Evan Parker Roundup, Part 1 of 2

Evan Parker. Photo by Peter Gannushkin.

By Nick Metzger

Evan Parker had a very prolific year in terms of material releases and those we’ve covered thus far have impelled some praising write-ups from members of the collective (Lee’s Weekertoft reviews, Eyal’s Topographie Parisienne review, and Stuart’s Chiasm review, specifically), and still we are left with somewhere in the ballpark of ten or more releases without comment. The spectrum of his recent releases encompass the majority of his interests, with recordings both new and archival, from albums in collaboration with old friends to his signature solo soprano work to his spectacular electronic phantasmagorias; we got a little bit of everything. I’ve reviewed them in no particular order, and not all of the releases include Parker as the featured artist, however his participation is the common denominator in these write-ups. My hope is that these reviews can shed a bit of light for those who don’t know where to start or spotlight them for folks who were unaware of some. Special thanks to Colin for his help in leaving no stone unturned.

Evan Parker, Barry Guy, Paul Lytton - Concert in Vilnius (NoBusiness, 2019) *****

Whenever I listen to this trio, their group intuition and their shared complex musical language (which they have refined and coagulated via practice and the passage of time) never cease to bring a smile to my face. Having played together since at least 1980, and with Parker and Lytton collaborating long before that, they’ve built a vast catalogue of records together over the years. I’ll spare you any otiose rumination on whether they constitute proper free improv because of their familiarity and long-built rapport, as I think Parker states it best himself in the program notes for his 1992 show in Rotterdam “I think that in that debate at times sight of the wood was obscured by the trees. Certainly by the time a theoretical position is arrived at in which it is thought the term ‘non-idiomatic improvisation’ is the best description of something as instantly recognizable as Derek Bailey's guitar playing we have reached what E. P. Thompson called in another context ‘the terminus of the absurd’.” What I will say is that I love the music and I go out of my way to get ahold of any new or old material the trio issues.

“Part 1” starts with the familiar sound of Guy’s slinking, popping pizzicato dancing with the polished fluidic language of Parker, his nuanced and gradual attack smoothing the flickering edges of his playing, as Lytton gently and perfectly stitches it all together with irregular rolls and the rapid thump of his kick drum. With this trio it’s all about the interplay; the implicit telepathy of a group that has collaborated long enough for their roots to become entwined as a sentient bundle. Reaching for a metaphorical precipice of the potential for reed and brass, for gut and wood, for stick and stretched skin, a vast rippling sculpture garden of air pressure variation versus time. The second offering finds Parker unfurling golden spirals of circular breathing early in the track. Guy's playing broods with a deep resonant menace, intermittently striking sparks with his severe arco and violent plucking and slapping. Lytton is a maelstrom of crackling energy, more combustion than creature, heavily working every strikable surface of his kit. There is a brief remiss about halfway through before Parker leads them up and out with some of the tightest, textured improvisation you're likely to hear. Maybe my favorite piece ever by this trio...maybe. It's as refined a distillation of their expression as you're ever likely to find.

On Part 3 Guy pummels his prepared bass, his aggressive snap, strum, and rattle is a force of nature served solo across the first quarter of the piece. Eventually Lytton's skittering percussion begins to accent the controlled chaos of Guy's playing before he really sinks his teeth in and gets the sticks moving. Parker doesn't reveal himself until the midpoint, entering the fray with clicking and popping and harmonic squawk, segueing into an eruption of chrysopoeia over the latter half of the piece, swelling in volume and intensity, his breathing and measure staccato a roiling cipher issued to his band mates who meet the upsurge head-on in a colossal wave of sound. Part 4 closes the album with a fragment, or brief conclusion almost for show. A gorgeous little nugget of sound brimming with what's been stated, as if to show that they open it up like a steam valve once the boiler is hot. Their creativity flows like a river here, and this might be their very best offering depending on your tastes.

 

Camera phone footage of Part 3 via Youtube:

Evan Parker, Agustí Fernández, Ivo Sans - Locations (Vector, 2019) ****½

On “Locations” Parker is joined with a longtime collaborator in Catalonian pianist Agustí Fernández and the fantastic, assiduous percussionist and artist Ivo Sans who plays with Fernández in the SAI trio with dancer Sònia Sánchez, and has also performed in duos and other groups with Parker, amongst his numerous projects. Parker and Fernández have been working their chemistry over the last couple of decades in various undertakings. They’ve released music as duo, in trio with Herb Robertson, as well as with the Parker/Guy/Lytton trio. Both men are participants in Barry Guy's New Orchestra project and Fernández has also played as a member of Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Here we are presented with a set of terrific studio-recorded improvisations captured in Barcelona in 2017.

On “Location 2” Fernández’s piano broods; a bed of low register tones dredged in staggered runs of the upper. Parker's playing is in his classic vein, fractals of timbre and rapidly tongued chatter varying in attack from smooth and woody to a hectic squawk of bird call with trailing harmonics and ghostly false notes. Sans' percussion strikes the right balance between texture and timing with his rubato rolls and groaning cymbal grima. For “Location 6” Fernández goes directly for the offal of his piano, maniacally ripping and scraping at the innards. Parker and Sans are mindful of his exertions and play at the periphery of his outburst, adding thoughtful contrasts of varying timbre. “No” begins quietly with some light wooden sounds from the drums and a scraping rumble from the keys over Parker's pad clatter. The intensity increases linearly towards the conclusion, with sails unfurled towards the end, the atmosphere full of activity. Parker and Fernandez duel briefly at the beginning of “Location 3” until Evo enters with a flurry of agitated percussion that re-establishes the direction of the improvisation. Fernandez goes berserk, attacking his instrument and wringing ferocious cascades of notes from the insides. Parker follows suit and chuffs up his tone considerably, keeping tempo with the aggressive rhythms of the piece. A brief dance between piano and drums followed by a stanza of Parker's infinite breath and the trio closes with some very nice fanfare.

“Location 4” is a short, subtle piece of abstract rolls and cymbal work, barely there saxophone hiss and harmonics, and the half muted thumping of a piano played as percussion instrument, extremely tasty stuff. “Location 5” gives me the immediate impression that Fernández has been buried alive inside his piano, as it issues a lot of near unidentifiable low end activity originating far away from the ivories portion of the instrument. Evo's playing is busy but remains low intensity, he keeps the sticks moving swiftly about his kit whilst Parker provides a writhing contrast by tactically uncoiling his smooth edged runs bringing to mind an immense snake worming its way through jagged underbrush and frayed mulch. “Resolution” is a short piece that swells up gorgeously to seal the album. Rattling percussion, full broad piano, and Parker's golden horn it’s absolutely the comeliest piece on the album, like the smell of the open air on the morning after a violent storm.

Purchase via Vector Sounds.


