There are only a handful of musicians who are known by a single name. Leo Nocentelli is one of them. The famed guitarist and founding member of the seminal funk band, the Meters, has moved back to New Orleans after living in California for 33 years. This Thursday night, December 17, a veritable who’s who of New Orleans music will welcome him home at Tipitina’s.
Nocentelli burst into the public consciousness with a series of groundbreaking recordings in the late 1960s and early 1970s which scorched all previous conceptions of guitar playing. Known primarily for his sparse, fiery licks on tunes like “Cissy Strut” and “Chicken Strut,” he pioneered funk rhythm guitar.
Then over the course of the next decade or so, he transformed himself into a strutting lead guitar superhero with a new mode of attack—blistering runs up and down the neck at breakneck speed. His crisp, taut lines inspired a new wave of funk musicians all aspiring to rip it up like Leo.
While fellow founding members of the Meters, keyboardist Art Neville and bassist George Porter, Jr. stayed close to home after the Meters broke up, Leo and drummer Zigaboo Modeliste moved west. A new school of California funk emerged as the two musicians, mostly working separately in the Los Angeles area and the Bay area respectively, stimulated musicians who only knew the New Orleans funk tradition from a distance.
Leo and Zig returned regularly to New Orleans especially around Jazz Fest. Occasionally these visits resulted in reunions of the original foursome, but acrimony among the musicians as well as protracted legal battles prevented the reunions from becoming regular occurrences.
As the four went their separate ways, they did play together in various configurations over the years including bands with names referencing the original moniker as well as more esoterically named ensembles including the short-lived Geo-Leo with Porter, Jr. and Nocentelli.
Since returning, Leo has expressed a desire to dive back into the music locally. He will find a scene transformed yet again by the second wave of funk musicians he inspired in the 1990s. Young bands and musicians taking cues from two generations of funkateers now dot the landscape and are taking the music in new directions.
The show on Thursday night should be a feel-good throwdown with numerous special guests. Most of them are veteran players from the same cohort that brought us the Meters. Expect to see people like Cyril Neville, Walter “Wolfman” Washington, Deacon John, Irma Thomas, and others from the heyday of 1950s R&B. A few younger musicians including James Andrews, the Soul Rebels, and Big Sam’s Funky Nation are also on the bill.
Eric Paulsen will MC and attempt to bring some order to what is bound to be a musical free-for-all. Given the talent, I am hoping for a “Throwback Thursday” affair echoing many of those late, late nights at Tipitina’s back in the day when Leo stood on the edge of the stage and blistered on the guitar.
