Maceo's Chance to Blow

Longtime James Brown sideman showcased at Prince's 3121

By MIKE WEATHERFORD
REVIEW-JOURNAL


Maceo Parker helped define the funk sound with James Brown and George Clinton. He's now a frequent guest star with Prince in Las Vegas.
Maceo Parker answered one question right, and the answer changed his life.

It was 1964, and Parker's brother Melvin tracked down James Brown to remind him of an open-ended job offer the singer had extended as encouragement to finish college. And drummer Melvin quickly volunteered, "My brother, he needs a job, too."

Maceo still remembers the Godfather of Soul turning to him and asking, "Do you play baritone sax?"

"I got a big smile," he says, because he indeed played the big baritone horn "a little bit" in high school. "I just had the feeling that if I had answered negative -- end of conversation. So I just stuck with, 'Yes.' "

A yes had to suffice because of the trickier second question: "Do you own a baritone sax?"

"Uhhh ... yes."

Brown probably guessed the truth from the "Uhhh," but "he appreciated the fact that I didn't say no. It kind of tickled him a little bit."

Parker went on to become Brown's most famous sideman for much of the next 25 years. His frenetic sax lines continued to expand funk in the 1970s with George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. And for the past five years, Parker has been touring on and off with Prince, including unbilled appearances for the past three weekends of Prince's residency at the Rio.

Parker is never promised at those Friday and Saturday shows, but on Wednesday he is co-billed in the same 3121 club for the second of two dates with Larry Graham and Graham Central Station.

"I'm proud that he enjoys what we bring," the 63-year-old saxophonist says, with the "we" including trombonist Greg Boyer, who travels with Parker and has been playing the Prince shows as well.

Though Prince likes to keep people guessing -- from his fans on up to his inner circle -- the Rio engagement has become a refreshing antidote to Las Vegas' corporatized entertainment policies. Parker laughs about playing in the adjacent 3121 Jazz Cuisine restaurant as well, something he hasn't done in a long time.

"We end up jamming maybe two hours before the big show, or an hour and a half after we finish. We just go for it. That's good, too. Everybody's just in tune and in focus. It's just cool," he says.

"It's like the apples are hanging from the tree and if somebody shakes that tree the apples are gonna fall. We can't help that. It's time to fall. Cool."

He and Prince first became friends in 1999. Prince called him in for a guest solo on the song "Prettyman," and Parker was recording his solo album "Dial M-A-C-E-O."

It was a time when Parker was into recruiting guest stars, from Sheryl Crow to Ani DiFranco (who also has taken him on tour). "It's almost like, 'You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours'," he says. Parker covered a couple of Prince tunes for the "Dial" album, with the Purple One himself lending a hand.

The saxophonist didn't really get a solo career rolling until he departed from his signature sound for the 1990 album, "Roots Revisted." A German producer rightly suggested a straight-ahead jazz album would draw more attention in wider circles, and it did.

But after a "Mo' Roots" follow-up, Parker never strayed that far from the funk again. "I like it when people can yell and clap their hands and do their little dance thing, and some of the jazz tunes, you can't do that," he says.

"Jazz has like a decorum about it. Like when you walk into a library and you gotta be quiet, because everyone's reading a book. But funk, man, no. If you feel like you gotta do whatever, get into it and do your thing. (It's about) people really having fun and not being held back."

He says his unmistakable sax sound -- rhythmic, displaced bursts that dance around the beat -- had taken root even before he joined up with Brown.

"I played like that when I was in high school," the North Carolina native says. He and his two brothers would listen to his uncle's band rehearse and try to copy what they heard. "We had a group just about ever since we could walk."

The grown-ups' band specialized in "a kind of swing, really close to jazz ... We keep trying, kept trying, for years and years (to emulate it): 'That's funky stuff, man, that's kind of nice.' "

By the time he was in high school, Parker would stay after hours absorbing what he could about individual style from a high school teacher. "I wanted to play like him, but I didn't want to sound like him."

Parker figured he might have a pretty good future as a music teacher himself before he was drafted by the Soul General, and discovered that his sound "really worked hand in glove with James Brown."

Just as Prince vocally cues some of the jamming in current shows, Parker says the famous James Brown directive, "Maceo, I want to hear you blow!" had its roots in practicality.

Though he was hired to play the baritone, he was soon switching back and forth between that and his more familiar tenor sax. Since the band featured two sax players, sometimes they were confused: "Which one of us does he want to solo? ... So that's how it came about, when he would call my name."

It's a name that has become so well-known, he says, that people tell him they have bestowed it upon children, dogs, cats and cars.

And he tries to give back. "Everyone of us has our own talent, something that we do," he says. "At the same time we realize, everybody out of the whole spectrum of people throughout the world just can't do (what we do).

"So we recognize that and say that means the gift that we have is sort of special. So we try to stay in tune, try to stay in shape, try to stay in focus, and share this gift that we have as much as we possibly can."
[Edited 12/15/06 10:23am]