On my first of many trips to New Orleans, now nearly ten years ago, I was hurrying through the French Quarter, late for a lunch meeting with my sister-in-law, and initially didn’t notice the kid playing for tips in the hotel doorway. I hustled past, then stopped in my tracks. What stunned me even more than the kid’s virtuosity was the incongruity of his material—a movement from one of Bach’s suites for unaccompanied cello, its complex line jumping between registers to imply a contrapuntal duet from a single voice, being sung fluidly, effortlessly on an improbable instrument—a trombone. This small black kid with a horn seemed to be channeling Yo Yo Ma. I joined the group on the sidewalk, listening intently, exploding into applause when he hit the final note. Over the next 15 minutes the kid, who looked all of 10 years old, sliced and jabbed the trombone through an eclectic repertoire of some of the most demanding and unlikely material one might ever hear from that instrument. From Bach he moved to John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” blowing masterfully through what may be the toughest chord changes ever written to solo over. Then “Cissy Strut,” the classic by New Orleans funk pioneers, The Meters; some Gershwin; and then ending with “Saints Go Marching In,” reinvented as a cosmic-comic funk tune.

The kid played this range of material with such dexterity, with such swinging, funky command of not just the instrument but also very disparate musical genres. I was blown away, yes, but even more, I was baffled. This was a trombone. Most places on

earth the trombone and those who aspire to master its physical demands are the butt of jokes (”what’s the difference between a trombone and a musician?” How many trombonists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”). But here in the Crescent City, I was beginning to sense, its masters were regarded as holy men.

I listened for a few more moments, tossed a $5 bill in the kid’s open trombone case and hustled off to my lunch meeting. I described the busker I’d encountered to my sister-in-law. A cellist with the New Orleans symphony, and first-call freelancer when major touring acts needed a string section here—over the years she’s backed Stevie Wonder, Aaron Neville on a PBS Christmas special and, earlier this spring, “Hip-Hop Soul Queen,” Mary J. Blige — I figured she might know this young phenom. “That had to be Trombone Shorty,” she answered. Shorty, AKA Troy Andrews, brother of noted New Orleans trumpeter James Andrews, “the Satchmo of the ghetto,” she explained, now just 12 years old was already considered by cognoscenti to be one of the 10 greatest trombonists alive. Not even a teenager yet, and already one of the greatest trombonists on the planet, playing for tips on the streets of New Orleans. I had stepped into an alternate universe.

Playing for tips on the streets, of course, is all part of the training, and in any case more lucrative than delivering papers or cutting lawns. But Shorty’s gigs those days weren’t only on the streets. By then he was hanging with the heaviest cats in the heaviest jazz and funk scene on the planet. Within a few years he’d be touring the globe as a featured soloist with rocker Lenny Kravitz, and hanging with dudes like U2’s Bono and Edge.

Shorty is no musical freak, but rather part of a hallowed line in a city that holds a special place in its heart for an instrument that seems everywhere else to be the butt of jokes. In the Crescent City these days, there seem more trombone virtuosos than one can track. They aren’t just talented sidemen, but often the band’s raison d’etre. There’s Big Sam, who left Dirty Dozen Brass Band a few years back to found the popular, hard-grooving Big Sam’s Funky Nation. The globe-trotting funk-rockers Bonerama front line consists of four mindblowingly viruosic trombonists.

I got another revelation about New Orleans at Jazz Fest two years ago when Troy joined his brother’s band on the Gentilly Stage. Their set ranged from the ferociously funky to hard swinging trad jazz. But the final number was the goofy ’60s R&B hit, “Ooo Poo Pah Doo.” Where else on earth would hip jazzbo-funksters dare take on something so corny as an oldies hit, and then serve it up with a freewheeling reverence that got the whole crowd up dancing? In New Orleans, such chestnuts are not just part of the standard repertoire, they seem embedded in the genetic code. When funksters here go retro, they’re not trying on a vintage suit that doesn’t quite fit, but rather revisiting musical paths blazed by their forbears. “Ooo Poo Pah Doo,” I later learned, was written by Jessie Hill, Troy’s grandfather.

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The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival brings Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue back to Portland this year.