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

Trombone Shorty’s fifth major-label album, Lifted, was officially released on the opening day of the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the first since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. His performance brought the two-weekend festival to a close in the early evening of Mothers Day - a fitting tribute to the album’s cover photo of his late mother, Lois Nelson Andrews, holding up the shorty musician at a second-line parade.

There is another parade photo of Lois Nelson Andrews from the 90s that contrasts that sentiment of the Lifted album cover with the bleak reality of gun violence in this country - a grieving mother dancing atop of the casket of her child, Darnell “D-Boy” Andrews. The photo sparked controversy, according to Matt Sakakeeny’s book Roll With It, as her actions were seen at that time as “undignified” and breaking with the traditions of a more-“proper” appearance of Black culture - albeit through the trauma of daily life within American society.

But as the “Queen of Tremé,” Lois Nelson Andrews proved to strengthen and support her community through her charity and work with Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs. The daughter of singer Jessie Hill and mother to such brass band giants as James and Troy Andrews, she fostered a community space for young musicians to practice and develop their craft, according to her obituary from the NOLA Jazz & Heritage Foundation. If there were a single figure who created the greatest impact from uplifting New Orleans music over the past 40 years, it could arguably be Lois Nelson Andrews.

Here is a YouTube video from WWOZ of Lois Nelson Andrews’ memorial parade:

Recommended reading: Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans by Matt Sakakeeny. Published by Duke University Press.