Hideaki Shimada, Evan Parker, Roger Turner - Kanazawa Duos (Pico, 2019) ****½

 
On "Kanazawa Duos" the Japanese violinist Hideaki Shimada duals with Parker on soprano saxophone on the first cut and free improvising titan Roger Turner on the second. Hideaki has released albums of layered, electronically manipulated solo violin since the mid-80's under the moniker Agencement as well as working with other experimental Japanese musicians such as Tetuzi Akiyama. Like Evan Parker the English percussionist Roger Turner has been at it since the beginning, working closely with Lol Coxhill, Phil Minton, John Russell, Carlos Zingaro, Annette Peacock, Fred Frith, Cecil Taylor, Parker, Derek Bailey, Keith Rowe, William Parker, Paul Rutherford, Joelle Leandre, Marilyn Crispell, Henry Grimes, and many, many others. He's forged relationships with many Japanese artists throughout the years such as Toshinori Kondo, Otomo Yoshihide, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, and Chino Shuichi, playing with the latter in the 2009 Hana-Bi shows in London. So now that we have everyone's credentials in order, let's move along to the music.

Like the eponymous painting style “Spring Tachism” bursts with energy and expression, Hideaki providing his via electronically manipulated fiddle and Parker on the soprano saxophone. Hideaki squelches and hums swell and decay, and it's hard to identify his violin as such as it's mainly masticated by his processing. His soundcraft provides a certain amount of grit for Parker's hiccupping and piercing trills. Near the midpoint the electronic manipulation is scaled down and the piece acquires a chamber music character (almost), before the effects reemerge like jungle insects fluttering above the ever flowing river of Parker's metallic gambol. “Autumn Crags 2” with the ineffable Roger Turner is a little bit different. Instead of the contrasting but complementary methods of the former track these two play directly off of each other. Hideaki's processed violin is met head-on with Turner's keen ear and broad sonic palette. Turner's quivering percussive sculptures provide something of a counterpoint to the chirping and strepitous motion of Hideaki. Not a lot of build up or dynamics, but a lot of texture and interplay.



Evan Parker - Work in Progress (Vortex Jazz Club, 2019) ****

 
To be honest I've always been pretty intimidated by the thought of reviewing an Evan Parker solo album. Some part of that is due to an insecurity in my ability to relay what I'm hearing properly without sounding like an ass, and some is due to the reverence in which I hold his solo work. I don't own all of Parker's discography (a problem I work at from time to time, when the means are there), but I do own most of his solo albums. They fascinate me. No one else sounds like him, really. And while his solo work has certainly evolved over the years, you can hear it's underlying logic in as early a recording as "Saxophone Solos" which was released in 1975. That was about 45 years ago, think about that. 45 years. Think of all that you've taken up and put aside in 45 years (if indeed you've even been around that long), And yet Evan Parker's solo saxophone logic is still extant and still being refined. Surfaces polished, edges rounded.

It's different now, but if you listen to his oldest solo material against his more recent work a common thread remains. The flight of a flock of starlings, the geometry of spider webs, the hexagonal shape of honeycomb, the fractal growth patterns of flora, and Evan Parker's solo soprano saxophone music. It's the physical manifestation of his internal mathematics and it is vital and always worth listening to. Anyway, enough of that. EP donated the tracks on "Work in Progress" for the fundraising efforts of the Vortex Jazz Club, which he has called his 'spiritual home', and where he has maintained a long-standing monthly residency. It's the first official EP solo release in almost a decade (the last being 2010's "Whitstable Solos") and judging from the title I assume these are meant to be taken as sketches and ideas and not really a proper solo album, but there is plenty of great material to digest here nonetheless.

The first track "Piece 1" provides the vortical, multi-layered tonic of quickened notes associated with Parker's work. There is some gorgeous playing here that remediates any thought of 'sketches' in the derogatory, as Parker fills the last couple of minutes with some of the best playing I've heard from him. Scrumptious. On "Piece 2" the listener is treated to an ambulo of sparkling overtones swirling above the honking fundamentals in another startlingly potent storm of sound. The third piece is really the first I might call a sketch due to its short duration. Even so it serves as a coda to the second piece, as it shares similarities and tactics. The last track entitled "Short Pieces" is the longest of the four and is constituted of several short passages broken up with brief silences, definitely sketches, that provide an interesting glimpse into Parker's methodology. What I think is most impressive here is the amount of control displayed, not that it's particularly surprising but he makes the high speed shifts in register and patterns sound as seamless as fake teeth.


 
Evan Parker & Joe Morris - The Village (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2019) ****½

Although they've worked together in various groupings and ensembles over the years, this record documents the first duo concert given by Evan Parker and guitarist Joe Morris. It's title is a nod to the West Village in Manhattan, where this show took place in the Greenwich House. In his notes, Morris states that he noticed that those who collaborate with Parker hardly ever play in unison with him, preferring modes of juxtaposition, and that he'd decided that if they ever played together he would focus on the unison whenever it was appropriate. It's an interesting observation. Parker's collaborative work is wholly different than his solo material, not that some of the techniques don't bleed over from time to time. His playing in a group context generally leaves space for the other musician(s) between phrases, baiting them into filling the gaps. Like Parker, Morris has what I would deem to be an instantly recognisable improvisation style that is in many ways similar in his use of phrases and spacing, so I was intrigued with how the two playing 'in unison' would come off.

"The Mound" makes up a little over 70% of the albums content with its near 40 minute run time. Parker is on tenor saxophone and Morris plays very clean electric guitar. Their dialogue is busy and masticates the air in the room. Both artists make heavy use of brisk, harmonically rich runs with the timbres and techniques used being very complementary. It's a very textured and full sounding recording for a duo that wouldn't work as well with additional players, at least not with what they're doing here. As for playing in unison it works out very well (and as a side note we're not talking perfect unison, obviously) and I'm not sure there's another guitarist who could pull it off aside from Morris. His playing seems tailor made for this sort of meshing of the streams and his decision to forgo any effects is the right one. Careful listening reveals that, in general, one player leads and one follows closely behind. And who is leading switches several times over the piece. It's an extremely satisfying listen, but you can tell that it's made to be listened to intently, otherwise much of the detail and dialogue is lost.

On "Groove" Parker switches to soprano sax and Morris' guitar is prepared with (perhaps) a shard of balsa woven through the strings (I've seen video of him using tongue depressors in this manner). Parker's tone is alternately fluid and hiccuping and Morris' preparations give his playing a buzzing percussive pop that's a welcome change-up. The piece builds up in intensity and they really let loose during the final third of the track, with their dynamics building up peaks and dipping into valleys. They never linger on any one thought longer than necessary, a superb show of improvised music.

Read part two

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Evan Parker Days Intro & Live at Mulhouse

By Martin Schray

People like the British musician and author Peter Urpeth think that Evan Parker has “almost single-handedly re-invented the saxophone and the role the instrument played in improvised music“. Even if he might not have done it single-handedly, he is definitely one of the pioneers in improvised music.

I remember when I saw him first with the Schlippenbach Trio in the late 1990s and suddenly Alex von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens stopped playing and Parker was alone with his instrument playing a soprano solo full of continuous, multilayered sounds. Then I started to look for electronic devices because I thought that one man cannot do that alone. But there weren’t any. I have never seen - and heard - something like that before, such a mixture of spontaneous creativity and incredible virtuosity.

Today, aged 71, Parker seems to be more prolific than ever, which connects him to the other great European saxophone player of the first wave of European improv, Peter Brötzmann. Both have released a couple of albums recently (check out Colin Green’s wonderful review of Brötzmann’s Münster Bern), and both seem to be interested in how to combine their idea of music with as many other musical philosophies possible. Especially Parker moves to and fro between established constellations (Schlippenbach Trio, Evan Parker Trio, Electro-Acoustic Ensemble) and new combinations (for example with Colin Stetson recently at the Guelph festival or with The Necks, who join them for a gig in November at London’s Café Oto), between smaller groups and large ensembles.

