The Meters have been a New Orleans institution since their emergence on the scene in the ‘60s, and although the funk godfathers only released seven albums—with their final coming back in 1977—their music has more than stood the test of time, influencing countless artists in the ensuing years. The original quartet of Art Neville, George Porter Jr., Leo Nocentelli and Zigaboo Modeliste rarely play together—reconvening just a handful of times since their original reunion in 2000—but this year the band is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Plans include a special show at the Orpheum Theater in their native New Orleans on April 29 followed by a May 7 appearance on the final day of this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival.
George Porter Jr. is probably the most visible member of the band these days, as the bassist rarely seems to stop moving, with multiple bands and frequent superjam sit-ins popping up around the country. Here, he speaks about The Meters kicking off a big year with a special two-show appearance on Jam Cruise 15, how the original members get along these days and what might be in store for 2017 and beyond.
Can you talk about the decision for The Meters to do a 50th anniversary reunion on Jam Cruise?
I guess that the truth of the matter would be that it was Annabel Lukins—she’s been trying to get The Meters on for a few years now. If I wouldn’t have missed last year because my wife was ill, this would have been our 11th trip. So it’s just been 10 for us. She contacted each one of the members of the band individually to find out if they were interested. She had been asking Zig about doing it for several years, and he just was not excited about the boat thing. I was surprised when she called me up and told me that Zig agreed to doing it. And also I remember a couple years ago when Funky Meters did [Jam Cruise], Art said he didn’t ever want to do that again; he didn’t have a good time. But when I heard that Zig and Art both said they were gonna do it, I said, “What?! Okay!” Something I always say: Never say never.
What do you think got them on the boat? Do you think it was maybe the 50th anniversary thing?
I would think that that was probably something in the back of everybody’s mind. It is 50 years, and we should try and make something special out of this year, if nothing else. We may not see 51, so it’s not a bad idea. I was happy that they all agreed to doing it, as well as agreeing to do Jazz Fest this year as well. And then we were told a few months after we agreed to doing the Jazz Festival that we were going to be the official poster for the festival this year.
Yeah, it looks great! Can you talk about some of your sit-ins and your Jam Room experience on this year’s Jam Cruise. You were all over the place.
As much as I can get to play with Steve Kimock, I try. I just love playing with Steve. It was a no-brainer—when I knew that he was doing a Jam Room, I was definitely headed there. After my first little jam with him that was, I guess, about 45 minutes or something like that, he took a little break, and they wanted him to go back and play again, but no other bass players wanted in. So I was on my way out the door and his wife Jennifer came running, grabbed my arm and said, “Steve needs you! Come on back!” So we wound up just staying in there until 5:00 in the morning! [Laughs]
And then the night that I hosted–those nights that I do the [Jam] Room, I tend to not be as anal about others from the cruise [lineup] getting to play, to come up and jam. So there was a lot of, just, cruisers that got to come in. I don’t have anybody sitting on the side saying who’s gonna play and who isn’t. It was kind of like, “Come on and let’s see what you got!” We had a few guys that came up and kind of struggled with it, but I thought it was cool.
One of those people was Jager Soss, a 15-year-old drummer from Long Island. How did you two meet?
It was something that had to happen. Once I found out he was on the boat—his uncle came to me and told me he was there, and then maybe a couple hours later that first day, I bumped into Jager. I met him—I think it was in December—at the Capitol Theater. We played together with Brandon Niederauer. It was a performance that surrounded Brandon. I met Jager for the first time that night. I just remember him being scared to death that he was playing with me, and I walked over to him and said, “Hey, man, just have some fun! It’s just music, you know? Listen to what’s going on around you and just have some fun!” He played great that night; it was fun! And in the Jam Room he did great! There wasn’t anything planned—music was just getting thrown at him, and he was paying attention. I liked the fact that he was paying attention to the basslines I was playing, and some of the parts that I was playing he adapted to his drum part. That happens when somebody’s paying attention, not somebody who’s just banging. I thought he did really well.
