99 Plus One

Tuff City continues to explore the roots of funk & hip-hop by unveiling the Bosses Of The Big Easy Beat series, a three LP/CD set devoted to the pioneering jazzy soul & funk drummers of New Orleans in the 1960's, whose rhythmic brilliance laid the groundwork for modern rhythm-driven hip-hop, jazz & R&B. The first of these is June Gardner's "99 Plus One." New Orleans drummer Gardner rose to fame touring with the Sam Cooke Band. Then on the heels of that legend's death returned to New Orleans, where he recorded the locally-popular "Mustard Greens" & "99 Plus One" for the Hot Line label. The success of these tracks spurred further recordings, which featured the keyboard playing of New Orleans legend James Booker & the big-band arrangements of Wardell Quezerque. If Holland-Dozier-Holland had produced the Count Basie Band, that is what tracks like "Last Night" and "Hang On Sloopy" evoke. Consistent with Tuff City's Indiana Jones-like cobbling together of material from disparate sources, this album is rounded off with an extremely rare session produced for the Hep' Me label which complements Nola's big band arrangements with a couple of spare yet jazzy and ultimately extraordinarily funky versions of "The Tennessee Waltz" & "The Jolly Little Meget." A must for fans of jazzy soul & funk.