Meters fans who miss the slinky guitar of original member Leo Nocentelli – replaced in the funky Meters by Brian Stoltz in early 1994 – no longer need to wait for the occasional Jazz Fest performance or travel to San Francisco, Nocentelli’s home of late. Live in San Francisco captures Nocentelli playing with fellow former Meter Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste on drums, along with Nick Daniels on bass and Kevin Walsh on keyboards. But where the record succeeds in capturing the sound of Nocentelli’s latest project, it also stands as testament to the loss of the 3 Meters in their heyday, a band that has as much claim to the history of fun as any other. Nocentelli is a stellar rhythm guitarist, as his studio credits attest – he’s recorded with some of the heaviest names in soul, r&b and rock, including Stevie Wonder, Sting, Dr. John, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, and Robbie Robertson, to name a few. Unfortunately, what works for rhythm guitarists doesn’t always make for the best lead solos, a few of which on Live in San Francisco are the same repetitive, three-note solos that Nocentelli noodled on at the end of his stint with the Meters. Still, there are some highlights here, most notably the Modelist-penned “People Say” and Nocentelli’s “Come Back Jack,” an instrumental that’s become a virtual standard in the funk genre and still impossible to find on all but bootleg Meters recordings. Daniels drops some Lairy Graham-style bombs on bass, but Walsh’s keyboards never quite cut it as adequate accompaniment to Nocentelli, leaving the guitar solos and Modeliste’s slippery rhythms the best aspects of the record. If Live in San Francisco is representative of the tops of classic funk in that city, sticking close to the Meters’ home here in New Orleans seems a much better plan for funk fans.

–Alex Oliver