Born Troy Andrews, Trombone Shorty got his start earlier than most: at four, he made his first appearance at Jazz Fest performing with Bo Diddley; at six, he was leading his own brass band; and by his teenage years, he was hired by Lenny Kravitz to join his Electric Church World Tour. Shorty’s proven he’s more than just a horn player, though. Catch his NAC gig, open the pages of a magazine, flip on any late-night TV show and you’ll see an undeniable star with utterly magnetic charisma, a natural-born showman who can command an audience with the best of them.

Lifted, his most recent album from 2022, finds the Grammy-nominated NOLA icon and his bandmates tapping into the raw power and exhilarating grooves of their legendary live show, channeling it all into a series of tight, explosive performances that blur the lines between funk, soul, R&B, and psychedelic rock. The writing is bold and self-assured, standing up to hard times and loss with grit and determination, and the playing is muscular to match, mixing pop gleam with hip-hop swagger and second line abandon.