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There is a reason why I moved to San Francisco. Well, I suppose there are several reasons why, one of which was the lack of creative drive and magnitude of self-serving, narrow-minded behavior that was engulfing my beach life. Another was the simple fact that the music scene there was blowing! From here I’d be willing to make a convincing argument that these two things are intimately connected: the notion that where I was living was dominated by a lack of vision and no motivation to make anything happen; and the fact that there was no music scene. It is very difficult to imagine a burgeoning music scene when there is no love of art, no desire for social change, or even the comprehension of these concepts. Granted this is a generalization, but you tell me the last time George Clinton and Ornette Coleman performed on consecutive evenings anywhere else in the USA.
Photo by Marcy G. |
As San Francisco watched the SF Jazz Festival cross paths with the SF Funk Festival it became obvious that Wednesday, November 6th and Thursday, November 7th would prove to be remarkable nights here in the Bay Area. Those of us who were in the know, and anyone who was doing their homework, was well aware that these two days would bring legends to our presence. Now I realize that the term "legend" does get thrown around a bit, but when it's appropriate, as in the case of Ornette Coleman and George Clinton, it's appropriate.
As far as improvisational music is concerned, I can't imagine two more important trailblazers that are still performing than George Clinton and Ornette Coleman. Now this is not to rule out all of the other huge names, or to say that these two men stand atop the heap. But when considering what Clinton did merging funk, rock, heavy metal, hip-hop (it wasn't even called that when he was on it), and the concept of a real theatrical, visual experience it is clear that George has his place in the hall of fame. Now change gears and think about Ornette Coleman. The man has literally changed the way music is thought of. His legacy is as revered as his actual playing, his refusal to use the saxophone in the traditional manner led to an entire new means of making music. I have interviewed many, many musicians, and guess whose name comes up over and over when I throw out the customary, "Who has really influenced you?" That's right: Ornette Coleman. What Coleman did for jazz is similar in some way to what Clinton did for funk/rock. The groundbreaking vision these two men encompassed pushed boundaries, broke barriers and destroyed pre-conceived notions of what can and cannot be done. Granted they did it in two very different ways, in two very different genres, but the similarities are striking in their own right. So to say that I was excited to see these two musical monsters on consecutive evenings would be a gross understatement.
George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic gallivanted into Ruby Skye equipped with enough gear, people, costumes, instruments and hype to keep the posh nightclub going until they were literally closing the bar down. George had his posse rolling deep! There were probably 40 people in his entourage and I counted more than 20 people at a time on stage. Seeing George with original Parliament Funkadelic was a rare treat, and they brought it hard and heavy all night long.
If I had to pick the customary one word for the show, it would be LOUD! And when I say "loud," I mean ear-piercing, blood-rushing, get out the bar napkins and stuff them in your ear hole, headache-inducing loud. I don't mean to take away from the fact that they brought the funk, hit the groove, and rang the heavy metal bell, because they did; I just wished that I had remembered my trusty JamBase earplugs.
As soon as members of Funkadelic strolled on stage the hype began. These cats pretty much wrote the book on hype back in the '70s. They were renowned for lugging one of, if not the largest, stage props ever around the USA, found in the form of the Mothership. While the Mothership wasn't on stage, in due time it would be blasting out of the speakers.
It took a while before we even saw the Dr. himself; I'd say at least 45 minutes to an hour of hype, hype and more hype. But this wasn't the annoying kind of hype some of those half-ass DJs use, yelling "Are you ready?" And then you wait another 20 minutes. No, this was P-Funk hype. We had ripping guitar solos, again making me long for the earplugs. We had original mic man "Lollipop" beckoning those old records you used to spin, and we heard the ever familiar and fun as all hell "Bop Gun," equipped with the back-up singers and all their regal clothing. There were boas, sequins, hats of all kinds, pimp hats, cowboy hats, captain lids, wigs, weaves, boots, diapers and lots of skin.
Photo by Wiesen |
There were so many musicians coming on and off stage that it was hard to tell exactly who was doing what, until of course one of the five guitarists would take center stage and "do it to you in your ear hole," as George likes to say. The onslaught continued until close to midnight when the man himself, George Clinton, came out to a very amped-up crowd.
