Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews was a child prodigy who began playing the trombone at the age of four, a discarded trombone that was twice as long as he was tall. By age six he was leading his own money-earning band, and by ten he was a bona fide touring musician. Today, at 30 years old, he is a Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist, playing not only trombone, but trumpet, drums, organ and tuba with his current band, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue.
Andrews credits his singer-songwriter grandfather, Jessie Hill, and his bandleader brother, James Andrews, as significant influences. Of his brother James—also a trumpeter—he often asserts, “He taught me everything I know.” Young “Shawty” performed with many heavy hitters, including Bo Diddley, Wynton Marsalis, and Wycliffe Gordon; he learned much about the craft of making music through their mentorship. Over the years, however, Andrews has blazed a distinctive path in the jazz world, fusing elements of modern rock…
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When I met my husband—who I usually refer to online as the Transboy—I was a teen who’d only recently come out. A few months before, I had, as my best friend describes it, been so deep in the closet I was in Narnia. And with that depth of denial came a lot of homophobic thoughts, some of which, I’m sad to say, became words. When I met the Transboy, I was still shaking out of that, the hangover of my own self-loathing. I now recognize the self-hating place my homophobia had come from, but the habit, the instinct to make jokes every time I remembered I was falling in love with a boy with a female body, trailed me.
Adapting a book by Walter Dean Myers – award-winning children’s book creator and former national ambassador for young people’s literature – is a tough job. Monster, his acclaimed novel, won the first ever Michael L. Printz Award and countless other honors. But Guy A. Sims is used to challenges. In 1990, he, his brother Dawud Anyabwile and Brian McGee debuted 
