Trombone Shorty

June 12, 2018

Trombone Shorty by Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews

Illustrated by Bryan Collier

Literary Awards: Caldecott Medal (2016), Pennsylvania Young Readers’ Choice Award Nominee for Grades K-3 (2017), Coretta Scott King Award for Illustrator (2016), NCTE Orbis Pictus Award Nominee (2016), Monarch Award Nominee (2018)

Focus: Picture Book Autobiography

About the Author

Troy Andrews grew up in the Tremé neighborhood in New Orleans. His grandfather and brother were musicians and Troy grew up wanting to be just like them. He spent his early childhood making instruments out of anything he could find, playing music with the brass bands on parade. He got his first trombone at the age of four and by the time he was six, he was leading his own band. He earned the nickname “Trombone Shorty” because his trombone was twice his size when he first started playing. The nickname stuck and it became his moniker. Troy attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and was asked to join Lenny Kravitz’s band at the age of 19. This led to performing with many other incredible musicians such as U2, B.B. King, Prince and many more over the years. Andrews formed his own band and has had the privilege of performing at many prestigious events, including performing for President Barack Obama. In 2010, he launched the Trombone Shorty Foundation and Trombone Shorty Music Academy to ensure the future of New Orleans music and culture.

Summary

Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews chronicles growing up in the Tremé neighborhood in New Orleans. He starts the story sharing his greatest inspiration, his hometown. The vivid illustrations and passion in Andrews words pull the reader in, allowing us to share in the joy of such a vibrant community.

Andrews uses the phrase “I love” repeatedly as he describes Tremé. This shows the depth of his emotion for the city that “raised him.”

The illustrator has collaged a young Troy into a scene depicting a Mardi Gras parade capturing Troy’s feelings towards the music of his hometown. 

Throughout the story, Troy continues to share aspects of his culture. He describes how his musical style was like the gumbo families in the neighborhood ate; lots of different things all thrown together to create something new. In pursuit of his passion, Troy had to be creative as instruments were not available to him and his friends. So, they made instruments from things they found on the street.

Illustrator Bran Collier explains this image by saying “The fact that Troy and his friends constructed their own makeshift instruments until they could get real ones conveyed both their strong desire to imitate the older musicians they loved and to make music themselves. So, I decided to give them crowns in my painting because early on, they were like royalty.”

After Troy gets his first real trombone, he plays every moment he can. Parading down the street one day, his brother shouts “Trombone Shorty” at him because his trombone was twice his size. This becomes his new nickname. At the biggest and best jazz festival in town, Troy plays his trombone along with Bo Diddley.  Bo Diddley stopped his set to call Troy up to the stage to play along with him. This lead to Troy  forming his first band. Troy continued to practice and play his music any chance he could get.

We see two very similar, whole page images in the book. The first is of James, Troy’s brother, playing the trumpet. The second is of Troy when he is asked by Bo Diddley to come play with him on stage. Both images resonate pivotal moments in Troy’s life.

Troy now plays with his own band called Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, after a street named in Tremé. He continues to look for ways to support younger musicians in town and help them develop his craft, just like James did for him.

Throughout the book, we see balloons floating through the air. Collier did this to represent how music was always present and floating in the air. At the end of the story, he depicts a large hot-air balloon to show how the force of Troy’s music transformed the small balloons into one large balloon; taking Troy’s music all over the world. 

Author’s Use of Language

“Speech reveals character” (Tunnell et. al, 2016 pg. 27). In Trombone Shorty, Andrews includes examples of the dialect that is specific to his community. For example, he explains that the phrase “Where Y’at?” is what they say to tell a friend hello. This phrase is repeated throughout the story.

According to Tunnell et. al, “Figurative language conveys meaning quickly and with emotional intensity” (pg 27). In one part of the story, Andrews uses  a metaphor comparing his music to the big pots of gumbo his mother would make. “We call it gumbo and that’s what I wanted my music to sound like-different styles combined to create my own musical gumbo.” As we look at the delicious smell from the gumbo pot wafting around the page, we hear the sounds of all different types of music as well. This use of language helps the reader better understand “supafunkrock” (which is what Andrews named his musical style.)