If you didn't know it already, the hype was well substantiated, building and breaking, getting the crowd going. This is a party, and as they kept saying, "If you ain't gonna get it on, take your dead-ass home..." And that's more or less what happened... all night long. Throughout the evening you had to either get it on, or get on home. There was no middle ground; if you didn't come to shake and have your eardrums busted, then you had to leave. There was no quite lounge, no ballads, no time to chill. This was straight-up, loud-as-hell, party-hardy music.
Photo by Wiesen |
Now certain things come with this type of all-out musical assault. It didn't all work, but even the parts that didn't work failed in the fashion I like to see. The segments that fell were done on the edge. This is not a polished party: it's a dance party. It's built on the swells of the crowd and how they relate to the music. And at times the band pushed when they should have pulled, but it was all in good fun. Another aspect that comes with George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic is the manner in which they party, not just the fans. As legendary as the music is, the band is also renowned for their party habits, and although I wasn't kickin' it with the posse, it's a safe assumption that they got their fix.
Photo by Wiesen |
At some point in the evening the Mothership landed, and out came firing guitars, four or five at a time. People were switching instruments like a Chinese fire drill, but you wouldn't know it if you weren't staring at the stage. I'm telling you, these guys know how to throw a party. George was over seeing the affair; he was certainly the ringleader in this freak circus of funk. His voice has aged a bit, but it has aged eloquently, so instead of fighting it, he uses the rasp to accentuate the party calls.
Throughout the night they were weaving P-Funk classics in and out of everything they did. They would whip up a "hit" just long enough for you to grab hold of it and then boom, onto something else, only to revisit the familiar lick later. We were "standing on the verge of getting it on" all night, we were "Knee Deep" and they busted out the "Flashlight," but it was so well done that it never became stale. The manner in which they would bob and weave at the cues of Clinton was very impressive, and kept me there all night long.
Photo by Marcy G. |
There were some very sloppy transitions, and times where it almost crumbled, but whenever things got too out of hand an absolutely ear-drilling guitar lead would wash everything away. Eric McFadden took more than one of these leads, but he was not only tearing the guitar, but destroying the mandolin as well. In addition to the solid drummer, several talented guitarists, a great bass player (you ain't gonna pull off P-Funk with out a serious bass player), there were at least three horn players and a slew of vocalists. There were so many familiar voices touching on the ingenious studio work, that you could only imagine what a nasty late-'70s P-Funk gig would do to your mental state of being.
We had a mental cleansing on this fine evening nonetheless, a quick Zappa reference thrown in and even some Snoop Dog toward the end. The heavy metal anthem "Maggot Brain," originally made famous by the late Eddie Hazel, was everything the rock freaks could want, and probably sent a few who weren't ready to "take their dead-ass home." But shit, that's da P-Funk. The recurring theme of "shit... goddamn.. get off your ass and jam" was heard all night, and often from the crowd. George was so impressed that he told the band to shut-up on multiple occasions so the chants from "the people" could be heard.
Photo by Wiesen |
Parliament Funkadelic came out and played straight for more than three hours. No set break, no down time, three hours of doin' it loud and proud. It wasn't the "sickest show ever" but it had its moments. They brought it 'til Ruby Skye had the house lights on. But that didn't stop the band. They played through the light, and I actually thought the final 15 minutes with the lights on were perhaps the best of the evening. Again, another sign of a real legend: legends always save the best for last, and always leave you satisfied; that's why they're legends. Anyone who stayed until the end was treated with an all-out dance party. It was quite a scene to look around this extremely nice club and see a bunch of heads getting down, and really GETTIN' DOWN! When the band did finally get off the stage the thinned out crowd kept yelling, "We want the funk... we want the funk..."
Now you the reader must clear your mind, you must walk out into the rain filled streets of San Francisco, slide over to my beat-up white wagon and fall asleep with the sound of rain pouring over the window pains. Now you awake and the rain has only gathered more momentum; it is now a torrential downpour. Through this water wonderland we wash away the hype and the volume, we swim through The Show and surface in dignity, in class, in sheer amazement of what Ornette Coleman will bring to the mind.
