Albert "June" Gardner (December 31, 1930 - November 19, 2010) was an American R&B and jazz drummer and bandleader from New Orleans whose professional music career spanned six decades.
By the time of a 1996 interview Gardner admitted he was no longer religious, but said, "I carry the Lord in my chest twenty-four hours a day.
"[2] As a child, Gardner was aware of the celebrations taking place in his neighborhood on New Year’s Eve (his birthday), "I thought it was all for me", he remembered.
"I could feel Paul Barbarin or Freddie Kohlman" coming in a parade, even before he began playing drums.
In 1944 when Gardner became interested in playing drums his parents paid for lessons with Professor Valmont Victor.
He started playing at the Groove Room, a club within the Dew Drop Inn, at age fifteen.
The band consisted of Edgar Blanchard (guitar), Stuart Davis (bass), Arthur Blackwell, (piano), and Gardner (drums).
The band, including saxophonist August "Dimes" Dupont, opened for such acts as Andy Kirk, Luis Russell, Lucky Millinder, and Erskine Hawkins.
"[6] Gardner left the Gondoliers to go on the road with singer Roy Brown’s band The Mighty Men.
Back in New Orleans he played in various bands, sometimes as bandleader, often with his friends Red Tyler and Chuck Badie.
He worked at black bars including the Shadowland, the Nite Cap, the Haven, Big Time Crips, the Joy Tavern, and the Forest Inn, as many as nine jobs a week.
The six-month tour included dates in Europe and Israel, along with a live recording from the Olympia in Paris.
A Down Beat reviewer wrote that the diplomatic importance of Hampton’s tour and recording undoubtedly exceeded the value of the music itself.
[7] The band played Cafe Society in New York City, backing guest star Louis Armstrong on "When It's Sleepy Time Down South".
[2] Following the Hampton tour, Gardner’s friend David “Fathead” Newman recruited him for six weeks on the road playing behind Ray Charles.
After the passage of civil rights legislation some club owners resisted integration, and audiences on Bourbon Street were mostly white for years afterward.
Gardner was one of several drummers competing for the first call position at Cosimo recording studio on Governor Nicholls Street after Palmer’s departure.
He joined Cooke and his guitarist Cliff White in Richmond, Va. Gardner remembered,"We’d come into town, and have a rehearsal, and one of Cliff’s famous lines was, 'If you don’t play my music right, I’m gonna snatch your arm out and beat you with the bloody end!'"
“We killed them,” Gardner said, “with just guitar and drums.” [10] He added that Cooke kept him and Cliff White on salary when not on the road, with “a check every week”.
Writer Bruce Eder said, "This is the real Sam Cooke, doing a sweaty, raspy, soulful set at the Harlem Square Club in North Miaimi, Florida, on January 12, 1963, backed by King Curtis and his band, a handful of local musicians, and Cooke’s resident sidemen, guitarist Cliff White and drummer Albert 'June' Gardner.
[8] After that he joined trumpeter Wallace Davenport at the Paddock Lounge, also on Bourbon Street,[1] and appeared regularly at Preservation Hall.
Gardner, with his band The Fellas, made annual dates at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, capping a career that began in the 1940s.
Mercury released “Bustin’ Out”, an LP which collected Gardner’s singles output and more, on EmArcy Records.
[14] June Gardner and the Fellas played the Economy Hall Tent at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival using musicians including bassist Chuck Badie, Gardner on drums, pianist Thaddeus Richard, trumpeter Leroy Jones, and trombonist Lucien Barbarin.
His uncle Paul Barbarin, who Gardner heard as a child, was recruited by Louis Armstrong for his big band in the 1930s.
Gardner told young drummers it was important that their families understood the demands of a musician’s life.