Additionally, Andrews uses a simile to help the reader visualize what a tuba in the brass band looks like. He says, “…the tuba- which rested over the musician’s head like an elephant’s trunk.” With just those few words, we can imagine what the tuba looked like and understand why such a unique instrument would impress young Troy.

Lesson Ideas

Trombone Shorty would be a great book to jumpstart exploration of the rich cultural history of New Orleans. Through use of videos, music, food, images and additional text students could synthesize information in order to identify the different aspects that make up the unique culture present in New Orleans. They could present their findings using slides. This would be a great opportunity for them to hone their research, collaboration and presentation skills.  They could then extend their learning by analyzing their own culture.

Mentor Text

One of the major themes in Trombone Shorty is that working hard and showing persistence can help dreams come true. In the author’s note, Andrews states, “I wanted to write this book to try to inspire hope in kids who might be growing up under difficult circumstances, but who also have a dream, just like I did.” I would use this book with my adolescent students in conjunction with our unit on autobiographical writing. By analyzing Troy’s choices in his book, they could create a set of criteria to use when writing their own autobiography. Some questions they could use to analyze the text are:

• What aspects of his life did Troy choose to emphasize?
• How does he highlight the people, places, and ideas that influenced his life, career, and accomplishments?
• How does the writing reflect the sensory material of his life? The sounds, sights, smells and textures of the communities that shaped his development?

This would give students an opportunity to explore significant events in their life and their dreams.

Looking Beyond the Text

In my classroom, we talk a lot about the power of grit. Many students are facing barriers that get in the way of their dreams. For some students, they see these barriers as impossible to overcome. Sharing Trombone Shorty with them would be powerful because he is a great example of someone who never stopped working for his dream. He had to show grit and be resourceful; he didn’t have a musical instrument, so he just made one! Specifically, I would highlight for students that Troy continued to pursue his dream because it was what brought him the most joy and happiness and allowed him to be himself. The journey is sometimes just as important as the destination; we don’t want to lose sight of this. I think many of my students would relate to Troy. I love that he incorporated photos of himself and additional biographic information in the author’s note. This helps my students connect more because they can see he was a real person going through some of the same things they are. This connection really helps them relate the author’s experience to their own.

Before Reading

Sometimes with stories such as Trombone Shorty, I see students focus only on the fact that the main character “made it” and is famous now. During our first read of this book, I would want to focus student’s attention on the use of pictures and text used by the author and illustrator in an attempt to bring us into Troy’s world. This would help students uncover Troy’s character and culture and appreciate who he is as a person as opposed to just focusing on what he accomplished.

Q & A

1. How are family relationships depicted?

We see how important family is to the author and how close his relationships with them are. Reading Troy’s description of his brother James leaves no doubt in my mind that his brother is his ultimate hero; someone worthy of being idolized. James even gave him his nickname which was how he became known to the world as a musician. Troy is proud of his family, and his family is proud of him. Their family appears to be based on mutual respect and love. Troy’s mother and brother know how important music is to him and do all they can to support his dream.

2. What do you notice about stereotypes?

In this story, Andrews challenges the stereotypes that usually characterize people in his neighborhood. He addresses this directly by saying “People didn’t have a lot of money in Treme, but we always had a lot of music.” Throughout the rest of the book, he highlights and shares all the things about his community that make it special and wonderful. He focuses on the joy his neighborhood brought him as opposed to sharing all the difficulties he may have faced.

3.  What attitudes are shown toward people, animals, and even the land?

It is apparent through the telling of his story that Troy believes that where we come from and the people present in our lives shapes who we are. Thus, we should embrace these things about ourselves and use them to develop ourselves into something unique. He also has the attitude that passion and persistence is necessary for achieving dreams. Since he was the age of four, Troy believed he was destined to do something special with his music. Music seems as essential to him as breathing.

References:

Tunnell,M. Jacobs, Young, T., Bryan, G. (2016). Children’s Literature, Briefly (6th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson.