BERNIE WORRELL PLAYS EMPORIA, KANSAS
Bernie Worrell, on keys, plays real soft, goes into “My Favorite Things,” downshifts from funk into that jazz standard, and sets a landing pad for the saxman, who plays sweet, about five notes, an ostinato, riff, different ways of saying one thing, until it becomes another, becomes a new language of five notes, how many ways we can intone, and this woman in the blue dress up front becomes a part of Bernie’s band, her hips her instrument, her hand at her hair at her hip in the air, and Bernie’s hands are young, are 20 again, slender, quick, hip as a beat that turns three into one, two into three, stutter-steps that third quarter-note beat back into the first, the one, and Mother Nature brings hail, brings dime-sized drops of indigo rain, turns car tops, hoods into silver vibes, that rain that hail: yarn mallets; Worrell turns Emporia into one tune, for one song, and that big-bearded man dancing puts down his beer, starts hugging everyone, and that buzz-cut, ball-capped cracker with his phone as a camera turns that phone on himself, on the band, on the backdrop curtain, until all this town is one, one shot, one blinding light before the music turns to darkness, into that silence when the band finally saunters off.
(Bernie Worrell, Parliment-Funkadelic keyboardist and founding member)