To order any of these CD's, or listen to sample clips, simply click on the CD.
(All links have clips you can listen to (except for "Mother's Call")

    Mother's Call, recorded in 1993, was my first "light reflective" business card. I had formed a band in New Orleans, as a vehicle for my original compositions, which I had written during my hippie-vagrant-migrant worker-come-what-may moment in my life. It actually became quite a good local band. Even to this day, I get requests to reform it. You can't buy the CD though, it's well out of print. I do have some cassettes left though, that I'll let go at a very reasonable price. If you are interested, just shoot me an e-mail.

Cadence Magazine
August 1994
    It’s not surprising that this all too rare example of fusion that works comes from New Orleans where jazz began as fusion. But like that primordial fusion and unlike almost everything that goes under that name now, Rick Trolsen’s music is fusion without formulas. This music grows from that musical experience of the leader and his ensemble mates. That experience as expressed so eloquently here encompasses acid rock and big bands, Latin, Boogaloo and modal jazz. Trolsen melds these together into charts that, while evoking their influences, in the end stand on their own. This is very much an ensemble datefully scored, tightly played, yet with the looseness you'd expect from New Orleans. Highly recommended to those looking for proof that fusing pop-styles and jazz can work.                                David Dupont

The band did so well that we were invited to 3 consecutive appearances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, quite an accomplishment for a bunch of white boys from out of town playing "fusion." And let me tell you, the crowds loved us! So we recorded another CD, Martian Circus Waltz, as is written in the review, with an extreme amount of Zappa influence.

CMJ Magazine
October 1996

The spirit and inspiration of the late Frances Vincent Zappa continues to rain down upon the planet, showering the sphere in the warm dewy wetness of his creativity and genius. Clearly caught in the downpour without an umbrella, overcoat, hat or galoshes is the New Orleans group, Neslort, a heady jazz-funk-whatever-you-make-of-it ensemble that recalls the mustachioed Mr. Zappa’s humorous operatic art-rock phase of the late 70’s. Mixing fink and jazz with a liberal dose of pleasantly sarcastic humor, the band displays a lot of what in the 70’s would have been called “chops” intricate horn chars followed by stretched out jams featuring plenty of all out blowing. And most importantly, as the band plays it’s impressive and innovative music, it does so without a whiff of pretense.
                                                                                                        James Lien

      For 20 years, Rick Trolsen’s trombone has turned up in dozens of local settings: Aboard the Delta Queen Steamboat. Funking up the New Orleans Nightcrawlers brass band and the Bonerama trombone collective. Fronting Trolsen’s own jazz-rock project, Neslort. Backing Al Belletto, Harry Connick Jr., Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and dozens more.
    In 2001, Trolsen journeyed to Brazil with the Nightcrawlers. There he was smitten with choro music, and indigenous fusion of European melodies and Brazilian rhythms related to bossa nova. The following year, he and his wife returned to Brazil for a longer visit, and he collected choro sheet music and CD’s. Back home he immersed himself in the material.
    Last September, Trolsen again traveled to Brazil, this time to record his tribute to the country’s traditional music. He and a band of Brazilians spent four days in a Rio De Janeiro studio recording “Gringo Do Choro,” Trolsen’s new CD. An astute student, Trolsen communicates his respect for the choro form via his democratic interaction with the Rio pick-up band throughout a program of Brazilian standards, augmented by two Trolsen originals.
    In the sprightly opener, “Tico Tico no Fuba,” he steps back to give the other players, especially mandolist, Henry Lentino, their turns. In “Saxophone porque choras,” Trolsen defers to Guilherme Maravilhas’ accordion, then locks into the percussive groove of his own “Medicine Lodge.” His nimble trombone slides under and around the acoustic guitars and mandolin of “Abracando Jacare,” then is featured against the backdrop of Clare Fischer’s bossa nova “Pensativa.”
     Like New Orleans, Brazil is a melting pot of musical cultures, it’s Spanish tinge intermingled with African and Caribbean influences. Trolsen and his visiting trombone are right at home in this mix.

New Orleans Lullaby

    After living in New Orleans for some 24 years, I decided it was time for me to record some "New Orleans" music. When I first arrived in New Orleans, I was pretty green behind the ears, fresh out of Berklee College of Music, all I had on my mind was progressive music. My interests in playing New Orleans music were nominal at best. Obviously though, a trombonist doesn't pay the bills in New Orleans without doing it. Over the years, I have played on steamboats cruising up and down the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee rivers, on Bourbon St. and the French Quarter, even traveled to Europe, Japan, and Brazil playing this music, but never had I paid tribute to my "bread and butter" music. It's a music I have loved since my early childhood when my mother sat at the piano playing "The Basin St. Blues." 

Offbeat Magazine April 2006
Geraldine Wyckoff

    In a town where musicians move freely between styles, Rick Trolsen still stands out for his genre jumps. Back in the mid-1990s, the trombonist’s explorations took him to the fringes of jazz when he headed his unorthodox group Neslort that produced the curiously wonderful Martian Circus Waltz. In 2004, Trolsen expressed his immersion into Brazilian choro music on his fine release, Gringo do Choro. This time, he’s all about New Orleans and tradition with a sweet tribute to his adopted hometown on an album full of classic jazz standards. The constant through all of these endeavors is the quality of Trolsen’s musicianship and the sensitivity and honesty he brings to each project.
    He chooses artists to be by his side who share his talents and values. On New Orleans Lullaby, Trolsen and the band with pianist Tom McDermott or Frederick Sanders, bassist James Singleton or bassist/sousaphonist Matt Perrine, drummer Ronnie Magri and banjoist Larry Scala offer excellent versions of songs that fill this city’s air. It starts with the rich tones of Trolsen’s trombone mournfully alone ‘singing’ “What a Wonderful World.” The band jumps in with Tom McDermott on the piano for “Blue Turning Grey Over You” with Trolsen chiming in on vocals. McDermott seems to be called in when Trolsen aims for a classic sound, as on “Creole Love Song.” Here the trombone takes on the part typically played on clarinet or soprano saxophone.
    Having the ‘bone as the only horn makes this traditional jazz gathering tonally unique and opens up new ways to approach old chestnuts. At points, Trolsen really goes for the high end of the register, almost emulating a trumpet on “Sleepy Time Down South.” Frederick Sanders gets onboard here and for other swinging numbers like “Give Me a Kiss To Build a Dream On.” The sousaphone and banjo team up for the uplifting “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” and the always articulate James Singleton gets some slapping bass going on “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”
    New Orleans Lullaby satisfies on many levels because it’s damn good music played by damn good musicians. As the song says, “You can’t ask for anything more.”

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