With only a matter of weeks until the Legends of New Orleans tour hit’s Australian shores, this radio sampler/album couldn’t have come at a better time. The nine tracks on offer constitute a delectable morsel, perfectly highlighting the joyous nature of New Orleans music and reinforcing in my mind just how fantastic the upcoming tour will surely be. Billed as Allen Toussaint & Friends, the sampler finds Toussaint joined by a number of New Orleans legends, notably Jon Cleary and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

Opener "Get Out Of My Life Woman" is an understated opener, with some delicate piano playing, and some a great underlying horn riff. There isn’t a huge amount going on vocally, beyond a brief chorus; but that’s not really an issue here, it just allows more room for the instrumentation, which is fantastic throughout.

On "Yes We Can", the vocal performance is what really stands out for me. In short it’s a great soulful effort, reminiscent somewhat of Leon Russell. With some great female backing vocals - all of which helps give the track a great old school R&B feel. The instrumentation is sparse, with only the piano and the drumming really coming through strongly; until a nice guitar solo breaks it up around midway through.

"Whisper to a Scream" brings it down a notch. A moving song steeped in emotion with some fantastic vocals and some beautiful guitar playing, which slowly builds to mini crescendos. Next track, "My Feet Can’t Fail Me Now", highlights the diversity of the New Orleans canon; specifically New Orleans funk. There’s not much going on vocal wise, other than a pretty fun call and response current that runs through the track. The main appeal of this track is the stunning horn work throughout, with a great saxophone solo and some wonderful trumpet work. It’s surely impossible not to get caught up in its sweep. Energetic and incredibly fun, it’s one of my favourite tracks from the sampler.

"Use Your Brain" opens with a killer horn riff that just grabs you from the start and never really lets go until the very end. The track also features a nice darting saxophone solo. Sometimes with instrumentals you can find yourself either drifting of, or losing interest a little way through, but that never really happens here, a horn solo seems to always kick in just at the right moment to counteract any potential monotony.

"Blackbird Special" neatly carries on where the previous song left off. Great up beat tempo from the get go featuring some wonderful darting trumpets and trombones and a sublime saxophone solo nestled in amongst it all. It’s pretty light on vocals, but who really needs vocals when you can play this well. Besides those horns are conveying just as much emotion and feeling as any vocal could. If you don’t find yourself tapping your foot along to this, or hell, even resisting the urge to dance like a loon around the room, you might just be a little dead inside.

"Low Down" is a wonderful bluesy number, with some delicate and darting piano work. The vocal performance is fantastic and helps lend the track a bit of an R&B feel. The track also features a number of vocal performances, unfortunately I’m not really able to pick out who is supposed to be who, but the female vocal is particularly striking, very soulful.

"When You Get Back" really has quite a contemporary R&B soul feel to it. My first reaction was that it had a sound very reminiscent of John Mayer; there’s just something about the instrumentation that reminds me of his work. For me, it’s probably one of the weaker tracks on the sampler, but really that’s more of a testament to the quality of the sampler as a whole. This track just feels over produced for me.

Final track, "So Damn Good", is a fantastic closer with several wonderful soulful vocal performances and some energetic and striking boogie-woogie piano playing and a great underlying beat. Instrumentally, its not massively horn heavy, letting the piano playing really shine through. The perfect album closer, leaving you wanting more.

All in all, this collection is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the music of New Orleans. It does however work as a nice starting point to delve into the music of the city that more or less singlehandedly gave us popular music. This collection is perhaps most successful at raising excitement levels for the upcoming tour. Having listened to it a good couple of times over the past week, I am certainly looking forward to the tour, and hoping that the same levels of energy and stellar playing will be witnessed live.

Review Score: 8.5/10