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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Hot sax blows into Commodore

funkmeister:

Maceo Parker, pictured performing during the Nice Jazz Festival, keeps a busy touring schedule at age 68.

Getty ImaGes

That was Parkers fat sound backing James Browns big hits of the 60s
In concert
Maceo Parker
Where: The Commodore, 868 Granville St. When: Friday at 8 p.m. Tickets: $51 at ticketmaster. ca, livenation.com

by ADRIAN CHAMbERLAIN
Postmedia News

Who was James Browns favourite saxophonist? Maceo Parker. Thats Parkers big, fat sax sound on such stone-cold 60s classics as I Feel Good (tenor), Cold Sweat (tenor) and Papas Got a Brand New Bag (tenor and baritone). Parker performs in Vancouver Friday night with his nine-piece band. Fans revere the saxophonist as a funk pioneer. In the 1970s he played with George Clintons Parliament-Funkadelic collective, gleaning further success later as a bandleader. Parkers recording pinnacle as funk kingpin is Life on Planet Groove (1992), a live album boasting such incendiary offerings as Shake Everything Youve Got, Pass the Peas and Got to Get U. Parker, interviewed recently from

Denver, ranks Pass the Peas as his fans favourite number. People also love the old James Brown stuff, especially the stuff I recorded. They kind of attribute it to me, too. That has to be a plus, the 68-year-old musician said, chuckling. His current band is a family affair. A recent addition is drummer Marcus Parker, whos the son of Maceos brother, Melvin. (James Brown hired Melvin as a drummer in 1964 after hearing him play at a soul-food joint.

Maceo joined Browns band at the same time.) Maceo Parkers son, Corey Parker, is a backup vocalist in the band. The outfit includes trumpeter Ron Tooley, a James Brown alumnus heard on Papas Got a Brand New Bag and I Feel Good. Tooley, whom Parker described as a very, very top shelf musician, has also played with Maynard Ferguson and the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra. Today, Parker lives in Kinston, N.C., the small town in which he was born. He says playing and touring feels much the same at 68 as it did at 28. I just have to prepare more, said Parker, who has been walking for exercise and when not on the road practising two hours daily. In terms of his approach as a bandleader, he declares himself somewhere between Brown and Clinton. The latter was known as a stern task-

master who fined musicians for such infractions as playing a wrong note (Parker was once dinged for placing an ice cream on an organ cabinet). Clinton a funk-music innovator like Brown is a carefree spirit notorious for wild stage antics. Like landing giant spaceship props on stage. For sheer thrill value, Parker said Clintons shenanigans with Parliament-Funkadelic matched anything Brown could dole out. During the time, when we landed the spaceship on stage? With George Clinton? That was just as exciting as any place Ive ever been anywhere, even when James Brown was doin all the splits and all the turns. Parkers greatest hero was always a much less flamboyant legend: Ray Charles. In 2007, Parker released Roots & Grooves, a double album with one disc dedicated to reinterpretations of songs by Charles.

He remembers first seeing his idol in 1961 or 1962 as a college student studying music in North Carolina. Parker was half a hall away from the bandstand yet he was still knocked out by Charless sound. I said, Man, one of these days, guys and I pointed my finger at the band one of these days, you are going to know me . . . One of these days, you are going to know Maceo Parker. In 1996, Parker opened for Charles during a three-week tour of Europe. The saxophonist still owns a banner advertising the double bill. Charles allowed him to do a solo during one concert, something Parker never forgot. Its always easy for me to reflect back to when I said, One of these days, you gonna know me . . . And somehow, I made it all come true. That [concert] is one of the top things in my career, he said.