At Madison Square Garden a couple weeks ago, Prince pulled a beautiful young woman up on stage and serenaded her with “I Love U But I Don’t Trust U Anymore.” The song featured an alto saxophone solo by Maceo Parker, throughout which Prince kept asking the woman if she knew who the saxophonist was, and she kept nodding as if she did even though it was clear from her eyes that she didn’t.

It turns out the woman was Leighton Meester, from the Matt Cerrone-favorite show Gossip Girl, which I have never seen. Anyway, I really hate it when people find out you’ve never heard of something and then act incredulous and make you feel stupid. That’s not what Prince did, but it’s something that comes up all the time, especially in music.

You’ll be talking to someone and they’ll be like, “You’ve never heard of HAWKWIND!? How can you even call yourself a music fan you poser!” Well, sorry but I haven’t. I’m confident in my base of knowledge, and I’m sure there are plenty of bands I’ve heard of that you haven’t. For example, I had no idea who Leighton Meester was, which might surprise and for some reason bother fans of contemporary pop culture and the show Gossip Girl, but I did very much know who Maceo Parker was. And I think sharing knowledge is more productive than mocking someone for lacking it, so this is for Ms. Meester and anyone else who doesn’t know about Maceo, because you should.

From the Wikipedia: Maceo Parker.

Maceo Parker is a funk saxophonist. Nay, Maceo Parker is the funk saxophonist. His Wikipedia page says he plays the tenor and bari saxes, but he is mostly associated with the alto sax. He grew up in North Carolina playing in church, and got his big break when James Brown recruited Parker’s brother Melvin to play drums in his touring band. Brown agreed to take on Maceo as well, beginning a rocky association that lasted a quarter of a century.

Maceo would ultimately serve as Brown’s band leader in some of his most popular bands. He played the classic sax line on the recorded version of “I Got You (I Feel Good).” Like many of Brown’s recruits, he left the band multiple times over disagreements with the notoriously rigid Brown. He played in multiple iterations of Parliament-Funkadelic and on numerous projects with funk heroes (and fellow former James Brown bandmembers) trombonist Fred Wesley and bassist Bootsy Collins.

There isn’t much about Parker on his Wikipedia page that’s not about music, and that seems reasonable because he probably doesn’t have much time to do anything else. According to the page, he has played as a sideman on 88 albums since 1964 and recorded 15 of his own. His resume includes gigs with the Brown, P-Funk, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Living Colour, De La Soul, the Dave Matthews Band, Prince, 10,000 Maniacs, Color Me Badd and Keith Richards.

During the Prince concert, Prince would just occasionally call out for Maceo and Maceo would just walk on from offstage and rip into a sax solo. This is notable because I’ve seen this happen in multiple shows with multiple bands in various venues. I think Maceo Parker might just sort of show up places with his saxophone then stand offstage and assume people will call him on to jam, which they should because he’s awesome.