I also wanted to ask the surprise renewal of vows with you and your wife during The Meters’ first set. You didn’t know about that before?
It was funny—when we arrived at the port Friday morning, Captain Toast ran up to me and he said, “So what day is the renewal of the vows supposed to happen?” and I said, “What?!” and he said, “Oh that’s somebody else! I’m sorry! Hey man, how you doing Porter?! I’ll see you later!” And he ran off! So in the back of my head, the wheels start spinning; I kind of had a feeling that my daughter had made some plans, but I didn’t know when or where it was gonna happen. And then, she called us and told us that we were doing a reception for The Meters up in this room behind the stage. So then I thought that’s when they’re gonna drop the ball on us. I was all ready for the vows thing to happen—and it didn’t! I thought maybe after Captain Toast slipped and told me about it, they might have called it off. And then for her to come up in the middle of the set—Leo knew about it! It was supposed to happen after the first song, but we played six songs in a row! [Laughs] So Leo thought that it probably went away, but nobody told me that I was supposed to stop after the first song, so I just kept on doing the transition betweens songs. At some point, we had to stop and give Zig a chance to regroup for the song he had to sing, so that’s when we stopped. That’s when Katrina—she was chilling on the stairs—she said, “I see my window, I better do it now!” And that totally did catch me as a surprise; I had no idea.
Photo by Dino Perrucci
Can you talk about what it was like having the 50th anniversary celebration on the ship and playing all the guests you did—Ivan and Cyril, the Shady Horns and Soul Rebel horns, Kamasi Washington, etc.?
Having Cyril come out and sing songs with us is always a pleasure, because there’s songs that are a part of our catalog that are truly Cyril Neville. We play those songs without him a bunch of times, because we don’t always use him. But when he does them, they have a different approach, because he is Cyril Neville, and his presentation of that music is absolutely wonderful. And the horn section, I can’t say anything but great praise for those guys. I mean, they got the setlist like three or four days before they actually got on the boat. I had a trombone player here in New Orleans, Jeff Albert, write the charts for our show at Jazz Fest last year, and we got Jeff’s horn parts and sent it to the guys. Unlike a lot of young people today that just think that music is something that they can scat at, or jam at, those four guys, they did their homework. Leo and I had a rehearsal with them on Saturday in the Jam Room, actually, and it was just Leo, myself and the four horn players. Those guys, they came ready. They had their parts—they were reading—but they knew that on that deck, if the wind got high, those papers would go away! So they got the parts, man. They paid attention, because there were things that were going on onstage during like, Leo’s solos—I would turn around and play a bassline and suggest that as a horn part, just little spot while Leo’s soloing to add something. They’d jump right on it. It was killing! I had so much fun with those guys. And then Kamasi came out and played with us on the last night. I wasn’t expecting that! That was a surprise!
You also were a part of the last-minute Grateful Dead set during the unexpected extra day at sea. How did that come about?
That was Monday, and Sunday night, when I got to my room, there was a note under the door, and the note was from Jennifer, Steve’s wife. When I got in the room, I hadn’t read the note yet, but I just looked at who it was from, and I go in the room and I check my phone, and I get a text message from Annabel saying that Jennifer is requesting me to come sing on the two Dead songs that she knows that I love. I adapted when I was playing with Bill and Papa Mali and the 7 Walkers band to “Sugaree” and “Eyes of the World,” and she asked me to sing those two songs with the group, and I said “Absolutely.” Again, that’s a no-brainer: I would get to play with Steve.
Moving on to the upcoming Jazz Fest with another Meters performance. I know there’s maybe been some bad blood surrounding these reunions in the past, but how is the relationship between the four of you these days?
