Live At Montreux 2004

Like a funk version of the Grateful Dead, George Clinton has spent the last 35 years touring the globe with various incarnations of Parliament-Funkadelic. This concert recording captures one such appearance, at Montreux in 2004. The band is looser and the arrangements more unfurled than they were in the ‘70s, but as soon as you hear the fat-bottom bass of “Bop Gun” and “Flashlight” you realize this music belongs to no one but Clinton and company. The band features a mixture of older players and newcomers, among them Kendra Foster (whose smoked-out soulfulness elevates “Bounce 2 This”) and rapper Sativa (Clinton’s granddaughter). The younger voices connect Clinton to the hip-hop generation, and keep the concert from becoming a nostalgia trip. A stoned, slowed-down rendition of “Not Just Knee Deep” shows Clinton’s refusal to simply sleepwalk through the hits. The entire concert feels like a living, breathing celebration — fans expect nothing less from a band that has long prided itself on its powers of reinvention.