“Parking Lot Symphony” (PDF) from the Trombone Shorty album, Parking Lot Symphony.

A benefit to having a nickname like “Trombone Shorty” is that you don’t have to constantly remind people that you play the trombone, it’s already in the name.  But then you grow up and become not-so-shorty, for which you have to refer back to that photo alongside Bo Diddley to prove that you’ve been playing the horn for your entire life.  And as Trombone Shorty’s songwriting evolves, perhaps it becomes a necessity to insert brief interludes of music to reassure the audience that indeed he does actually play the trombone.

Within the eight-bar passage built around a ii-V7-I-VI7 chord progression, Shorty relies on the use of the 9ths and 6ths of the chords, suspended over the shifting harmonies, to resolve the melodic tension onto the arriving chord.  The return to the vocal chorus then includes a response from the horns, and I’ll admit that my harmonic transcription of this section is merely a guess.  What chords do you hear underneath the chorus melody?

Here’s a YouTube video of the promotional trailer for the album, Parking Lot Symphony.

Recommended reading: Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews.  Published by Abrams Books for Young Readers.