The Neville Brothers Lose Their Leader, Art Neville (1937-2019)

were talented, but only two were geniuses: Aaron, the musclebound ex-con with the incongruously angelic high tenor, and Art, the keyboard master of push-and-pull syncopation. Art was the band’s leader, and now he’s gone. He died Monday at his home in New Orleans after years of declining health at age 81. He was the oldest of the quartet; Charles the saxophonist, a year younger, died last year; Cyril, singer and percussionist, and Aaron live on.

Art was the leader of every band he was in; he had that kind of personality and the musical chops to back it up. Whether playing Professor Longhair’s second-line rhythms on the piano or New Orleans church swells and Jimmy Smith jazz riffs on the organ, Art had a way of putting his own stamp on the sound and establishing that sound as the basis for everything else that happened on stage. Cyril talked a lot more at shows, but it was obvious that Art was directing traffic.

Cyril joined the Meters in its later phase, and Aaron and Charles joined that line-up for a special 1976 project led by’ uncle George “Jolly” Landry, the big chief of the Wild Tchoupitoulas, a Mardi Gras Indian tribe. This old New Orleans tradition has African-Americans creating elaborately beaded and feathered Indian costumes and parading through the cities streets on Mardi Gras Day and St. Joseph’s Day to see which tribe could intimidate all the others.

“I like to play the funky stuff,” Art told me. “Charles is the avant-garde jazzman. Aaron sings the pretty songs, because he has the voice. Cyril is the fire. That variety is what makes us different. If we didn’t have that, we’d sound like every other band on the radio.”

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