So tonight I spent most of the nght engrossed in Linwood Barclay;s new book Never Look Away almost half way through and it’s tough to put down! Newspaper reporter David Harwood, his wife Jan and son Ethan are all set to spend a nice family day at the local amusement park Five Mountains. Soon after entering the park David leaves hiswife and son to go get ice cream, Jan looks way for a few minutes and looks back and the stroller and Ethan are gone – frantically Jan and David search the park David finds his son but returning to where Jan was supposed to be Jan is gone – soon David is on a more frantic search for his wife and nothing in his life is going to be the same! I need to write this fast so I can get back to the action!
While I was reading, I thought I’d listen to a little jazz blues mix from Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and his CD Backatown. What I got was a stylistic gumbo that Andrews calls “supafunkrock” a mix of jazz, rock, R&B and hip-hop. Andrews is a multi-instrumentalist who can play just about any instrument he can get his hands on. He typically plays trombone, trumpet and piano and sings! On the album Lenny Kravitz, Marc Broussard and The March are each featured on a track. Since the album is different than what I expected I think it may take a few more listens to know how I feel about the album. I do know I like the opening track “Hurricane Season” along with the title track “Backatown”, “Neph” and “Suburbia”. It certainly isn’t the type of album that I would normally listen to but the music is infectious and fun, which is how Shorty wants his music to be! From an article appearing in Living Blues Shorty says:
“Coming From Treme, music is dance music and it’s about fun, so that’s all I wanted to do.” And that’s what he has done! So check him out!
After watching this video of Shorty and Orleans Ave performing “Backatown” I think live must be the way to experience his music!