Right on time for Evan Parker’s USA tour we present reviews of his latest releases and a concert review of his performances at the Festival Métèo in Mulhouse/France.

At the moment he is playing in New York City, yesterday he was at the Stone, tonight he is at Roulette and tomorrow at Jack. If you are interested in the other gigs, check out this website:
https://viennesewaltz.wordpress.com/parker/

If you have the chance to see the concerts, don’t miss them, I am sure you won’t be disappointed.


Evan Parker Trio plus Peter Evans / Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Nonet, Festival Métèo, Mulhouse, August 27th and 28th

Photos by Martin Schray 

Festival Métèo Mulhouse is one of the oldest and most prestigious jazz festivals in France, it has existed since 1972. I have visited it in 2012 and 2013, the line up was always very interesting and the locations like Noumatrouff (where the bigger bands play in the evenings) and especially the Chapelle St. Jean, where the matinées are and where they serve very good wine for free after the shows, are superb. The audience is well-informed and attentive, in contrast to German festivals it is a bit younger and less male. However, last year the program was not as exciting as before, but this year it was various and promising again. There were solo concerts by Okkyung Lee, James Blood Ulmer, Martin Brandlmayer, Michel Doneda and Akira Sakata and performances by bands like Arashi, ZU, Lotte Anker/Fred Frith, James Chance and the Contortions, Barry Guy/Fred Frith/Daniela Cativelli/Samuel Dühsler or Dans Les Arbres. And on top of it all they had the Evan Parker Trio + Peter Evans and the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Nonet.

It is nothing new that - at the age of 71 - Evan Parker is still at the height of his creativity. On the one hand he is always looking for new challenges (like his duo albums with Peter Jacquemyn or Motoharu Yoshizawa, which will be reviewed here soon) and on the other hand he maintains longtime collaborations like the Schlippenbach Trio, his own Evan Parker Trio and his Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. The trio has existed since 1983 (at least they released their album Tracks then) and it has always been the nucleus for Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, which he founded in the early 1990s and which released its first album Towards the Margins in 1997. In the beginning it was a relatively small ensemble of six players and the idea was that each member of the trio was given a musical partner (in this early case there were Walter Prati, Marco Vecchi and Phil Wachsmann) who would treat the acoustic sounds electronically. Over the years the ensemble has grown to over 18 members (in Huddersfield in 2011) which made the band a logistic adventure which is why it became hard for Parker to keep such a huge line up. That’s why he obviously decided to reduce the number of members, and he released a fantastic album with a septet that played Victoriaville last year (see the review here). But while the Victoriaville ensemble consisted of US musicians only, the Mulhouse band resembled the original idea of this formation.

On Tuesday there was the Parker Trio augmented by Peter Evans on trumpet. All the band members were dressed in black T-shirts and black trousers, which stressed the character of the band as a real unit. The stage light was mainly brown and yellowish, the whole atmosphere resembled a theatre production, everything seemed rather sophisticated. However, this was a real contrast to the music presented: the first ten minutes were a real frenzy, the musical material was very tightly knit, it was a mixture of extremely fast free jazz combined with new music elements (Barry Guy’s bass was mainly responsible for that). Paul Lytton’s drum style reminded of Tony Oxley’s, his set was tuned up very high and he used a lot of extended materials. But the real sensation was Peter Evans, who opened new horizons for the trio. Like the others he is an outstanding musician, and his sounds are incredibly unpredictable, sometimes they were like gun shots ricocheting through the room. He seemed to enjoy to have this wonderful band in the background and was bursting with ideas. And Evan Parker? He was very reluctant, took very long breaks, he often simply listened, waiting for a perfect moment to join in. But whenever he did, he was absolutely present and his contributions were just perfect. It was an excellent performance, old-school European free jazz at its best.

The next day the stage was crowded, the outfits were various. The nonet’s approach to music was very different compared to the one of the trio, parts of the structure were given. Evan Parker was on soprano saxophone (for the trio he chose the tenor), three computers were placed on desks, Paul Lytton was wearing a white T-shirt, he was standing behind his drum set all of the time, it turned out that he was setting the pace. Parker chose an electronic sequence Lytton once used to start off, then the whole thing was free for nine minutes. After that Lytton had been supposed to set a mark, which the other players had been able to use to start, to stop, or they had also been allowed to ignore it completely, Evan Parker said in a radio interview after the concert.  There were slow and fast segments in the structure and these segments were all completely improvised. The players used this freedom excessively, Okkyung Lee (c), Sten Sandell (p) and Paul Obermayer, Richard Barrett and Sam Pluta (electronics) put the original quartet on fire. It was the reunification of two universes, there were about 50 minutes of musical fireworks, one of the most wonderful music I have ever heard live (I know we should be reluctant with gushing vocabulary, but in this case it was simply true). The acoustic instruments delivered fascinating material and the electronics processed it right away, you could hardly discern who created the music - the audience felt like it was watching a nuclear power plant at work. Smaller, rather reflective combinations (Sten Sandell with Okkyung Lee and Barry Guy, a duo between Parker and Evans) alternated with furious tutti passages, the music was a constant surprise.

The connecting line to the evening before was Evan Parker himself, who was really laid back again. He was watching and listening his ensemble play, as if he was very proud of the result - like a painter stepping back watching his work, obviously satisfied. And finally he decided to participate, just to play one of the best solos in his typical circular breathing technique I have heard from him. It was really a magical evening.

After the concert my friend Klaus, who accompanied me and who is usually not into this kind of music, looked at me and stammered: “That was really great!“ Indeed.

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Evan Parker Roundup, Part 2 of 2

Evan Parker Photo © Caroline Forbes

By Nick Metzger

“You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
- Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable

Listening to and reviewing all of these Evan Parker related albums has been a privilege and a learning experience for me. I’d already been doing some deep listening after the release of the “Topographie Parisienne” set, I mean I obviously re-listened to “Topography of the Lungs” to see how the sound of the trio changed between recordings and that set me onto re-listening to the Parker solo albums I owned (and caused me to buy a couple that I’d been holding off on to fill in the gaps). Then I dipped into the numerous group recordings (again with Colin pointing out some real gems I hadn’t listened to), terrific one-offs, and his long running groups (with the Schlippenbach Trio/Quartet, with Guy and Lytton, with Bailey and Stevens, with SME, with the Global Unity Orchestra, with variants of the Electro-Acoustic groups, etc, etc, etc).

