Russell Batiste Jr. obit

 

Renowned New Orleans drummer Russell Batiste Jr. dies at 57

Hailing from a large musical family, he powered the Funky Meters and many other bands

He was not on the list.

Russell Batiste Jr., the multi-talented New Orleans drummer who powered the Funky Meters and scores of other bands, died Saturday at his home in LaPlace. He was 57.

The cause of death was a heart attack, his brother Damon Batiste said.

“He was like a son to me,” Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli said Sunday, hours after learning of Russell's death.

“I didn’t know how much he meant to me until now. It’s a helluva loss to New Orleans music and culture.”

A partial list of bands Batiste played in includes the Meters, the Funky Meters, George Porter Jr. & Runnin’ Pardners, Dumpstaphunk, Bonerama, Papa Grows Funk, the Wild Magnolias and the Joe Krown Trio, in addition to his own Russell Batiste & Friends.

He also was a member of the all-star trio Vida Blue featuring Phish keyboardist Page McConnell and Allman Brothers Band and Dead & Company bassist Oteil Burbridge.

“Russell was a major economic development engine by himself,” Damon Batiste said. “He gave all of his blood, sweat and tears to other groups when he was young.”

Despite an international reputation — the likes of Mick Jagger professed admiration for Batiste’s drumming — he did not aspire to fame and fortune. He preferred performing in local clubs to traveling the world.

“He never was interested in accolades and money,” Damon Batiste said. “He wanted to make the music right. Russell loved New Orleans more than anything. He just wanted to be at the Maple Leaf Bar and Le Bon Temps Roule.

“Russell should have been playing stadiums, not music clubs. You don’t have talent like that in a bar.”

When his famous cousin Jon Batiste performed a pop-up show at the Maple Leaf days before the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Russell Batiste spent the first few songs onstage with him. Jon Batiste seemed amused by his cousin’s enthusiasm.

“When he and Jon performed at the Maple Leaf, he was the happiest man in the world,” Damon Batiste said.

Born David Russell Batiste Jr., he hailed from a sprawling family of musicians and learned multiple instruments as a young child. His father, David Batiste Sr., was a principal of pioneering New Orleans funk band the Gladiators, which evolved into the Batiste Brothers Band.

To avoid being confused with his father, David Jr. used his middle name, Russell. He and Damon both joined the Batiste Brothers Band when they were still in grade school.

The brothers made their Jazz Fest debut in 1978 under the name Young Gifted & Black. They returned the following year with the Batiste Brothers Band.

At St. Augustine High School, Russell drummed for the school's Marching 100 marching band. After graduating in 1983, he attended Southern University, where he studied under the late jazz saxophonist Edward “Kidd” Jordan. He left Southern and became the drummer for singer Charmaine Neville.

For the next four decades, he formed part of the bedrock of the New Orleans music community. He came to prominence in the late 1980s as the drummer in a latter incarnation of acclaimed New Orleans funk band the Meters, following the departure of original Meters drummer Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste.

Batiste’s approach to funk was more muscular than Modeliste's. His first gig with the Meters was at an Orleans Avenue club called the Riverboat Hallelujah.

“Russell was a wild young guy,” Nocentelli said. “The first time he played with the Meters, he was late. We had to go find him. I chewed him out.”

After Nocentelli left the Meters, keyboardist Art Neville and bassist George Porter Jr. carried on as a new project dubbed the Funky Meters, with Batiste on drums and Brian Stoltz on guitar. They served up hard-hitting versions of classic Meters songs for audiences across the country.

In those years, Batiste struggled with addiction, but eventually conquered his demons.

“He crossed that hurdle a long time ago,” Damon Batiste said. “He got back on his feet.”

“That depiction of him was gone,” Nocentelli said of Batiste's "wild" years, noting that Batiste had been a reliable collaborator for more than a decade, one whose “heart and soul” approach to music matched his own.

He was the "glue" that held together the big Batiste family, Damon Batiste said. Music was far and away the most important element of his life. During the COVID lockdown, Russell Batiste & Friends continued to rehearse most Tuesdays at the shuttered B.B. King’s club on Decatur.

On Aug. 26, Russell Batiste marched along Oak Street near the Maple Leaf as part of a drum corps for the Krewe of O.A.K.’s Mid-Summer Mardi Gras Parade. “That was his last parade,” Damon Batiste said.

Russell Batiste & Friends performed every Sunday in September at Le Bon Temps Roule on Magazine St.

On Sept. 23 he watched his alma mater, St. Augustine, play Edna Karr at Tad Gormley Stadium. He posted an Instagram video of himself, his hair cropped short and dyed aquamarine, sitting in the bleachers with fellow members of St. Aug’s class of 1983.

He was scheduled to perform three times at the NOLA Funk Fest at the New Orleans Jazz Museum on the grounds of the Old U.S. Mint on Oct. 20-22: with his own band, with the Gladiators and with Nocentelli.

As word of Russell Batiste’s death spread, musicians from across the spectrum of New Orleans music flooded social media with remembrances of a musician whose personality was as outsized as his drumming.

Trombonist Mark Mullins, who played alongside Batiste in the Runnin' Pardners and Bonerama, cited his "talent, unpredictability, fire. Spontaneous combustion on the stage and a pocket like no other. There was no holding back with him. With only a smile and that certain glance he'd give you on stage, he would bring you right along with him to a place you never thought you could go to musically."

Papa Grows Funk founder John "Papa" Gros wrote on Facebook, "Russell Batiste embodied the entire history of New Orleans drumming every time he played. He represented it all, from street bands to trad, from rhythm & blues to rock 'n' roll, from funk to fusion. He was the past, present and future of the New Orleans sound and we all knew it."

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.