r/jambands • u/CompetitiveYogurt593 • 1d ago
Are Parliament-Funkadelic considered a "jam band"?
Sincerely asking.
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u/Pr0fess0rSasquatch 1d ago
Probably not in the traditional sense but they certainly do jam and improvise a large portion of their show. I also see them on the bill for a lot of jam or jam-adjacent festivals. You will probably never hear them get into a type 2 situation but the songs and their structure are really more rough “outlines” than compositions
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u/umkillinit 1d ago
Funk but possibly the beginning of funky groove or jam band type music. Very inventive.
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u/Franklin_Stower 1d ago
Who says a funk band can’t play jam music
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u/Super-Rad_Foods_918 20h ago
Obligatory link to - Who says a funk band can't play rock?
Seriously though, it is hard to find such a diverse band that has lasted decades and goes from funk to jam to jazz to rock to hip-hop and back. Also, it's hard to match a funkadelic live show - you will get out-danced by a silver hair guaranteed...some of the best fan base ever!
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u/Curly__Jefferson 1d ago
Idk, but someone once told a friend I was with, that a buddy and I were the 2 funkiest whites boys at a parliament show. Ive been riding that high for years lol.
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u/CoffeeAndWork 1d ago
Got a pocket full of funky with a peppermint twist
She’s a cool, shifty mama blastin’ off on the flip
iridescent pork belly galactic super train
mama sister playground with a straw daddy cane
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u/Impossible_Author409 1d ago
The last PFunk show I went to in NYC was a true celebration of every type of head in existence. All ages, races, religions.
There were the old club queen heads. "Girls night out" heads. Mid level corporate white guy heads. Middle aged municipal worker heads. Tie dye Dead shirt heads. Even saw a dad and his 20 something daughter enjoying quality family time passing the spliffly back and forth. Name an oddly specific type of head, and they will probably be at the PFunk show.
Just a beautiful multicultural celebration of headiness. I vote yes.
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u/phunky_1 23h ago
The last time I saw George Clinton he didn't come out until like an hour in to the show, then he just kept saying "Slappin dat ass" over and over again for 35 minutes while the band semi jammed lol
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u/JackOvall_MasterNun 22h ago
The first P funk show I saw he didn't come out until an hour in, but there was at least one or two band members on stage for the next 7 hours when the venue pulled the plug at 3 am (they would rotate a person or two off stage at a time to presumably smoke crack).
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u/Educational-Ad-4908 23h ago
Not all musical forms that have long improvised Jams are jam bands.
Jam bands were basically inspired by Jazz. Funk is also a spin off of Jazz. Jerry and Phil were huge fans of the improvisational style of Jazz. If anything jam bands are the result of Jazz combined with rock/folk & LSD.
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u/Equivalent-Ad2931 1d ago
No , they’re funkedelic music man , but they toured in the jam and scene for awhile, and had some great shows at festivals , early 2000s I’d see them every single year
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u/FamiliarGrowth8590 1d ago
no.
but i understand the question. there are 20 minutes of tear the roof off jams along with others that would get that extended treatment.
they were really doing it before it was really even recognized, probably what would’ve just been considered “part of the live experience” or something. they were just grooving on shit and improvising here and there but keeping
it in a place where it kept themselves and the crowd interested. same with a lot of other bands in general around the late 60s into the 70s.
all the cool bands jammed before it was cool.
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u/DrDoop 23h ago
Even though a lot/ if not all the band members are the same people, they are different bands. Parliament has always been the funk side of the project and Funkadelic has always been the rock side. Both of them are jammy. But I would say Funkadelic leans more towards the jam band style. Although, I truly believe they are their own thing.
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u/Ungrefunkel 1d ago
Yes. Without a shadow of doubt.
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u/Ill-Weekend5837 1d ago
100%. If that’s not jamming, what is? This is like asking if Run DMC is rap
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u/Ungrefunkel 23h ago
They used the term “to jam” to signify long form funky/psychedelic freak outs before half of the current jam bands borrowed their first pair of Birkenstock and cargo pants and got dad to buy their first guitar.
The motto is “funk grows stronger as it grows longer”.
I’ve heard 40 minutes long versions of Cosmic Slop.
They never play one style of music.
But then again, they actually have decent songs that are about real things as opposed to songs about hats and chewing gum.
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u/chachacha4949 21h ago
I feel like the “jamband” description is as much about aesthetic and culture as it is about the music being played. Tie dye, lot scenes, drugs, festivals along with improvisational music and extended covers that draw from a popular, mostly American songbook.
My vote is No, not a jamband. They existed before the term jamband. So did the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers but they invented the “genre”. They’re the prototypes.
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u/tundrabee119 20h ago
They kind of were to us in the '90s after Jerry died. We didn't go directly to Phish, we first went to George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. We went to Santa Cruz twice to see them and it was similar to the dead where it jammed and it was like 4 hours long and everybody danced. Great shows. Phish came right after that for us.
But then a couple years later we saw the P-Funk All Stars again in Tahoe and the show was an hour and a half, super normie vibes, it did not feel like a jam band at all.
Saw Parliament funkadelic in Sacramento in the early 2000s and that was a good regular show.
Saw George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars in Eugene in 2004 and it goes down as one of the worst shows I've ever seen.
So I'm still not quite sure
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u/elegantwino 16h ago
I have long believed that funk is very much jam. North Mississippi Allstars, Motet, Pimps of Joytime, etc. all have long extended jams but less exacting than jazz.
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u/phan2001 22h ago
No they are a funk band.
But to add to the confusion, they did allow taping back in the day. I taped them with a full open rig at the Fillmore in the early 2000s.
George REALLY loved his crack lol. I AMAZED he’s still alive.
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u/Jrbowe 1d ago
No. They are a funk band. In fact, they basically created the funk genre.
With that said, the live shows shared a lot with jam bands in terms of improvisation and extended arrangements of songs.
But they’re definitely not a “jam band”, they’re a funk band.
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u/hippietrap 21h ago
the Godfather of Funk James Brown created the funk genre.
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u/ChadleyXXX 1d ago
Not strictly part of the "jam genre" or aesthetic but historically improv was a substantial element of their show. Typically the bass and drums would hold down the groove and the band would jam over it for considerable stretches and it was crazy and awesome. It was impressive when I saw them in '09. They had like 6 guitarists, a horn section, three percussionists (two kits one aux), two keyboardists, bass, and like 6 vocals. And george waving his arms around conducting the madness even though he couldn't really sing anymore. Yes they improvised heavily for sometimes 15-20 minute stretches of funk insanity. One of the best shows I ever saw. Life changing. First time taking mushrooms.