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Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Live Reviews Live Review: Maceo Parker, Booker T. Jones

Posted By on Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 4:07 PM

Booker T. Jones, Maceo Parker

Duke University

Feb. 29, 2008

Review By Grant Britt

It was billed as "Foundations of a Sound," the finale of Duke University’s Soul Power series that began in January with Lonnie Liston Smith and included Solomon Burke, The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Five Blind Boys and Mavis Staples. The last, sold-out show paired soul legend Booker T Jones with funkateer and former James Brown/George Clinton saxophonist Maceo Parker.

Jones, best known for his Stax soul hits in the '70s, still sounded great. The problem was what he brought along with him. On a recent visit to the Bull Durham Blues Festival in September, Jones had bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn and guitarist Steve Cropper, the surviving members of this original band, the MG's, with him, and it was excellent.

But this time out, Jones' guitarist, Vernon Black, made a mockery of the music that made Jones and his Memphis Group legendary. Black was way over the top, trotting out a suitcase full of overblown psychedelic Hendrix licks. Cropper, who had no problem being part of an ensemble cast, had a crisp, clean stinging style that punctuated Jones' burbling B-3. Black seemed to think it was all about him.

When Jones soloed, it sounded just like the originals: "Hip Hug-Her," his signature "Green Onions," and "Time Is Tight" were dead-on. But the second his solos ended and Black stepped in, Jones' work got smeared with blurry, fuzztone-smothered riffs.

"Born Under A Bad Sign," which Jones wrote for Albert King, fared best, with Black doing a fair King imitation without resurrecting Hendrix for once. But the crowd seemed to eat it up, bringing back Jones for the Staples' "I’ll Take You There" as an encore, with Black singing as well as playing way over the top until Jones took back vocal and instrumental control, giving it the shot of soul it so badly needed.

From the time the first note was played by Parker's band, it was clear that these guys were the strongest act. The funkiest saxophone player in the world lived up to his billing with an hour and a half of polyrhythmic, down-and-dirty, rattle-your-backbone funk.

The rhythm seemed to boil out of Parker, escaping through vocal bleeps and yips, sounding like Al Green doing shorthand, his body twitching and jerking spasmodically as the beat worked its way out. Parker and his international band of funksters improvised continuously, with the saxophonist calling out a mix of tunes from his James Brown tenure. "Gimme Sum Mo," "Lickin' Stick" and "Make it Funky" were deconstructed into honking celebrations of getting down on the one, the bigfoot beat Brown was famous for.

The crowd seemed unsure what to make of Parker and his funkanauts, with most of the attendees sitting still, chins in hand, like they were studying some exotic cultural phenomenon. But the encore, Parker’s rousing JB’s anthem "Pass The Peas," at last got a string of young dancers prancing in front of the stage. It's great to see a sold out house for funk, but next time, it'd be good to see some shakin' going on in the audience as well as onstage.

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