, and opening the Alberta Bair Theater’s season Sept. 11 in Billings.
Tickets are on sale now for the Billings show ($29-$50); and go on sale Friday, April 15, for the funk-a-thon double-header in Missoula ($45-$55).
New Orleans native Trombone Shorty began his career as a bandleader at the young age of 6, toured internationally at age 12, and spent his teens playing with various brass bands throughout New Orleans and touring worldwide with Lenny Kravitz.
He fronts Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, a funk/rock/jazz/hip-hop band. Together they have toured across the U.S., and to Europe, Australia, Russia, Japan and Brazil.
In 2010, Trombone Shorty released his debut album, the Grammy-nominated Backatown, followed by “For True” in 2011, which topped Billboard magazine’s Contemporary Jazz Chart for 12 weeks. His newest album, Say That to This, was released in 2013 and features funk/jazz elements inspired by New Orleans.
Trombone Shorty appeared in several episodes of HBO’s “Treme,” and has recently appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” and “Conan.” In 2012, he performed at the White House in honor of Black History Month with music royalty such as B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck and Booker T. Jones.
At this year’s Grammy Awards, he performed alongside Madonna, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and Mary Lambert. In 2012, he received the President’s Medal from Tulane University in recognition of his charitable work with the Trombone Shorty Foundation, which donates quality instruments to schools across New Orleans.
While other artists have ridden the waves of passing fads, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (appearing only at The Wilma) have bypassed the hype-and-hit superhighway and taken a detour straight to the hearts of their listeners, delivering a visceral rhythm and soul sound to an ever-expanding fan base.
The band has traveled the world for more than a decade, blowing minds with its explosive live performances and raw, handcrafted studio recordings.
The prolific survivor that she is, Jones has fully recovered from a 2013 cancer diagnosis and bounced back with one biggest years of her career in 2014 capped off by a Grammy nomination for her album, Give the People What They Want.
Tickets to the Missoula show are available online at tophatlounge.com or by phone, 877-987-6487. Sign up here for presale (10 a.m.-10 p.m. April 13): http://bit.ly/1qiexIx
For tickets to the Alberta Bair concert, go to www.albertabairtheater.org or call 406-256-6052.