It’s really incredible how evolved his playing has become, even if the underlying notion seems to have been there since the beginning. There really are no albums of him playing in a different style; he always plays in his style. I think of the early work of someone like Jackson Pollock and how it’s pretty far removed from his famous drip paintings, but that doesn’t appear to be the case with Parker. There aren’t any recordings of him playing like Coltrane, even though he’s a devotee, or any of his other known influences. I wouldn’t call anything he’s done “skronk” or “fire music”, it’s too sophisticated and carefully controlled, yet anyone who’s listened to his solo material knows that it is challenging to listen to, and I myself have to be in the right frame of mind to properly enjoy it. Anyway, I’ve ended up with more questions than answers, and I think that’s a signpost of genius and we’re all fortunate that the well has turned out to be so deep. The only metaphor I can offer is that I’ve found his playing to be like river rocks. Early on it was coarse and craggy, but over time the currents of his music (insert eye-rolls here) seem to have eroded the sharp edges somewhat, even as the original shapes remain intact. So here’s to whatever Mr. Parker comes up with next, I’ll be looking forward to it, whatever the shape, and I know I’m not alone.

Evan Parker, Lotte Anker, & Torben Snekkestad - Inferences (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2019) ****

On “Inferences” Parker collaborates in a trio with fellow saxophonists Lotte Anker and Torben Snekkestad for a 2016 performance in Copenhagen at the KorcertKirken Blågårds Plads. On this release Parker plays soprano saxophone, Anker plays soprano and tenor saxophones and Snekkestad plays soprano saxophone and trumpet. These three musicians complement each other’s playing very nicely and have a natural rapport with which they produce two very impressive improvisations.

The trio builds up a lot of texture on the first piece, with Anker's tenor providing a foundation for the sopranos over the first half. Layered split notes, growl, tongue slapping, and trills are the order of the day. The Parker/Snekkestad interactions are beautiful, very playful and communicative, and they become something else entirely when Anker switches to soprano. At about the halfway point the three are engrossed in a beautiful and harmonically rich engagement that sings and howls. At about ⅔ of the track duration Snekkestad starts making some really intriguing noises on the trumpet, a most interesting and welcome extended technique that is excellent and complementary to the swirling sound of the sopranos. The trio rounds out this first track with an extremely busy and piercing interchange, quenching the last couple of minutes with reed pop and hiss.

The playing on "Kairos" is more open and less textural than the previous track. It feels as if there is a drama that unfolds within the piece and the players are very attentive in their interactions, at least it seems that way to me. The track gives a classical music impression in the way it develops from slight probing on through more complex passages, and on to resolution(?). I may be making this all up as well, reading into it too much as one searching for words sometimes does. But it's an excellent piece nevertheless, and the contrast with the intensity of the first track is appreciated. Fantastic music.

Evan Parker, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Chris Corsano - Tree Dancing (OTOROKU, 2019) ****

This unexpected but essential release recorded at Cafe Oto in 2010 captures the one-time-only pairing of Joe McPhee and the late Lol Coxhill joined here by Chris Corsano and Evan Parker for a great set of improvised music. All of these musicians are legendary figures in free jazz circles so I won't go into their respective backgrounds, but wanted to just briefly remark on what a fantastic project Cafe Oto has been for this music, both as a venue (so I've heard anyway) and now as a digital distributor for many of our favorite record labels. Check out their online store and empty your wallets, tell your significant other that you had my permission, I'm sure that will go over well. Anyway, I'll get on with it.

This concert took place during McPhee's residency at Cafe Oto in 2010, and he begins "First Dance" by thanking the participants and guests for their support, as well as commenting that the day before was Ornette Coleman's birthday (80th). McPhee then unleashes a solo of otherworldly, soulful beauty in his singular fashion. An extraordinarily touching bit of playing that envelopes the listener in a swath of damp-eyed mists before they are abruptly swatted away by Corsano who ushers in a quickening of tempo. McPhee abides and the duel ensues. Corsano is vivid here, producing roiled waves of sound for McPhee to skirt over with his full throated articulations, alternating between bluesy ruminations and screeching blow-out. On "Second Dance" Parker's familiar swelling tenor growl appears from the silence, joined in short order by Coxhill and McPhee on soprano emitting shrieks and short darting figures. The three converse masterfully in their reed-speak, and I find it remarkable how clearly you can discern their distinct voices. The recording is a little lacking on this one, specifically in the left channel there is some clipping, but that's of very minor significance. Brilliant and satisfying trio interplay.

"Dance 3" builds more gradually and is initially less dense than the previous track, more exploratory, Parker briefly twisting breathless circular sound knots below the sorano chatter. Corsano is reserved across the first half, pattering around in the margins, sensitively exploring his kit. The quartet picks up some momentum over the latter half as they start to warm to each other and their surroundings. On "Dance 4" individual solos evolve into a group interplay, with an honest-to-goodness near-freakout occuring in the last minute. McPhee starts the track off on alto, followed by Coxhill, both taking extended, bluesy solos that accelerate as Corsano puts stick to skin.

The "Fifth Dance" begins with a better than two minute solo/wind-up of percussion, after which the trio digs in with McPhee on pocket trumpet. The exploratory vibe of the previous track rides here, with give-and-take being the order of the day. The "Sixth Dance" is a quickie of crackling percussion and a bit of mottled sax trill from McPhee and Corsano that, lasting only a few minutes, hits like a splash of cold water on a hot day. Finally, the "Last Dance", which begins with Corsano wrecking his skins accompanied by the tremendous bassist John Edwards, whose presence sends the group into fits, exploding with energy, wringing the wet rag completely dry. I'm not sure that you could top such a denouement if you tried.

Available from Café Oto.

Setola Di Maiale Unit & Evan Parker - Live At Angelica 2018 (Setola Di Maiale, 2019) ****½

This remarkable recording was made during the 2018 AngelicA International Festival of Music, and to mark the occasion of the Setola di Maiale (Pig Bristle in English) record label's 25th anniversary. The Setoladimaiale Unit is features many of the label's most prominent artists including label head Stefano Giust on percussion, as well as composer Philip Corner, and dancer Phoebe Neville (the latter two play the gong intro). The rest of the unit includes Marco Colonna on clarinets, Michele Anelli on contrabass, Alberto Novello on electronics, Martin Mayes plays the Alphorn (a horn used from the 17th century as a form of communication in the mountainous regions of Europe), Giorgio Pacorig on piano, Patrizia Oliva provides voice and electronics, and our Mr. Parker plays both the tenor and soprano saxophone.

"Intro" draws up the curtain on this collection with a duo of gongs slowly developing from silence, hardly played, just tappings and hints of rhythm that segue directly to the first piece. Squeaks of electronics and snatches of wordless vocals complement the dramatic and turbulent forming. Parker doesn't take over the piece, but neither is his presence subdued. He's consumed by the group and their communion, emitting traces of his distinct cadence in the sophisticated concoction. "Second" is all the more mysterious and entrancing, with water noise, clarinet, and electronics swirling in a heady dance with the vocals, horns, and piano. The percussion really begins to wallop at around the midpoint, causing the group to roil and the clarinet to sear. Parker lays out his rough eddies over otherworldly vocals and warm percussion as the track fades. Very nice indeed.

On "Third" bass clarinet wrestles with the trombone's forlorn wails and moans, underpinned by a surreal bed of vocals, chimes, and strings. In time the horns, piano, and electronics encroach, ushering buried words within a busy percussive field. "Fourth" carries in on prickly piano and electronics, the trombone wheezing and hissing like the winds of an alien planet. Briefly the horns raise a flag before slipping back below the surface and a wooden flute takes the fore, then the trombone, buried beneath layers of wool which dampen its screams. Malleted cymbal rolls elicit the return to a busier soundscape, subtle and a little strange but more than inviting. The final piece "Fifth" serves as a culmination as well as a crest, the ensemble simmers with all manner of delicious little noises as the instrumentalists trade sentiments. The electronically manipulated vocals add a hallucinatory sense and the crowding of the aural field adds a tinge of anxiety, driving the listener to the edge of some unseen abyss before rolling back from the precipice and vaporizing. A remarkable piece, it's as enchanting as it is thrilling.

