“Good Company” (PDF) from the Trombone Shorty album, Lifted

In the press release for Trombone Shorty’s second album on Blue Note Records, Troy Andrews describes a different approach toward the production of Lifted:

“Usually when I make an album, I record the songs first and figure out how we’re going to present them live afterwards, but with this record I was in the studio imagining the lights flashing on the hits and the audience singing everything back to us.”

The production of his previous albums hinted at a stitched-together recording process - perhaps due to a hectic tour schedule - and targeted for licensing and commercial-spots, and then later developed into the stage show. This time - perhaps due to the COVID-19 pandemic - Lifted feels more like a fully-developed show fueled by the energy of a live audience, but also edited down for time - the entire album clocks out at thirty-six minutes. Its closing track, “Good Company,” covers a lot of musical ground within its exactly-three-minutes runtime and features a trombone solo that has been reduced to a flashy four bars. More as this story develops…

Recommended reading: Trombone Shorty by Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews. Published by Abrams Books.