Hi everybody!
Last monday The Teacher Maceo Parker was playing in Rome in Villa Celimontana in the Jazz & Image Festival. Needless to say we gathered a small group of people and we were there in the first row.
Before the show started one of us, Tuccio (whom I lovingly rechristiened "the Prince poster" as he was wearing a quite showy Prince t-shirt and an enormous pendant) was talking to Fabrizio when he saw a black hand point at him and heard a voice say "I know this one", he looked up and it was Maceo grinning and then asking if he didn't recognize the guy with him who had played in Prince's band for years: of course, Mr. Hayes wearing a big NPG pendant.
We went to the side and took a picture of us all together with the two. Here it is!

Left to right: Laura (me), Gabriele (behind me), Maceo, Federico (behind Maceo), Fabrizio, Tuccio, Mr. Hayes, Gaetano.
The show started. At the beginning the bouncers tried to keep us seated, but we weren't pleased and Maceo wasn't at all (at once he even came down to the floor and made fun of us sitting!)!
Then finally we all (I mean the whole public) jumped up and reached the stage to funkydance wildly throughout the show: no way to keep us seated then!
Our group was standing at the centre of the first row in front of the stage. We were even recognized by Maceo who smiled at our personal "Prince poster". And a couple of times Hayes tried to belittle our ovations to him everytime his keys were getting a bit more in the front.
The band included amongst others (I couldn't get all the names, sorry!) Greg Boyer on trombone, Jamall Thomas on the drums and Corey Parker on vocals (then a gorgeous guitar player, a bass player, a lady singing and a trumpet player).
The show was extremely funky, strong and powerful. Maceo and the band were having a lot of fun. Maceo at this point was very happy and wondered if he had played Rome before and you could clearly hear (because he heard it, too!) me screaming "YES!".
They performed "Baby knows" (they didn't really want to cut it and went on and on playing) and during his solo we recognized that Morris played some "Let's work" parts.
The show was extremely long and satisfying. We danced like crazy ones in the now almost tropical hot Roman summer.
At the end during "Pass the peas" Corey came to the front of the stage to do the vocals and he sang some parts of "Pretty man".
At the end of the performance whe shook hands with Maceo, Greg, the guitar player and Mr. Hayes. Actually Hayes was staying there to sign autographs and let pictures be taken, so we grabbed our chance for another picture: we almost catapulted ourselves in front of the stage and this did cause some hilarity indeed. Here it is (you can CLEARLY see it was taken after the show! We are rottened! )!

Clockwise: Mr Hayes laughing, Nicolai ("quite" tired), Laura (me... and I'm purple), Gaetano ("sweatfalls" flowing down his chest), Fabrizio (he was sick and this shows on his face, it looks like he had taken a dozen valium-pills... but he hadn't! ), Tuccio the poster (oh well: can you really comment on his face??? )
Then we went towards the backstage because Tuccio wanted to ask Greg if he could have a picture with him. There we greated Maceo once more and we complimented on the show. Greg had the picture taken. Mr. Hayes stayed there and had a quite long chat with us (I think it was at least half an hour if not more). Picture!

First we thanked them for the beautiful show. And he thanked us for being there and being so funky and for having chosen thei show etc etc... I found it so sweet.
At the beginning, he said, Maceo was really doing everything to have us standing and dancing because, he said, he always goes for the dance and having fun. When we stood up they felt it was going to be a great evening. The only problem, he said, was the heat. It's true, it was terribly hot even more than "terribly" if you consider the fact that it was night-time! He said he had firmly decided not to go too wild otherwise he was afraid he wouldn't have lasted. But then we considered that being in a villa (a public park) was a good fact and he asked us what trees we were under ('pine-trees' - 'they're not like the ones I see in America' - 'no, they're Mediterranean pine-trees', - 'right!').
We asked him how long they were staying in Italy and he told us they were leaving towards France the day after. I said "it's a good switch". He agreed but also commented on how Italy had charmed him: this was his first time here and he told us that visiting Rome really struck him, seeing monuments and things that you've always seen and read of in books (being a Roman I am quite "spoilt", but I can understand him: I can see how the simple fact that Villa Celimontana is about 150 metres away from the Colosseum and the Forum can be astounding). He told us he would like to be back in Italy very soon because he wants to see Venice, Florence and Pisa. So we asked how long he thinks we should wait to have them play Rome again and he told us not too long but to do our best to show that we want Maceo in Rome. "En passant" we asked him if he knew anything about Prince and if he was planning some trips to Europe but he didn't know much (he said something like "I think sometime soon somewhere around here" ).
He made some funny comments on the traffic in Rome and on the thousands of mopeds he saw swirling everywhere. But then he "comforted" us telling us the worst drivers he knows of are the drivers from Minnesota (is that true, guys?). We started laughing so loud at his description of the queues in the traffic! About Prince? Naaa, he's a good driver but he drives a little bit too fast sometimes.
Again talking about the public he started paying a lot of compliments to European people because of their cusiosity and their being polihedric when it comes to music. He said in America it's all Timberlake and Britneys whereas we listen to a lot of different things. I said it could be because being so many smaller countries so close one to each other we are quite used to the idea of different kinds of music coming from other countries, whereas America is huge and can easily be self-sufficient. He agreed.
We asked him if he there's some Italian musicians he knows of and likes. He told us he knows of Giorgia because Sonny, Michael and Tommy play with her, and that he likes her and her voice a lot. But he didn't know others. He said he likes music with a local flavour (a guy suggested him to listen to Almamegretta and I hope he remembers the name of the band, because it's very good!).
We asked him what is the strangest place he's even played. He couldn't say. Someone suggested Japan, maybe. He said he really loves the "techonological hype" in Japan.
At the end we started talking about Maceo. He told us he really likes playing with Maceo, it's a lot of fun, but he then added that in his deep he is still an NPG and he pulled his NPG pendant out of his shirt.
This is more or less it.
I know we had a great time and were all over-excited while going home. I kept on singing "Pass the peas" for a couple of days...
Cool!

Fantastic and interesting insight...thanks!

Cool photos!

N.B. to access them, right click on error image, click on properties, and paste url in new window.