Evan Parker & Matthew Wright Trance Map - Crepuscule in Nickelsdorf (Intakt, 2019) *****

Finally, we have this wonderful album that serves to tie together (either directly or indirectly) some of Parker's most interesting work in the field of electro-acoustic music. The Trance Map+ quintet is a descendant of Parker's partnership with Matthew Wright, with whom he released the original "Trance Map" album on his own psi imprint back in 2011.The other three members of the quintet all have histories working in Parker's electronics projects, Adam Linson plays bass with the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, and John Coxon and Ashley Wales (better known as Spring Heel Jack) worked with Parker on 2004's tribute to Steve Lacy "Evan Parker with Birds". It's also significant that the quintet was assembled for the 2017 Hull UK City of Culture festival "Mind on the Run: The Basil Kirchin Story" which celebrated the renowned composer with whom Parker and Derek Bailey among others worked with on his 1971 album "World within Worlds". In many ways that album was a pre-cursor to Parker's more electronics oriented material, and is one of the first of its kind to blend electro-acoustic experimentation with live free improvisation.


On the first track the listener is met with quite literal birdsong, digitally manipulated it hiccups and echoes across the stereo field. Parker's soprano provides a moor in the disorienting flutter of the comings and goings as he starts out to meet and engage with the wild soundscape. Snatches of his own playing are caught in the snare of the samplers, broken down into granules and globules, and released back into the open for him to engage with. The second track gets on noisily, further breakdowns in linearity clouding perception and making it impossible to tell where one sound ends and another begins, let alone what the source is. Parker sounds absolutely organic next to the trickles of static and malfunction. He appears briefly with a fluid call and is responded to by the mimicry of the machines doused in the slurry of their logic.

The third piece bristles with movement, blowing wildly like a vortex of sound fragments, xylophone, perhaps some double bass groan, organic yet pixelated and becoming more and more so as the track progresses. Parker's playing is fantastic here and is backed by electronic crackle and some non-standard, rhythmic samples. The fourth movement blossoms in hiss and noises flickering with modulation. An undercurrent of hum commingles with the lysergic insect noises whilst Parker goes into his act, setting up a sequence of notes which is sampled and then laying out a counter motif on top. The fifth section crackles effervescently like a paresthesia of the middle ear. In addition to the thin ribbons of circular breathing Parker adds staccato squawking that is subsequently sampled and remade into 16 bit video game noises. The double bass groans with the grainy sounds of long, slow bow pulls.

The sixth and l section is only a few minutes long, and begins with Parker alone briefly before the cosmic fizz again foams up and overtakes him with its odd loops and primordial jelly. The final track, lucky number seven, continues the leitmotif, gurbling and blurping noises hugging the symmetry of the structure's pointillism. The sounds the group conjures are insanely delectable, a highly successful fusion of noise, live sampling, synthesis, and free improvisation.




To offer a final thought, all of these albums are worth a listen for fans of Parker's music. And while I've scored them all differently, it's really based on my own tastes (and in the moment at that, they often shift dramatically from day to day) and so I would encourage you not to read too much into the ratings as I'm not a real critic, just a fan, and you know what you like better than I do.

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Evan Parker / Georg Gräwe

Evan Parker / Georg Gräwe Unity Variations (Okka Disk, 1999)  ****

Evan Parker / Georg Gräwe Dortmund Variations (Nuscope, 2012) ****

By Stanley Zappa

On top of my desk is a pile of CD's. I purchased none of them. Most are overflow from the to-review bin at the sadly defunct Bananafish Magazine. On the one hand, I know no one cares and realize that nothing I can write will change anything for better or worse. On the other, while the last thing I need in my life is a cat, only a monster wouldn't pick up a poor lost kitten, even if the tags on the rhinestone collar say “Okka Disk.” And that my friends is the mental illness of free-jazz criticism; feeling obliged to interpret for others those messages in the bottles that come your way, despite several thousand copies of the same message having been sent out, received, reviewed and put in the cut out bin a decade earlier.

The mental illness reveals itself further when it manifests in “corporate welfare”--when the narcissism gets to the roiling point and an “obligation” is felt to the already established, the Brahmins and their handlers. Because really, what else is there to be said about Evan Parker?

Once and for all: if you haven't heard Evan Parker, by all means do. Dortmund Variations by Evan Parker and Georg Gräwe is a great place to start. If you have, then chances are you formed your opinion quickly, decisively and there isn't a thing I could say to make that different.

On top of the pile of CD's I've been meaning to lavish with attention is Unity Variations by Evan Parker and Georg Grawe. In the liner notes, Parker mentions his first meeting with Gräwe in 1991. Unity Variations is recorded in 1998, Dortmund Variations, in 2012. Though I don't have the recording from 1991, Unity Variations and Dortmund Variations provides all we need for an intra-artist, horizontal analysis—a look at the effects of time on the Parker Gräwe partnership.

Would you be disappointed if I told you the two recordings are a lot alike? Somewhere or another I opined that Mr. Parker's excellence is getting tedious, and here is no exception. Though I don't know Gräwe's output like I am getting to know Parker, it's safe to say that Gräwe has also flatlined on excellent as well. This excellence from 1999, that excellence from 2012...at times its hard to tell them apart. If anything, Parker and Gräwe have become more lithe, even less constrained, even freer. Unity Variations is a live recording, Dortmund Variations a studio date. Here's an instance where the managed environment of the studio trumps the “energy” of live performance.

Both are a glorious pan-tonal spray of notes, covering the entire range of their instruments. Gräwe reveals no small debt to Cecil Taylor without ever availing himself of the fist or the forearm on the keyboard; a facet that is missed but not mourned in his playing. Parker similarly favors sounds both small and luxurious without ever going into full shriek.

Though both are complete listening experiences unto themselves, those of you in the rhythm section for whom the name Jamey Aebersold means something might want to pick up both of these recordings for your play along pleasure. The sounds and the strategies in both recordings are to “This Music” what rhythm changes are to its antecedent.


© stef

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Evan Parker & RGG – Live@Alchemia (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2017) ***

By Rick Joines

On June 12, 2016, Evan Parker joined RGG (Łukasz Ojdana on piano, Maciej Garbowski on bass, and Krzysztof Gradziuk on drums) for a 70-minute set of improvised music at Alchemia, in Kraków, Poland. So, what happens when a paragon of free jazz plays with a young trio who usually play a sort of meandering, lyrical, romantic jazz?

