Today, Stix Hooper — the internationally renowned drummer credited with pioneering the original jazz-funk sound as co-founder of seminal group The Crusaders — shares “Stix and Joe’s Gumbo Groove,” the latest single from his new album Cookin’ Up The Groove that serves as the final collaboration with and a tribute to his longtime friend and collaborator Joe Sample.

As Stix shares: “This recording is a focused representation of my musical roots. [It] spotlights, dedicates, and pays tribute to my many years of alignment creating music with my good friend, Joe Sample. Joe and I spent lots of shared musical and social times together before his passing in 2014. He sent me a basic recording of a composition that he was working on and had not completed called ‘G Minor Groove.’ I happily took it, put on some finishing touches, and renamed it ‘Stix and Joe’s Gumbo Groove.'”

“Stix And Joe’s Gumbo Groove” serves as the album’s opening track, immediately staking a claim as a new funk fusion standard. Its lush horn arrangements and synth organ solos give it a kick fit for your favorite noir mystery, the minutia of Stix’s rhythmic genius sharpening each moment. As Stix claims at just about the 6 minute mark, “You have some soul creole laced with a jazz funk roll'” — a snapshot of the exuberant chemistry Hooper and Sample still shared all these years later.

Listen to “Stix and Joe’s  Gumbo Groove” here, and presave Cookin’ Up The Groove here.

He taps a formidable lineup of collaborators to execute his vision, including Del Atkins (Lou Rawls, Dr. Dre), the late great organist / trumpeter Joey DeFrancesco, Jimmy “Z” Zavala (Etta James, Eurythmics), Bill Churchville (Tower of Power), Todd Cochran (fka Bayeté, Santana), and Scott Mayo (Beyonce, Paul McCartney). The first single, “Standing Tall,” for example, serves as a sumptuous thriller of a track whose buoyant brass is anchored Hooper’s legendary pocket and percussive precision.

Stix Hooper is one of the most influential and innovative musical artists of our time — not only a world class percussionist, but a noted composer, producer, manager, and songwriter. Via his work with The Crusaders — a 30-year period that yielded now-classic works and numerous platinum and gold certifications from the RIAA — he is arguably the most sampled drummer of all-time, having been sampled over 500 times by artists including 2pac, J Dilla, and the Beastie Boys.

The nine-time GRAMMY nominee has performed and collaborated with musical greats like Quincy Jones, B.B. King, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Bill Withers, Nancy Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Shuggie Otis, Hugh Masekela, Grant Green, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London. He was the first African American National Vice Chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) and served an unprecedented three terms as President of NARAS’ Los Angeles chapter, the largest in the organization. He was honored with an invitation to the White House by President Jimmy Carter and has received many prestigious accolades and awards in recognition of his outstanding achievements and cultural contributions.

The hits don’t stop there: With The Crusaders, he performed in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic Of The Congo) at The Rumble In The Jungle, the iconic 1974 heavyweight title boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali held in Zaire. On his own, he was tapped by Lalo Schifrin to play drums on the soundtrack of Enter The Dragon, the Bruce Lee film widely acclaimed as the greatest martial arts movie of all-time. He’s crossed over into so many institutions of American pop culture it’s hard to keep up: from American Bandstand to Soul Train and beyond.

Cookin’ Up The Groove is just the latest stop on what is a singular life — proof that, well into his ninth decade, Stix Hooper is still pushing himself to create, forever in pursuit of rhythmic transcendence.