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On Saturday, October 20, Trombone Shorty will host an epic party to celebrate New Orleans music, in New Orleans. Along with his band Orleans Avenue, Shorty’s been around the country on the Voodoo Threauxdown tour, bringing local all-stars on the road to the delight of nationwide audiences.
This weekend, though, it’s all about the hometown crowd. At Champions Square, Hometown Threauxdown will showcase not only the mastery of Shorty and his band but also his friends. Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, Partners-N-Crime, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, New Breed Brass Band and many more will make appearances.
Shorty visited the OffBeat offices last week to tell us why he’s particularly excited about this Threauxdown. “I was talking to Juvenile—actually, it was his idea and my idea—to do a Hometown Threauxdown. I said, ‘Maybe if I do the Hometown Threauxdown, we can have more people that’s not on tour with us.’ I just wanted to put that together and celebrate our hometown.” The show, he says, will give him an opportunity to celebrate the work he’s done with an array of New Orleans performers representing genres ranging from traditional jazz to hip-hop and hints of styles in between.
When Juvenile, Mannie Fresh and Partners-N-Crime hit the Hometown Threauxdown stage, Shorty et al will be rocking with childhood icons. “We all grew up on their music,” he says. “As we got older, we were like, ‘Man, we want to work with those guys.’ We never thought it would happen, because they’re in a different style of music. But, at the end of the day, the underlying matter is that it’s all New Orleans music.”
Incidentally, the lineup includes an act not from here: Michael Franti & Spearhead. Nevertheless, their inclusion on the bill is exemplary of Shorty’s vision for Hometown Threauxdown. “I wanted to bring in an outsider that appreciates the music as much as we do, and I thought it would be great to have Michael Franti. He loves New Orleans and people from here love him. He’s influenced by our style of music,” he says.
Considering the plethora of Threauxdowns Shorty and his team are responsible for (in addition to the Voodoo tour, there’s the annual Treme Threauxdown in his childhood neighborhood), his desire to put on an event of this magnitude to honor the city’s Tricentennial is remarkable, but that’s the quality which makes Shorty one of the world’s pre-eminent touring musicians from New Orleans. “That’s all we do is throw down, it’s all I know how to do,” he tells us. “Playing all these second lines for four hours a day in the streets of New Orleans…we just love to play music. I’ve never done anything else.”
Tickets for Trombone Shorty’s Hometown Threauxdown, presented by Q93 and Live Nation NOLA, are available here and range from $25 to $95.