First the room. Davies Symphony Hall is perhaps the nicest room this young music aficionado has ever had the pleasure of being in. The only other room I can equate to this is the Sydney Opera House, which I was fortunate enough to check out while studying in Australia. Davies Hall is ridiculously gorgeous, and obviously built for sound. It evoked images of the scene in Star Wars where "the council" meet and they sit in those booths that can fly around, but only in the room's ominous presence and beauty. The contours of the room, the velvet, the silver gargantuan organ pipes, the reflective glass plates above the musicians, the entire room seemed the perfect setting to see one of the most legendary musicians ever to bless this world.
Coleman hadn't been to the Bay since 1994, when he last appeared at the SF Jazz Festival, and this was only his second appearance all year. At 72 years of age, Coleman made it instantly clear that he had not lost his lyrical phrasing. Although he performed all new material, his saxophone spoke in much the same melodic voice that perpetuates his most well-known recordings. His band was phenomenal, and truly opened my eyes a bit wider to all the magnificent musicians I don't know! Charnett Moffett on upright bass blew my mind. Plain and simple, this guy took me out of my seat and threw me into the cosmos. Here I am thinking that Reed Mathis of the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey is the only one who can conjure up the sounds he does. Boy, was I wrong. Now this is not to take anything away from Reed; he is without a doubt a leader in this musical revolution. But Moffett made it all too clear that we must all open our ears and continue to search out sounds we might not be so familiar with. Moffett's use of the wah-wah peddle kept bringing Mathis to mind, and his amazing use of the bow kept me on the edge of my seat all night long. While sliding the bow in the traditional manner he would also use it a percussive tool, tapping it on the strings as he would weave melodic notes. It was something I have never really seen before. Perhaps I've heard it, but never witnessed it. By utilizing both a melodic and percussive sound simultaneously, Moffett was creating the atmosphere of a fourth musician on stage, and certainly led me to believe that he is yet another musical genius I need to explore.
Drummer and son to Ornette, Denardo Coleman, who began performing with his father at the ripe age of 10, was very impressive in his own right. Perhaps not as mind-blowing as Moffett or Ornette, he certainly belonged on stage, as he would anticipate both players' moves exquisitely.
In thinking of Ornette's playing it becomes so very difficult for me to verbalize what I experienced. His sax was at times like sunshine breaking through the clouds, at other times it was like a sheet of light warming the soul, and yet at other points it was like water flowing over rocks in a river. The music this trio made moved like a water balloon falling down a grassy hill, never breaking, just rolling, tumbling, following its own weight. The music moved as one object, yet contained independent motion inside causing the object to swell, protrude, breath and live.
Ornette's violin and trumpet were used scarcely and appropriately, but it was clear why the saxophone became his voice. The music these men made painted pictures in my mind. It evoked emotion and caused me to think. I was truly touched but what I witnessed within the confines of Davies Hall. Beyond the amazing nature of the music something else grabbed hold of my psyche. The notion of respect, and the aura that radiated off Ornette. The respect that Ornette Coleman garnered on stage was like nothing I've ever seen. Before he played, and in between songs, the close to 3,000-person room was silent, so utterly quite that you could have literally heard a pin drop. You cannot buy this type of respect, you cannot market your way into this status. This type of respect can only be earned through a lifetime of musical milestones. The glow that surrounded Ornette and his teal suit was almost as impressive as his music; the man truly is a legend.
As I floated out of Davies Hall into the now calm city night, the weight of what I had just been a part of began to fill me with an air of knowledge, as if I had just learned some great lesson. The magnitude of the two giants I had been with over the past couple of evenings was swelling in my melon. These two musical icons, who have both been performing and recording since the mid-1950s, continue to enrich our lives, each and every one of ours. Even people who have never heard of Ornette Coleman or George Clinton have been greatly affected by these men. Whenever an individual is able to change art, and in turn affect society, they are affecting the masses. The trickle down effect of Clinton and Coleman is so large-scale that it would be impossible to track. If you think of how many people - musicians, painters, writers, thinkers, people from all walks - that have been influenced by these two men, and then how many people they have influenced, the word "legend" begins to take on its true meaning. There is no doubt that they have changed music for all of us, and there is no doubt that they have forced the world to open its brain a bit wider. After considering all of this, it seems that in essence they have pushed evolution forward just a wee bit. I guess that's what you get when legends come to town.
The Kayceman
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