[Cover photo credit to Steve Rapport]

New Orleans bassist George Porter Jr., will be releasing a new instrumental album called Porter’s Pocket with his longstanding quartet the Runnin’ Pardners available via Color Red on February 7, 2025.

Porter Jr. is joined by his longtime collaborator keyboardist Michael Lemmler (Jubilation, TriFunctA), drummer Terrence Houston (The Funky Meters, Toubab Krewe), and newest member Chris Adkins (Raphael Saadiq, Mark Broussard) on guitar. The Blues-driven single “Don Julio Rides Again” is out now.

Porter was a founding member of The Meters and a lifelong session musician, notably acting as Allen Toussaint’s bass player throughout the 60s and 70s. Porter was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 for his influential work with New Orleans funk progenitors The Meters.

Like many of the songs on the album, “Don Julio Rides Again” was cultivated during Porter Jr & Runnin’ Pardners’ longstanding residency at the local favorite Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans, Louisiana.

An innovator of funky music, Porter gives credit to his hometown:

Before there was ‘funk’ as people call it, New Orleans musicians always had a way of using rhythm in a way nobody else was. I am just a student of Earl King and George French and that musical school and somewhere along the way, people out there decided it was ‘funk.’

In addition to his Monday night Maple Leaf residency, Porter Jr is appearing at Denver Comes Alive at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom in Denver, CO. Porter will have key performances at Jam Cruise, Suwannee Amp Jam #1, and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.