“Part One” makes a promising start. Parker, under the dreamy influence of RGG, dispenses with his usual fast-layered harmonics and instead plays a style reminiscent of West Coast Cool Jazz. Gradziuk, freed from the chore of merely keeping time, joyously plays every bit of his drum kit. Ojdana comps and echoes Parker’s riffs. As Parker plays, he draws lines of laid-back beauty with the artful distinctiveness of Picasso painting on glass. Here, as with Picasso, we witness the art and the man creating it at once. Ojdana’s melodic piano solo feels out of place, but he comes alive for a moment at its end, chording aggressively. The highlight is Garbowski’s bass solo. He strums dissonant dyads to accompany his own runs up and down the neck. This catches Parker’s ear, for he picks up Garbowski’s lines, echoing and complicating them.

“Part Two” is the most exciting part of the set. Odjana repeats a four-note melody and creates harmonics inside the piano. Parker enters, holding notes, growling and fluttering a little. Garbowski bows in, filling the air with the sound of long, plaintive cries. Again, Parker follows Garbowski. They play together for a bit, as the piano and drums drop out. During Parker’s solo, he seems to get stuck on a thought until Ojdana interrupts with his most assertive chording of the night. His comping becomes clusters; his chords no longer in major keys. For nearly 7 minutes of the 18-minute piece, everyone on the bandstand plays with one mind, driving the music past the limits of form. Gradziuk plays without inhibition. Parker’s fast, staccato runs skip like a small stone over water. There is even some call-and-response playing between Ojdana and Parker. Then Parker steps away, and RGG plays free jazz on their own . . . for a moment, until they fall back to earth and their wonted prettiness.

When Martin Schray recently reviewed another Evan Parker live collaboration on this blog, he rightly mentioned the “deep affinity, a shared consciousness” in that group’s playing. This occurs for a moment in “Part Two”; however, in the final two parts it disappears. Even in the freest of free jazz, one detects a conversation among like-minded people about some unifying ideas or elements, but not here. Parker drops out more frequently in the second half; it is as if the trio is not listening to him nor to each other. Ojdana perseverates on a handful of notes. Gradziuk’s drumming becomes distracting. Garbowski’s playing continues to be interesting, but in the last in the 37 minutes, their ephemeral concord is gone.

When I listened casually to this album, getting to know it, it was rather enjoyable. It was when I began to listen more closely that the shortcomings of this experiment revealed themselves. Evan Parker’s playing is intriguing because it is so different from what one might expect from him, but RGG feels out of its element—but, of course, getting out of one’s element from time to time can be valuable. If this were a 35-minute album of the first half of the set, it would have been stronger and might have ended on a much higher note than it does.

Some of this set is available on a series of videos, starting here:

Available here:

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Two Different Parker Vintages

By Stuart Broomer

Given the scale of Evan Parker’s discography (no complaint here, it’s both record of a brilliant, innovative career and a boon to many micro labels and some lesser-known musicians), it’s still slightly surprising to find fresh gems, whether 45 years old or 14. Here is a vintage solo concert with the earliest solo tenor saxophone pieces I can recall hearing and a quartet that is as worthy of the adjective “free” as any music might be, a wonderland of impulse and achievement.

Evan Parker - NYC 1978 (Relative Pitch, 2023) 

Few musicians have influenced solo improvisation as Evan Parker has, from the adaptation of circular breathing to the vast exploration of his instruments’ potential for harmonics, quarter tones and apparent polyphony. While there are numerous recordings of its more developed stages, there’s far less of the early solo work.

While Parker had previously travelled to America to hear music, 1978 marked his first appearances as a performer, touring in Canada and the United States as a soloist and also appearing in various ad hoc formations. He had recorded his first LP of solo soprano saxophone (Saxophone Solos) in 1975 and had recorded Monoceros, the first recording to begin documenting the significant scale of his technical innovation in April 1978, just prior to the tour.

Parker’s developing virtuosity drew on multiple techniques, each one difficult to master. The inspiration to develop the harmonic vocabulary might be traced to John Coltrane’s extended cadenza on “I Want to Talk about You” from Live at Birdland. The circular breathing technique that he was developing, used discreetly by some earlier jazz musicians like Duke Ellington’s baritone saxophonist Harry Carney, seems to have come from Indian wind musicians like Bismillah Khan, whose accompanists further substituted a double-reed drone for a tamboura; the overblowing and polyphony are prefigured in the tenor jeremiads that Pharoah Sanders started to produce around 1965. The marvel was that Parker was proceeding along all of these lines, whether sounding like the inhabitants of an angry aviary or a group of flutes.

Recorded at the performance space Environ, the pieces here are simply entitled “Environ” and numbered sequentially. Four are soprano saxophone solos, ranging from “Environ 1” with its impression of a flock of birds to the ultimate “Environ 6”, given over to rapid short phrases that tumble over each other, often with sharply differentiated timbres in a single burst. Unlike his contemporaneously released solo work, New York 1978 includes examples of his solo tenor saxophone, already as developed as the soprano and making effective use of the instrument’s lower register. “Environ 2” moves from turbine-like blasts to wild, burred runs, while “4” gives the impression of a bank of oscillators in a vast cavern.

Once, at the conclusion of a later Parker solo soprano performance, a Buddhist friend exclaimed, “it’s like illumination in music”, and it’s precisely that which makes it more than just technical achievement, but rather achievement near the current limits of known music’s possibilities. Here one gets more of the origin story. 

 

Marteau Rouge (Foussat/Pauvros/Sato) & Evan Parker - Gift (Fou Records, 2023)

 

Parker’s history with the French trio Marteau Rouge dates from at least as early as 1988, evidenced on Gift by a photo of the quartet from that year, but the present concert recording comes from Les Instants Chavirés in 2009. It stands out amongst Parker’s collaborations because of the group’s special character, combining a collective attentiveness with a penchant for fabricating competing layers of turbulent sound. Jean-Marc Foussat, on AKS synth, toys and voice, and Jean-François Pauvros, electric guitar and voice, create a brilliant diversity of sound, often hard to divide up for attribution but somehow often both chaotic and subtle, while drummer Makoto Sato is a subtle and essential acoustic partner, a reality principle in a dreamscape.

There are two long improvisations here, “Air Frais” running to 27 minutes, “Into the Deep” 35, with a 7-minute “Will-o’-the Wisp” as encore. Parker’s tenor saxophone is the first voice on the opening “Air Frais”, at once abstract and pensive, suggesting a kind of nocturne, but it will soon turn to an anarchic carnival of sound with the entry of Foussat and Pauvros (best sorted out on headphones), the former generating a maze of whirrs, whistles, blast and roars, the latter responsible for sounds that might come from a processed electric guitar, including passages on both of the long tracks that suggest diverse string instruments (Asian and African and cello), whether bowed, plucked or Echoplexed. Sato is, in this context, an understated drummer, precise but propulsive, somehow pressing in the undergrowth, coming to the fore in the midst of “Into the Deep” which concludes with a wondrously strange passage of electronically processed muezzin vocal that gradually shifts to African chant, no guarantees of authenticity beyond the quartet’s own.

Given how much the band has created in the hour, it’s remarkable how much is left for that “Will-o’-the Wisp”, with processed free vocalizing and consistent drive and yet more cascading tenor saxophone, a music of both high and good spirits. Among Foussat’s credits are recording, mixing, editing and mastering – all at a high standard and all the more noteworthy given how much of the music he was also making.

