The effect of landing the right drummer in the right band at the right time cannot be underestimated.
When Virginia-born, New York-based drummer Nikki Glaspie joined New Orleans funk powerhouse Dumpstaphunk in 2011, she energized and galvanized the band after the departure of founding drummer Raymond Weber. After Glaspie left Dumpstaphunk earlier this year to focus on her new project, the Nth Power, 25-year-old young gun Alvin Ford, Jr. quickly and quietly took her seat behind the drum set.
But this wasn’t just another drummer exchange in any old band.
By enlisting Ford, Dumpstaphunk founder Ivan Neville returned the undeniably New Orleans band to a lineup of all-native New Orleanians, which is right where he likes it to be. “There’s a certain musical dialogue that New Orleans musicians all know,” Neville says. “A lot of it is unspoken.”