JJ Grey & MOFRO - Wednesday 11.26.2008
w/ Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
Like Florida’s state flower, the orange blossom, musician JJ Grey’s songs are fascinating, beautiful, and complex. Both are products of the same ground: the rich, fertile and ancient soil of the Sunshine State. Born and raised just outside of Jacksonville, Florida, Grey comes from a long tradition of Southern musical storytellers and, like the best of the great Southern writers, he fills his songs with details that are at once vivid and personal, political and universal. His multi-textured music overflows with dynamic rhythms and thought-provoking lyrics. From raw funk to deep soul, blues and rock, JJ and his band Mofro deliver devastating live and recorded performances. Debuting in 2001 with BLACKWATER , following up in 2004 with LOCHLOOSA (both albums reissued by Alligator in 2007), Grey steadily built an intensely loyal following. In 2007, with his first Alligator release, COUNTRY GHETTO, Grey reached an even larger audience, doubling both his album sales and his concert attendance. Now, with his new album, ORANGE BLOSSOMS, JJ Grey takes another giant step forward.

ORANGE BLOSSOMS, produced by long-time cohort Dan Prothero and Grey, was recorded in north Florida and boasts some of Grey’s most profound and moving music to date. The album features 12 songs (including 11 Grey originals) inspired by Grey’s life experiences and visionary observations. With long-time friend and guitarist Daryl Hance, bassist/organist Adam Scone, drummer Anthony Cole, and the Hercules Horns of saxophonist Art Edmaiston and trumpeter Dennis Marion, Grey moves effortlessly from gospel-tent fervor to Southern-fried rockers to deeply emotional soul. ORANGE BLOSSOMS is a groove-driven masterpiece fueled by JJ’s gritty, smoldering vocals and intense, funk-infused guitar and keyboard work. JJ Grey’s songs blend front porch realism with the best musical and literary traditions of the South. Whether it is a narrative passed down to him from his grandmother or the tribulations of a childhood friend, Grey’s ear for detail rings through in true storytelling fashion. His voice delivers with an unflinching strength that makes the personal universal and paints a vivid portrait of an exact time or place. Like his songs, Grey’s rich, soulful vocals are forceful and commanding, seemingly wise and experienced beyond his years. Grey's songwriting influences are widespread. "I listen to people who tell the story," he says, naming Muddy Waters, Stevie Wonder, Tony Joe White, Jerry Reed, Otis Redding, Dr. John, Sly & The Family Stone, Van Morrison, Bill Withers and Dan Penn. What these writers and performers have in common is a love for simplicity and the ability to evoke complex emotions with a minimal number of words and notes. As a performer, Grey is influenced by the sexually charged blues of Howlin' Wolf, the country soul of George Jones, the hard funk of James Brown, and the smooth R&B of Donny Hathaway, as well as local personalities like street preachers and radio disc jockeys of his youth.

For the Girls’ third full-length—the follow-up to 2006’s Talk to La Bomb, which SPIN called "multicultural, cosmopolitan, intellectual dance music: Ibiza meets punk, dub goes tango, trance gets smart." — singer Sabina Sciubba says she, keyboardist Didi Gutman and drummer Aaron Johnston (bassist Jesse Murphy is on hiatus from the group) wanted to slow down their process. "The pace of recording on our last album was really frenetic," Sciubba explains. "And we never wanna do the same thing twice. So for this one we decided to really take our time with the writing and recording. We all calmed down a little bit, and we didn’t rush anything."

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Every once in a blue moon along comes someone who can merge the forces of virtuosity and exuberance and unleash them on an unsuspecting public. The latest in this exclusive line of blue moon arrivals is Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews. Andrews plays trombone and trumpet. He is a man to be reckoned with on both. A product of New Orleans' culturally rich Treme neighborhood, Andrews was a bandleader by the age of 6. While Andrews was navigating New Orleans as a youngster with his band in tow, he was also absorbing lessons at the knee of his older brother James, a dynamic musical performer known as "Satchmo of the Ghetto." It is safe to say that by the time Andrews hit his early teens, he had a PhD in the ways of the streets, which you can still hear in his music. But he has also grown into a performer emanating elegance and class; gleaned from his successful studies at the prestigious New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA). As a graduate he joined the ranks of other grads like Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., and Nicholas Payton. In 2005, Andrews was tapped by Lenny Kravitz to be a featured member of his horn section for a world tour. A tour that shared billing with acts such as Aerosmith. In London, during the summer of 2006, Andrews began working with producer Bob Ezrin and U2 at Abbey Road Studios. This association led to Andrews performing with U2 and Green Day during the re-opening spectacular of the New Orleans Superdome for the NFL's Monday Night Football pre-game show. The show aired live on ESPN and was broadcast internationally by Westwood One. To wrap up 2006, Andrews made his acting debut on the NBC television series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Leading a group of New Orleans musicians, his musical performance of the holiday classic "O Holy Night" drew such an enthusiastic response from viewers that NBC released the single for free download on their web site. Kicking off 2007, New Orleans' premier music magazine, Offbeat, named Andrews their Performer of the Year. He also garnered honors as Best Contemporary Jazz Performer. The here and now finds Andrews a fully developed performer locked, loaded and bursting into international consciousness. His current project is Orleans Avenue, a funk/pop/hip-hop mix populated with musicians like Andrews who are young in age only. Orleans Avenue brings the heat winding audiences up in merry confusion. Jazz fans shake their heads in unexpected delight while the funksters shake what they got with glee. Things reach a fever pitch as Andrews starts his circular breathing-one note sustained in pristine beauty while the band vamps on a second line beat and sax player James Martin dances so ugly it's funky. Virtuosity and exuberance, Orleans Avenue effortlessly combines both. With Mike Ballard on bass, James Martin on tenor sax, Pete Murano on guitar, Joey Peebles on drums, and Charlie Smith ..boards, their performances transcend the boundaries of generations and classification. Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue is high energy, high octane and highly contagious.

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Band Information
JJ Grey & MOFRO
JJ Grey - vocals, guitar, harmonica, keyboards
Daryl Hance - guitar
Adam Scone - organ
Art Edmaiston - saxophone
Dennis Marion - trumpet
Anthony Cole - drums

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews - trombone
Michael Balllard - bass
James Martin - saxophone
Pete Murano - guitar
Dwayne Williams - percussion
Joey Peebles - drums