Photo Credit: Steve Rapport
New Orleans stalwart/bassist George Porter Jr. has released a new collection of instrumental music with his revered quartet, Runnin’ Pardners, titled Porter’s Pocket. The funk-fueled entry permeates eight tracks and represents a return to form for the bandleader, given the sans-lyrics approach, which allows him and his band to produce a range of musical styles: Crescent City street beats, swing, and stripped-down blues.
With 77 years of experience backing the set, Porter Jr. packs a punch with interludes of divine instrumentation designed to propel his skillset and his bandmates: keyboardist Michael Lemmler (Jubilation, TriFunctA), drummer Terrence Houston (The Funky Meters, Toubab Krewe), and newest member Chris Adkins (Raphael Saadiq, Mark Broussard) on guitar.
Known for his weekly Monday concerts at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans [which began in 2015], Porter says of the LP title, “A lot of the foundations of these songs were drum and bass pockets we made up on stage at our Monday night Maple Leaf shows that we went back and revisited in the studio.”
Joe Kalb, the group’s sound engineer, assisted in producing the album and preserving a live feel akin to their Maple Leaf performances. He says, “We put the band all together in the studio and had them cut it live, only a few takes per song, no charts. They just talked down the tunes and then cut it.”
Like so much of Porter’s work, the album serves as a nod to New Orleans and the city that shaped the music and the band, given inclusions like LP opener, initial single, “Tito’s Dumpling Machine,” which serves like a ‘60s era Meters outtake. The brass band sounding “See Me? See Me? See Me?” gets electric before the palm breeze swing leans into reggae on “Sauce on The Side.”
Porter helped found The Meters in ‘65 with Art Neville, Leo Nocentelli and Joseph Zigaboo Modeliste and helped pave the way for other funk favorites and New Orleans talent, assisting in the band’s peak commercial success and arrival on the R&B chart and the Billboard Hot 100, via 1969’s pocket-heavy, “Cissy Strut.”
Porter is considered New Orleans music royalty and one of the city’s most well-respected players. In 2023, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, further cementing his reputable status.
Stream Porter’s Pocket below.
