"Cissy Strut" (The Meters)

"Cissy Strut" (1969) is the kind of song that bar bands love to cover but never get quite right.  They just never find "the pocket."  And this song is all about that pocket.
That's why I have to go right to discussing Zigaboo Modeliste's drumming.  Everything he's doing on this track is straight from New Orleans second lines.  He's essentially playing all of the parts that four separate drummers would be playing, using all four limbs to keep time, kick the downbeat, and squeeze the funk out of all of those syncopated 16th notes in between.  He's his own damn marching band.
But, then again, every element of this song—Modeliste's drums, Art Neville's organ, Leo Nocentelli's guitar, and George Porter, Jr.'s smooth-as-Crisco bass—shows that The Meters were not only funk pioneers but also consummate musicians in the New Orleans tradition.  By that, I mean these dudes knew how to listen to each other.  Everyone is doing his own rhythmically complex thing, yet there's this sense of movement as a single unit.  Even when somebody steps into the spotlight to riff or solo, he inherently knows how and when to fall back in step.  (It's that second line sensibility again.)
It's little wonder why famed New Orleans producer Allen Toussaint plucked The Meters out of The Ivanhoe Club in the French Quarter in 1968 and made them the official backing band of his production company, placing them behind artists like Lee Dorsey and Betty Harris before launching them into stardom with this influential track.