Trombone Shorty is actually sort of tall. And he’s as likely to captivate with his trumpet as with his namesake instrument. But when Troy Andrews (his real name) was just 5 years old, already playing trombone in second-line parades in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, his older brother James, a trumpeter of deep local influence and widespread renown, shouted out the nickname. It stuck.
Mr. Andrews absorbed Tremé’s storied tradition of instrumental prowess and showmanship from his brother, and from local heroes with their own memorable nicknames, such as “Tuba Fats” and “Frog.” Now, at 24, he plays himself in David Simon’s HBO series “Treme”—necessary casting, considering his centrality to the musical milieu that drives Mr. Simon’s narrative. He’s also the latest prodigy to bust beyond that scene. He calls the sound of his Orleans Avenue band “supafunkrock,” a statement of hybridized stylistic intent and singular branding.
Trumpeter Christian Scott’s sound is often soft and rounded, washed in breath, his music marked by notes that dart, curl or break apart into silence. Yet his song’s titles—consider “Jenacide: The Inevitable Rise and Fall of the Bloodless Revolution”—reveal bold statements about harsh truths. Three years Mr. Andrews’s senior, Mr. Scott grew up in New Orleans’s Upper Ninth Ward, in a household bound to another strand of New Orleans indigenous culture. His grandfather, Donald Harrison Sr., was a Big Chief in Mardi Gras Indian culture, expressing themes of African-American identity, personal independence and community cohesion through elaborate suits of feathers and beads, inscrutable chants and hand-drummed rhythms. Mr. Scott’s uncle, Donald Harrison Jr., also a Big Chief, is better known outside New Orleans as an alto saxophonist, a former member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and a standard-bearing jazz musician of his generation.
Mr. Scott’s music sounds nothing like that of Mr. Andrews, yet it, too, both leans upon and departs from its nurturing source. “I could have been the next ‘New Orleans trumpeter,’ playing in a certain style,” he said over dinner in New Orleans recently. “That appeared to be my destiny. But my family raised me to create my own path, to figure it out for myself.”
Destiny through lineage also seemed to be Mr. Andrews’s storyline. His grandfather, Jessie Hill, penned a seminal R&B hit, “Ooh Poo Pah Doo”; more than a dozen musicians from the Andrews family currently play in leading New Orleans bands. Even in a city full of precocious young talents, Mr. Andrews was unusual. By age 7, he was touring in his brother’s band; by 9, he led his own group. “I remember hearing him play with the Olympia Brass Band,” said James Andrews. “He was maybe 12 years old. He’d already proven himself on trombone, learned tuba, and now he was playing trumpet. Really playing. Something special was going on.” By such reckoning, Mr. Scott came late to the trumpet, at 11. By 13, he was playing in Mr. Harrison’s band; he can be heard at 16 playing with distinction on Mr. Harrison’s “Paradise Found.”
Mr. Andrews spent a lengthy stint with pop star Lenny Kravitz, an experience he says taught him “the discipline of playing a song straight, down to the smallest detail.” Mr. Scott attended Berklee College of Music and, more recently, worked with pianist McCoy Tyner, with whom he explored ideas of “harmonic forecasting” and “superimposition of textures.” Each has crossed the often-forbidding divide separating jazz from hip-hop: Mr. Scott has collaborated with rapper Mos Def and the hip-hop group X-Clan; the rapper Mystikal performed during Mr. Andrews’s set at this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
With their latest CDs, Messrs. Andrews and Scott capture exciting moments of creative realization and careers in ascent. Taking traditional New Orleans culture as a starting point, each pursues a fresh path connected to but divergent from the established roads of jazz, funk, R&B and rock. Both honor their roots with statements that sound entirely new.