Parliament Funkadelic
will bring 63 years’ worth of its signature, groundbreaking funk to the House of Blues on Friday.
Funk is its own talent, according to Danny Bedrosian. “Playing this music isn’t like playing any other music,” said the keyboardist. “You can be a very talented musician and play your instrument very, very well and have no idea how to play this music.”
Bedrosian, 37, is going on his 16th year playing keys for Parliament Funkadelic, the collective led by George Clinton.
The Tallahasse-based band will perform at the House of Blues in Disney Springs on Friday. (7:30 p.m., $28, livenation.com)
The collective, abbreviated as P-Funk, is comprised of two bands: Parliament and Funkadelic. “Parliament is the more hornand R&B-oriented side of the band,” said Bedrosian. “Funkadelic is the more rock-oriented side of the band. Being a keyboard player, I am a part of both.”
A fan of P-Funk since age 11, Massachusetts-native he started out as a classically trained pianist in a musical household. When he met Clinton through a contest, the bandleader asked him for some music, then told him to finish college.
“You could say the audition process took five years,” said Bedrosian. “And then there’s the rigorous training once you’re in the band.”
Clinton’s first iteration, The Parliaments, began in 1955. That gives P-Funk a repertoire of 63 years and more than 200 records when you count singles and the side projects of band members, including Bedrosian’s Secret Army.
“It’s tens of thousands of songs,” he said. “You really have to know everything in every key. Luckily, my training informed a lot of my ability, especially learning how to learn, which is an important aspect of the band.”
“If I didn’t do my regimen, I wouldn’t be able to have the stamina that I do have to play these long and rigorous shows and to play these diverse things — hip hop and metal and R&B and gospel and blues and psychedelia and doo wop all in the same set,” said Bedrosian.
Given the longevity of the band, he said he would like to see the catalog given a scholarly treatment.
“The music is so vast that it should be academicized more,” said Bedrosian. “Not to the point of sterilizing it but to the point of people understanding it.”
In January, the individual band Parliament released “I’m Gon Make U Sick O Me,” the first single under that band name since 1980. The track leads the album “Medicaid Fraud Dog” due out this year. The album will bring back P-Funk characters such as Sir Nose and tell the story “all about the pharmaceutical industry and how it’s vying to take over every human being’s mind, body and soul,” said Bedrosian.
He said approaching that kind of serious topic is par for the course for PFunk.
“What set George apart from a disco act or a DJ was that he made you think while you were dancing,” Bedrosian said. “You were using your mind and your body at the same time ... It’s dance music, but it’s intellectual dance music.”