Trombone Shorty: The Musical Sponge From New Orleans

"Everything here is music," Troy Andrews drawls in a rich, creamy New Orleans accent. "As soon as you get off the plane there's people playing in the airport; as soon as you get down to the inner city there's kids practicing at the bus stop on their instruments, and then you get down to Bourbon Street there's that type of music playing, and then there's also Frenchmen Street where you can find people playing on the street... Music is the heartbeat of this city and there's not a day that music doesn't happen in this town."

Trombone Shorty and his band Orleans Avenue are heading Down Under for Bluesfest, bringing with them their funkalicious fusion of jazz, R&B, rock and hip hop. A child prodigy, Andrews has been performing and touring since the age of six, and at only 31 he's whipped up an impressive list of accolades - from topping Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Chart for 12 weeks with 2011's For True, performing on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Conan and more, performing and touring with everyone from RHCP to Madonna, Macklemore and BB King, to multiple performances at the White House.

 "Music is the heartbeat of this city and there's not a day that music doesn't happen in this town."

It all boils down to the city he grew up in and the musicality of his family. "You know, it's such a magical city... People in New Orleans, we play music from the soul and for the soul. It's always a party here.

"My brother James Andrews put a trombone in my hand and I just started to play. I travelled all over the world by his side - he would take me to Europe every summer and took me to every gig that I was able to play with him when it was appropriate and I wasn't in school or something," he reminisces. "We'd play Europe and play all the festivals and my uncle was my chaperone, he'd play with toys and stuff with me until it was time for us to play the actual show!"

From his first experience as a band leader at six and touring worldwide with Lenny Kravitz as a teenager, Andrews has been like a sponge for information, insisting that he absorbs from every musician he's ever played with. "It's this unspoken tradition that we got in New Orleans. I had a lot of great musicians in my neighbourhood, like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who got back home from touring and saw that I was interested and they would come and speak with me and teach me some things. When they'd get back off tour in the city they'd come over to see if I'd been practicing that, and when I had they'd show me some new stuff.

"And every artist I get with, whether it's a rapper or a pop artist or a country singer, I'm always asking questions, watching their show multiple nights just to see what type of riff affected the audience without sayin' a word. The way they perform, the way they walk on stage, the way they end their songs, and I always take a lot of notes from that and learn from each and every one of them... And in some way, their influence sticks with me and comes out in my music naturally."