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Evan Parker/Barry Guy/Paul Lytton - Music for David Mossman (Intakt, 2018) ****

By Martin Schray

In times of drastic reductions of state resources, especially pertaining to culture, creating performance possibilities like running a venue or a festival is often left to the personal commitment of enthusiastic individuals. Their work is of inestimable value for the artists. Some examples (among many others) are Alois Fischer, who has been organizing the Kaleidophon Ulrichsberg since 1978 (the festival itself has existed since 1973) and Hans Falb, who has started the seminal Konfrontationen in Nickelsdorf in 1980, as well as Norbert Bach, who has been running the W71 club in Weikersheim since the 1970s. And there is David Mossman, the man behind the Vortex, London’s number one platform for jazz, improvised and experimental music (together with Café Oto, which is actually just five minutes down the road). The club has existed without any core funding after its establishment over twenty-five years ago.

Saxophonist Evan Parker, who has had a monthly residency at the club for a number of years, says that the Vortex was "my haven from the demands of the road… (it) is for me a space to play 'free jazz'. I cannot imagine life without it". Parker is so grateful for the existence of the club that he’s organized a fundraiser (with Dave Holland) to give his support, since the club needs financial help to keep its operations going and to enable bands to start a career (prominent examples are Polar Bear and the Portico Quartet). What’s more, Parker and his long time collaborators Barry Guy (bass) and Paul Lytton (drums) have dedicated their new album to Mossman and the club.

Music for David Mossman starts with Guy presenting his famous gliding-into-the-notes technique, while Lytton surprises with a high-pitched drum set reminiscent of Tony Oxley, his playing being more muscular though. Guy strums thick chords and only after three and a half minutes Parker joins the duo with a surprisingly tonal, traditional melody which pays tribute to great jazz saxophonists like Sonny Rollins and Ben Webster, even a distant echo of John Coltrane is audible. However, he soon changes to his typical style using the well-known Evan-Parker-elements. The band picks up speed but it’s not the classic boisterous approach, it’s a rather subtle one. Soon they’re zigzagging some of their signature spontaneous routes, the tension rises and ebbs, opening a transition for circular breathing and circular bowing while Lytton supports Parker and Guy with finely chiseled clatter. The music sounds like someone’s rummaging around in a box of sounding metal.

This seems to be a typical album by the trio, providing free jazz on a top level, but nothing new either. Yet, the music offers some artful surprises. Especially the solos by Parker and Guy present an outstanding degree of concentration and resolve, their instruments serve as vessels for their elaborate use of extended techniques. In fact, there’s only one - rather short - Parker solo (when he uses his characteristic circular breathing). Still, there are two other passages when he takes off for a solo but Guy refuses to leave him soaring alone, he chooses to duplicate his sound with razor-sharp tremolos, overtones and harmonics. The same goes for Lytton, who propels an already cyberspeed Parker solo with cymbal barrage (in “Music for David Mossman III“). The result is music of an incredible density, music that varies harmonies and tempos constantly, music that changes its shape. Hardly ever have these excellent musicians shown such a disposition to integrate their individual sounds and typical patterns to an all-encompassing unity.

Or, as Evan Parker says in the liner notes: "Collective free improvisation is the utopian state arrived at in that other 'little life' as the late John Stevens called the mental space of music making that happens when musicians of a like mind play freely together." In the last track, "Music for David Mossman IV", this improvisation rumbles, squeals and seethes like on Tracks, the trio’s first recording from 1983. May this band and the Vortex live long!

Music for David Mossman is available as a CD and a download.

You can buy it from www.instantjazz.com or from www.downtownmusicgallery.com.

You can listen to the album here:

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Evan Parker & Paul G. Smyth

Calenture and Light Leaks (Weekertoft, 2019) *****

The Dogs of Nile (Weekertoft, 2019) *****

By Lee Rice Epstein

First, of course, there’s Evan Parker. For some 50-odd years, Parker’s helped define the sound and shape of avant-garde/free jazz and improvised music. The great success of Parker’s music is how poetic his playing is; if free jazz began its life around 1960, then Parker was one of the early Homeric musicians to define and speak its language. His playing has evolved into bright, occasionally gnomic motifs, often strung together by flowing recursions blown in his effortless circular technique. Yet, if Homer’s long-puzzled-over “wine-dark sea” has given us no better understanding of the color of the Aegean, then Parker’s literal notes and techniques face the same challenge: does a line-by-line or note-by-note reading get us closer to the music?

And now here’s Paul G. Smyth, one of the great contemporary pianists—regular readers know me to be a champion of his music. There’s a category of pianists who play extremely well, and there’s a category I think of as pianists who speak in piano. For peers, think Alexander Hawkins, Angelica Sanchez, Aruán Ortiz, Kaja Draksler, Kris Davis, Matt Mitchell, et al., the Joycean modernists of free jazz. Smyth is both among these players, and slightly to the side of them, like David Virelles or Eve Risser. His recordings thus far on his Weekertoft label have been either solo or duos, and, like both Virelles and Risser, highly exploratory and experimental.

It’s a bit cheeky to put Smyth among a group of Joycean pianists, but I mean it like this: the group of players above and their many peers have taken a form—free jazz or free improvisation—that evolved over decades and are now playfully, delightfully, intellectually refining and subverting it, sometimes through radical interpretation. Where Joyce playfully relocated Homer’s wine-dark sea to Dublin Bay, transforming it into the snotgreen sea (or, more fittingly, the scrotumtightening sea), Smyth plays lovingly with Parker, as he alternately echoes, conducts, and even at times appears to ruminate on Parker’s music.

These two albums newly available from Weekertoft catch Parker and Smyth at two different venues, with two very different sound worlds. Calenture and Light Leaks was recorded in March 2015, at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland. It’s a beautiful album, with really fantastic production. Parker’s tenor sax sounds warm and full, and the details of Smyth’s playing are fully rendered. After opening with some dramatic duo recitations, the duo settles into a lengthy, patient improvisation. During the latter half of “Calenture and Light Leaks,” Parker and Smyth both perform solos, furious, spiraling solos that call back to earlier moments of dialogue with references and ellipses that constantly pull you back in. The full set takes its time, building and burning and crashing, when all is said and done, into a tremendous round of applause. I can only imagine what it felt like in person, though the thrill of the room feels duly captured here.

The Dogs of Nile was recorded 2 years later, in March 2017 back in in Dublin. Parker is on soprano this time, and the performance is packed more densely. In between both albums stood Brexit, which Parker surprisingly supported, explaining his vote was rooted in his suspicions of the EU more broadly. Thus, here he was in 2017, in Ireland, playing a ferocious set. The sound on The Dogs of Nile is slightly less rounded, but it’s not lacking in passion or technique. In this way, it’s almost the Odyssey to Calenture’s Iliad. Or, it’s Finnegans Wake to Calenture’s Ulysses. Or, I’m pushing these comparisons too far, and the two aren’t necessarily related, Janus-faced, but are nonetheless fantastic albums of top-notch free improvisation. Should I then heed my own words, let the music speak for itself, and end here? Yes I will yes, and exit under cover of night.

Available on Bandcamp and worth every pound, dollar, drachma, or whatever’s rattling around in your pockets.

