If you’d downloaded this double CD from your favorite illicit site, you’d probably think it was the best 64 cents (for the two blank CDs) that you ever spent. As a live recording, this set captures some rare arrangements and flashes of magic, like a good bootleg is supposed to do. But as a full-fledged Maceo Parker release, it’s still a good bootleg—a live show served straight-up with peaks, plateaus and eight-minute drum solo.

It wasn’t just any live show, however. Last year Parker toured Europe with the Cologne-based WDR Big Band doing a two-part show. The first half was a Ray Charles tribute; the second reprised showpieces from his solo career and JB’s catalogue. Charles is already one of the most-tributed musicians around, and the songs on the first disc have been recorded hundreds of times—not least by Parker himself, who already played the definitive “Georgia on My Mind” with his old boss James Brown. Yet the big band manages to put new juice into some of these tunes; on the opening “Hallelujah I Love Her So” they manage a Ray Charles-styled arrangement that’s notably different from the one Charles actually wrote.

Only problem is that all but two of the Charles tracks feature Parker as vocalist, not sax player. He acquits himself fine, if a bit too faithfully; doing one of the more accurate Ray Charles impersonations ever recorded. He’s clearly having fun, but despite a few tasty solos, this fits the usual gripe about tribute discs. There’s no real reason to play them if you’ve got the real thing in your collection.

Disc two, subtitled “Back to Funk,” finds Parker and the big band joined by bassist Skeet Curtis and drummer Dennis Chambers. Five of the six tunes are drawn from his last batch of solo albums; and these versions make the studio ones sound like rough drafts. There are freer solos, sweatier grooves, and a version of “Off the Hook” that lives up to its title. The big band steps back often enough to let the core trio work out, then picks the right moment to swoop in for the kill. True, the soloing gets a little out of hand on “Pass the Peas,” which stretches to nearly 18 minutes. But by then, you’ll take any excuse to have the disc go on for a little longer.