Guardian intern Aaron Sankin caught Maceo Parker at the Fillmore on Nov. 22. Here’s what he thought:
Maceo Parker blows up. Courtesy of www.maceo.com
If you’re real funky you can pretty much do anything you want on stage. What are the odds that George Clinton could have gotten away with landing a pretend spaceship and pretending he was from another planet (Planet Funk in Groove Galaxy) if he played an acoustic guitar and sang songs about his feelings? Slim to none. But since he is George Freaking Clinton, quite possibly the funkiest cat to every walk on two legs, he has a free pass to dress, talk, and act however he damn well pleases.
The reason I bring this up: Maceo Parker may be just as funky as the prime Minster of Parliament Funkadelic. You’re probably asking yourself, “If this guy is so funky why have I never heard him?” Hey, man, back off — no need to get all agitated.
You have heard him. Parker rose to prominence as the sax player in James Brown’s band. If you know anything about how the Hardest Working Man in Show Biz ran his band, you’ll know that he packed his band exclusively with the best musicians around (see: Bootsy Collins). Anyone with Brown’s seal of approval is sure to be a dynamite musician. So it’s a sure bet that Parker knows his way around a saxophone.