to be, or not to be, funky
Photos © Jim Stanford. Click to enlarge, and use arrow keys to navigate slide show.
How fortunate the world is that while studying Shakespeare in high school, Maceo Parker decided it was better to suffer the slings and arrows of life as a musician.
Despite the weather, it sure felt like summer inside the Knotty Pine on Wednesday night as the noble sax man unleashed a torrent of funk, including the recitation from “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” that has become a staple of his routine.
Rivulets of sweat poured from his head as soon as he began to blow. The Victor log cabin was packed, and the crowd, weary of cold and rain and ready for something to get excited about, let loose.
Maceo seems to get younger each time he visits the Tetons. His eyes are animated and his smile engages, but on this night one of his other features stood out. Amid the swelter on the dance floor, a woman next to me leaned over and said, “He has such beautiful fingers.”
One of the more beautiful moments was an interlude of just saxophone and drums, when Maceo made the notes dance from the horn as his fingers squeezed the brass keys. It was as if he had summoned a genie from a lamp and put the whole room under a spell.
Watching the place go crazy, I wondered whether Maceo ever thought back to the juke joints he used to play with James Brown in the 1960s.
Once again, the “Naughty Pine” became the funk capital of Idaho. As we wait for the sunshine to arrive, we can look forward to the Tatanka Festival on June 20-21, when a slew of bands, led by B-Side Players and Anthony Smith’s Trunk Fulla Funk, will perform on indoor and outdoor stages in a benefit for the Buffalo Field Campaign.
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