Life On Planet Groove

Back in the early 90's I joined one of those music clubs that sent you a disc every month unless you paid attention and told them not to. Well, Maceo Parker's "Live on Planet Groove" showed up in my college PO Box. It had a cool cover, so I thought I'd give it a spin. Wow, my life has never been the same since (not that this CD was the cause).

This cd ranks as one of my all time greatest discoveries. I was always a JB fan, but really didn't know much about Maceo (Hey, I was a suburban white kid). This disc changed everything. It is absolutely, positively impossible to sit still listening to this concert. It just can't be done, even a deaf person would feel the beat and want to move around! The first two tracks and the last track alone would make this disc perfect and represent the reason that any fan of funk has to own this recording. Take that back, this recording will OWN you!

However, the middle tracks kind of let down the extreme party nature of the first 2 and last tracks. While very good, they are a let down from the perfect funk expressed on those tracks. The other issue is that this recording, like many German live recordings I have collected over the years, is overly bright with a pretty intense and sizzling high end. Likewise, the bass is a bit thin, which given the talent of Maceo's band and the nature of the music seams down right unforgivable. Otherwise, like most live recordings in Germany, the sound is incredibly clean and well mixed.

This is definitely one of my favorite albums. I'm not going to write a long in-depth analysis, I will only say that as a musician this is one of the albums I look too for inspiration simply in finding that groove I want for writing and performing. If you're looking for something you can just enjoy the hell out of with no pretensions, look no further.

I love the music here but my one criticism is the amount of 'crowd participation' etc really gets in the way. Maceo eggs the crowd on to a large degree, which is a hallmark of his style but it's not really appropriate for an entire album. But once he shuts up and starts to play...look out it's mighty funky.

After reading the many 'rave' reviews about this album (and having the odd album of Maceo's already) I promptly followed suit and ordered my own. I must say that after listening to it I was fairly unimpressed.

Yes there is definitely some great funk on here and virtuoso playing. But, and here's a few butts for ya!

1) Where is the bass??? - I have a high end audio system and I would have to say that this is about the most anemic disc I have ever heard! The one very thing that funk needs is a solid backbeat and bottom end and this disc just doesn't have any. With any luck you can crank on the bass control on your system but why do we have to do this? The recording/mastering engineers should have known better.

2) Candy Dulfer - might be pretty but she doesn't add anything funky to this disc. Reminiscent of Kenny G and would have been better off this album.

3) Maceo's singing (assuming its him) - better spent wrapping his lips around a reed. Sweet Georgia is a tired old tune, not much for funk either and basically is a big lead sinker.

4) 'So Good' sped up wasn't very inspiring either and the original James Brown version (which he obviously would have played on also) just wipes it by comparison. Nothing inspiring with this selection.

I could go on, but these were the main beefs...

I'm sure the guy is great live, but this record, judged on its merits (rather than some memory of a concert of years ago that others seem to be recalling) is only average.

Cheers, Kendrick

This is the best live performance ever recorded, EVER. I'd give my right leg to have been there.

Any drummers here? There's enough tight licks to send you to the woodshed to practice for a decade. Almost every backbeat sends chills down my spine.

This album is truly a testament to instrumental musicians. Everybody plays their part, nobody steps on anyone else, each musician inspires the others to play their best, and the result is a sublime collective whole. Machines will never groove as hard humans, and this album is proof.

I'm on my third copy in over a decade, the CDs just can't seem to hold up to the amount of times I play them.