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Derek Bailey / Han Bennink / Evan Parker - Topographie Parisienne Dunois April 3d 1981 (Fou Records, 2019) *****

By Eyal Hareuveni

We all owe a great debt to the great archival project of French sound engineer-producer-Fou Records label owner (and an explorer of vintage synthesizers) Jean-Marc Foussat's excellent recordings. Thanks to his one-of-a kind archive of live recordings we already enjoyed such milestone gems of free jazz and free improvisation released by Fou Records as Derek Bailey / Joëlle Léandre / George Lewis / Evan Parker - 28 rue Dunois juillet 82 (2014); the Willem Breuker Kollektief - Angoulème 18 mai 1980 (2015) and Daunik Lazro / Joëlle Léandre / Georges Lewis - Enfances à Dunois le 8 janvier 1984 (2016).

Now, Foussat and Fou Records offer Topographie Parisienne Dunois April 3d 1981, a live perspective on one of the defining and most sought-after album of European free-improvisation: The Topography of the Lungs (Incus, 1970), captured during a June 1970 studio session and featuring young British tenor and soprano sax player Evan Parker, guitarist Derek Bailey and Dutch drummer Han Bennink. The seminal album also helped launch the legendary Incus label, co-founded by Bailey, Parker and drummer Tony Oxley. This album’s mystique was enhanced by decades of scarcity (and a famous rift between Bailey and Parker), until reissued on Parker’s Psi label in 2006, a year after the passing of Bailey and in memory of Bailey.

Bill Shoemaker mentions in his insightful liner notes for Topographie Parisienne that Bailey, Bennink and Parker did not perform together as a trio after the recording The Topography of the Lungs and did not record a follow-up album (though, played as a trio in the 1977 Company week, and a five minute clip was captured on Company 6 (Incus 1978)). The three improvisers had only collaborated before and shortly after on recordings by larger ensembles as Manfred Schoof’s European Echoes (FMP, 1969) or Alexander von Schlippenbach’s Globe Unity 1970 (reissued as Globe Unity 67 & 70 (Atavistic, 2001)).

Bailey, Bennink and Parker met again in April 1981 at Théâtre Dunois, while they were all pursuing different directions. Bailey denounced fixed groups, while Parker and Bailey worked with regular collaborators. But the nine pieces here, spanning three and a half hours and packed in a 4-disc box, mark an evolution and further development of the improvisations strategies and ideas explored on The Topography of the Lungs. Shoemaker mentions the employment of well-timed and laser-accurate disruption as a preventative against style, to which each improviser can answer according to his resourcefulness, push back or stand firm as the shockwaves recede. These subversive means liberated these free, non-idiomatic sessions from the legacy of free jazz.

Topographie Parisienne begins with the three musicians playing an extended, 42-minutes improvisation. It is an urgent and explosive piece that sounds fresh even today, highlighting Bailey’s abstract  guitar lines and exotic sonorities, Parker’s focus on uncompromising exploration of circular breathing techniques and juggling with tones and overtones, and Bennink totally intuitive pulse and dadaist, muscular drumming, with many sudden and ironic and strangely enough, playful disruptions. The interplay is naturally  egalitarian, but Bennink always sounds like he is injecting more and more energy and ready to embrace chaos, even when he briefly plays the piano. Bailey keeps introducing more delicate and eccentric ideas while Parker attempts to bridge between these strong characters. This piece concludes with the trio own abstraction of a free jazz interplay - intense, thorny and rhythmic. The first disc ends with a short conversational, intimate duet of Bailey and Parker, much more sparse than the previous piece and beautifully poetic.

Bailey, Bennink and Parker reunite again for their second and last trio set this evening (and ever), a 46-minutes piece that begins with Parker alternating between fiery, free jazz blows and overtone-throat chants, but soon the trio interplay rolls into a series fast-shifting, intense rhythmic patterns. Bailey often acts here as the subversive agent who injects sharp comments and disrupts the tight rhythmic flow of Parker and Bennink. Later, Parker takes the lead with a fantastic solo comprised of bird calls with circular breathing techniques, wisely abstracted by Bailey and Bennink into another dense rhythmic duet, before all conclude in a chaotic eruption. Parker, who sounds like he has the stamina of a Viking, ends the second disc with a powerful solo sax improvisation, totally possessed in a fast, polyphonic process of spiraling tones and overtones, blows and calls.

The third and fourth discs offer more duets and solo piece from Parker. The second duet of Bailey and Parker is completely different from the first one, tense and confrontational as if both were playing to themselves. Parker second solo improvisation suggests a layered texture of fast, brief and intense calls that patiently surrender to its own inner rational. The third disc ends with an engaging and even funny duet of Bennink - first on clarinet and later on drums - and Parker is quite engaging, even funny. Bennink begins with a brave attempt to mirror Parker’s phrasing and even his circular breathing techniques, forcing Parker to outmaneuver and surprise Bennink all the time. Later Bennink pushes Parker to more playful interplay with imaginative performance on the drums and even blowing a trombone.

The last, fourth disc opens with an extended duet of Bailey and Bennink Bailey is not impressed by the antiques of Bennink, but, obviously, nothing can stop Bennink when he is on a roll. Bailey keeps intervening with more subtle, elusive and enigmatic ideas, but Bennink - on drums, harmonica, piano and trombone, is all about crashing the party, in the most noble sense of this idiom. Bennink - on clarinet and drums - and Parker end this magnificent evening with humorous and eccentric powerful duet. This time Parker outsmarts Bennink tricks and games and eventually succeeds to discipline this wild, dadaist fountain of endless energy into surprising lyrical and emotional coda.

Merci Beaucoup Jean-Marc Foussat!

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Evan Parker @ 80

Evan Paker. (c) Cristina Marx/Photomusix

By Martin Schray

The range of Evan Parker’s musical activities is almost limitless. It covers his beginnings in the 1960s with John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble through to his duos with Paul Lytton and Derek Bailey, the Schlippenbach Trio, his own trio with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton and his Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. In addition, there are dozens of occasional recordings and projects that go beyond the boundaries of free improvised music (think of recordings with Robert Wyatt or David Sylvian). 

One characteristic is that he has never deviated from his unmistakable stylistic identity. Nobody plays like him, he has managed to create an absolutely unmistakable sound of his own. This is particularly evident in his solo recordings, in the chronology of which a clear development can be heard. Already in 1986 Ekkehard Jost noticed that a growing complexity of musical material was recognizeable in Parker’s work, into which the saxophonist has put a lot of work and energy, both physical and mental. He has always approached the fundamentals of a profession with great seriousness and intensity and he has always regarded his music primarily as music to listen to, not music to dance to or tap your feet to. Parker is primarily concerned with the idea of the ambiguity of the qualities of impression. The same music can be perceived by the listener as slow or fast or as a successive sequence of individual intervals or as polyphonic polyphony. This has not changed to this day, nor has his enormous productivity. 

To mark his 80th birthday, we would like to discuss some of his latest releases today. 

• Evan Parker/ Barry Guy - So It Goes (Maya Recordings, 2023)
• Sergio Armaroli and Evan Parker - Dialog (Ezz-Thetics, 2023)
• Evan Parker and Henry Dagg - THEN THROUGH NOW (False Walls, 2022)

And if you happen to be in London this weekend (April 6th and 7th), stop by Cafe OTO for a set of concerts by Parker. More here: https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/evan-parker-at-80/

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