Parker: You're, you're exactly right, ah, this is not really my answer but you're right about the thousand times only.
Parker: Funk to me is an attitude, a, ah, when you're playing funky music there's a certain, ah, ah, procedure, a certain, ah, ah, a certain feeling, ah, that you have to have, ah, and the feeling is within.
Parker: You hear the syncopated side of the music, the syncopated side of the beat.
Parker: And I think as, as a funky musician or as a so-called funky musicians are, we have a tendency to sort of come together or, or form groups because we week, ah, you know each other.
Parker: It's, it's, to be, to be able to play funky is, is sort of like a, ah, group of honorary, ah, cats or musicians, you know, that can play and it's like a, ah, to be able to play funk is like a badge, you carry a badge around, that says, hi and hello, listen to this I can play funky music.
Interviewer: Tonight you had a party on the stage.
Interviewer: What is that feeling? It seems like this communal thing, about dance, it's about shaking your booty, what is it in spirit that makes you do the funk?
Parker: It's again, ah, I, I feel good.
Parker: I feel comf… comfortable in performing funky music.
Parker: I feel good in performing especially funky music.
Parker: Again it's, it's a at ease feeling that I have that's, that's within.
Parker: Ah, I really enjoy entertaining and I think, you know, as a whole there are not a lot of people that can, that can, you know, get on the stage and, and perform and entertain.
Parker: But we as a whole, as a people we are liked, we like to be encouraged.
Parker: It's almost like a Simon says, you know it's, it's okay for me to, to, you know, raise my hand and clap my, clap my hands and you know sway from side to side because Simon says do this.
Parker: It's not really me, you know, ah, ah, my everyday self is maybe in the office or in a school or whatever.
Parker: But now I'm in this particular club or this particular spot to have a good time and it's still not really me but I have been commanded, you know, to sway from side to side, to clap my hands to raise my, you know, both my hands in the air this kind of thing.
Parker: And since I've been commanded to do it I've done it and in doing it I'm having a good time, I'm having fun.
Interviewer: Could you give me a demonstration of what "Cold Sweat" would sound like if it weren't funky and what the funk is in "Cold Sweat".
Interviewer: Could you give me an unfunky "Cold Sweat" and a funky "Cold Sweat".
Interviewer: Could you do that?
Parker: I, if I played, if I played drums I could sort of demonstrate the difference in a, ah, say like a jazzy "Cold Sweat" as opposed to a funky "Cold Sweat" because it lies down, first of all when you had a group the, the funk, or the funky, funky, funkiness somehow starts with the rhythm section.
Parker: You got to have a funky drum pattern, funky bass pattern, guitar pattern, guitar licks.
Parker: And then, you know, then all the funky horns.
Parker: But it, it all starts with the rhythm section.
Parker: You know if, if the drummers plan ting, ting, ti-ting, ting.
Parker: That's sort of jazzy 'cause it's straight, you see.
Parker: And then to play with it you have to that ting ting straight 4 feeling, ting, ting, ting.
Parker: Then you're playing [horn] which in a sense is what jazz is.
Parker: Jazz is like a straight [sings].
Parker: But now opposed to that funk, you got [sings] which is like a syncopated, you still got your pulse going doon, doon, but you got uh ah, uh ah, uh uh ah.
Parker: And right away your attitude is better, your attitude is lightened and you get, you know, a happy, I want to dance feeling in your neck you get to move to it.
Parker: And then when you get that [sings] and then with that in mind you go.
Parker: So that's really the difference.
Parker: The difference lies in the, the rhythm section.
Parker: If you can get the rhythm section to, you know, play funky.
Parker: It doesn't, ah, it's, it's always nice to know of and can be sort of recognized, when you can recognize other funky musicians because, oh they got, oh I love the way he, he plays.
Parker: This is like all pertain to funk, funk, funk, funky music same thing lies with jazz.
Parker: You know we have a tendency to, to seek, you know, what we really like and seek out the musicians that we really like.
Parker: Oh he, oh he's a great jazz bass player, a great jazzy drummer.
Parker: So we want to do some jazzy stuff didn't you somehow just search the old memory bank and you go back to those people that you know that can play really good jazz.
Parker: Well the same thing happens in funky music, you know, you run across, you know, from years to years you run across all these people that can play funky drums, funky guitar, funky, so you when you get ready to put them together, you just think about, oh yeah I remember that guy was there.
Parker: This guy was a disco, this guy, you know, like this.
Parker: And you just get them all together and then you know you got a really good funky band because you got all good funky musicians.
Interviewer: If you could name some of the folks you knew - funk.
Parker: When I was listening to music 'cause that's what I did for a long, long time, I just listened.
Parker: I can remember listening, hearing the Meters from New Orleans a really good funky group.
Parker: They had like a different, a different approach.
Parker: And if you, you know, were getting like a funky meter, you know, or something to, ah,to skill out on a scale that you can scale funky music, they would be like all the way to the top.
Parker: Ah, ah, but there were a lot of, you know, funky groups and, ah, ah, I really can't, you know, name, name them all now but I do know Sly and the Family Stone had a, had a tune called "In Time" [sings].
Parker: "Time" really funky.
Parker: And a lot of times when you have a style where you just sort of break it up and just have the drummer playing alone and then maybe just add the, you know, the bass and all these things in the rhythm section, you know.
Parker: It's good and funky.
Parker: But I think I, I probably played, you know, throughout the years with the funkiest bands, you know, that there were, you know, in, in James Brown and say George Clinton and Bootsy Collins.
Parker: You know I, I've had a taste of it all.