I would like to say that it’s working right now. I’m not exactly sure the right way to put it. Politically correct: there’s bad blood in the organization, and it’s not a single person’s fault. And I would even insert that I have as much reason as anyone else in the band to have some reserved moments or thoughts about other members. But what that band has done over its career—or in the early years when it was a really performing band—and the fact that 50 years later, a great deal of those songs that we play are still being played by a lot of younger bands. And then there’s another 30 or 40 songs, I would say, that are being played by some of these younger groups out here that the band doesn’t even touch. I’ve been trying to get the band to play some of these other songs. I think that if this band was to actually sit down and come to an agreement to maybe do a series of shows that would highlight each one of those albums, maybe two albums a night, and just go and play entire albums—there’s seven albums total. It’s still a work in my mind, but I think that that would be great. I think that this year would be a great year to do that because, like I said, there’s so much of that music, Meter music, that has not been played by that band. I recorded an album with Runnin’ Pardners, It’s Life —I recorded 16 original Meter songs that were never performed live by the band. I didn’t sell a million records, but I sold a few thousand, and it was well-received. I think that the band should consider that. I think this year would be a good chance for them to consider playing all of that music, because I think that’s what needs to be done. All of that music needs to get played. I don’t care how small or insignificant the players think some of those songs were, or that they were just grooves—that was the idea! It was some grooves that a lot of musicians—a lot of bands across the planet—used to develop themselves.
Do you think the other guys would be up for kind of an extended run like that?
I’ve been trying to sell that since 2000! I believe that, since I released my record with those songs on it, a few of those songs have made it into the set. But just a few, just a few—maybe 3 out of the 16. But when we did that first reunion in 2000, I brought to the table 42 songs that I thought we should play, and none of those 42 songs had “Africa” or “Hey Pocky Way” or “Fire on the Bayou” or “Ain’t no Use”—none of those 42 songs were those songs. and that hit the table like bad medicine in your stomach. Needless to say, not a single one of those songs made it to the setlist. [Laughs]
Can you talk about some of the other stuff you have planned for Jazz Fest? You’re always running around everywhere during those two weeks.
The Monday in the middle is the only day I have off. And I’ve been offered, by two different buyers, but my wife looked at me with a very strange look, and I just said, “No.” [Laughs] I’m gonna stay home that night and look at television. But there’s gonna be some nice collaborations during Jazz Fest. One that was very pleasing to see sell out, I think, the week it went on sale is the Foundation of Funk, with the guys from Widespread Panic, JoJo [Hermann] and Jimmy Herring. I love those guys. I really like playing with Jimmy a whole lot.
Any upcoming plans with some of your other projects?
I would say the mouthful right now, for me, is the Porter Trio: it’s two other members from the Runnin’ Pardners band—Terrence Houston on drums and Michael Lemmler on keyboards—and for the last, probably, year and a half now, we’ve been doing Monday Nights at the Maple Leaf. About 20 weeks ago, we started multi-tracking those gigs. I’ll bring my computer out and load ProTools up to the mixing deck and take the mix directly off that. We’ve been listening to some of those recordings, and they really sound good; the recordings are really great. We have not had time to sit down and try to formulate anything from it, but I’ve been having so much fun with that band as a writing tool, because I would say the first 45-50 minutes of the gig is just new stuff popping off the top of our heads and just playing off each other. And I’ve been having a really good time with that. We came in the studio at my home, and we recorded—I think right now we have 11 songs recorded in the studio, and myself and the keyboard player were talking and he was saying that we should just relearn those 11 songs and record them live, because he thinks that what we do live kind of makes the studio look bland. That’s something I think we’re gonna start working on. My birthday party—the December 26th birthday party last year—got recorded, and I am getting ready to give that away just for the heck of it. Runnin’ Pardners has almost 30 songs from the studio in the can that’s been recorded. I’m soliciting writers to help with lyrics, because I’m a lousy lyric writer. So I got some friends—Anders Osborne, Leslie Smith, Billy Iuso, Denise Sullivan—I’ve given them music to write lyrics for.
