Evan Parker

"If you've ever been tempted by free improvisation, Parker is your gateway drug." - Stewart Lee 

Evan Parker has been a consistently innovative presence in British free music since the 1960s. Parker played with John Stevens in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, experimenting with new kinds of group improvisation and held a long-standing partnership with guitarist Derek Bailey. The two formed the Music Improvisation Company and later Incus Records. He also has tight associations with European free improvisations - playing on Peter Brötzmann's legendary 'Machine Gun' session (1968), with Alexander Von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens (A trio that continues to this day), Globe Unity Orchestra, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, and Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO). 

Though he has worked extensively in both large and small ensembles, Parker is perhaps best known for his solo soprano saxophone music, a singular body of work that in recent years has centred around his continuing exploration of techniques such as circular breathing, split tonguing, overblowing, multiphonics and cross-pattern fingering. These are technical devices, yet Parker's use of them is, he says, less analytical than intuitive; he has likened performing his solo work to entering a kind of trance-state. The resulting music is certainly hypnotic, an uninterrupted flow of snaky, densely-textured sound that Parker has described as "the illusion of polyphony". Many listeners have indeed found it hard to credit that one man can create such intricate, complex music in real time. 

Featured releases

For his last solo record ‘Through a Room’, Bill Nace shifted his usual saturated guitar sound and added tapes, hurdy gurdy, doughnut pipe, bird calls and the mysterious Japanese taishōgoto. Setting up for the final night of his three day residency at OTO with only the taishōgoto soundchecked, Nace hoped that Parker would arrive with his small soprano as its opposite. “I’ve been interested in state change, you know, playing until there’s a shift in time.” Known for his development of multiphonics to produce a constantly shifting pattern, Evan Parker has evolved an instantly recognizable sound - his work the soprano most distinct. Happily, it was the soprano Evan brought with him and as soon as the two start to play they entwine - taking off in a double helix of keys and reed primed for endless reconfiguration. Space warps under the velocity of playing, the pitch rising unrelentingly. It felt like unending lift off in the room, sheer energy until the last note makes remember your feet have been on the floor the whole time. Total time bending shredding.  --- Bill Nace / electric two string taishōgotoEvan Parker / soprano saxophone --- Arrives in a tip on sleeve with artwork by Bill Nace. Edition of 500 released as a split with Bill Nace's Open Mouth Records. If you're in the USA we advise you buy locally.  Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Friday 25th May, 2024 by Billy Steiger. Mixed and mastered by Brian Haran. Cover art by Bill Nace. Photo by Dawid Laskowski. Layout by Neil Burker & Bill Nace.  --- "The piece possesses exceptional cathartic beauty, with a power that seems to emerge from the mists of time, yet it feels more essential and compelling than any modernity. The 40-minute performance, built on loops and repetitions, forms a seamless whole that is impossible to pause, let alone stop. It is an experience that hypnotizes the mind into a marvelous trance, where the intensity of the performance fades behind the beauty of the perfect complementarity of sounds and the music shared by these two musicians. Branches is an exceptional release." - Best of Jazz

Evan Parker & Bill Nace – Branches

CD 1, Unitarian Chapel, Warwick, 1994 and 2023:“Andy Isham organised a concert in the Unitarian Chapel, Warwick on 29 June 1994. As part of a longer concert I played a solo piece on soprano which is the first track on CD 1.  It was not long enough to issue on its own and things moved on. Since then I have kept coming back to it because I think it is some of the best solo playing I have ever done. The idea came to me that I should go back to the chapel and see what it was about the space which drew that playing out. As the idea took shape, the saying of Heraclitus about not being able to step in the same river twice started swirling around too. And there it was – I had the title. The “concept”, even – or at least, the conceit … ”CDs 2-4, a sequence of solo recordings made at Arco Barco, Ramsgate, 2018-24:“I was introduced by Matt Wright, the other half of Trance Map, to Filipe Gomes and his Arco Barco studio in Ramsgate on the Kent coast. The studio is located in the upper floors of one of the former chandlers’ work spaces overlooking the harbour. A loft space with control room, a live main room and a smaller, less reverberant room. The acoustic response of the live room and Fil’s passion for sound recording has made Arco Barco my favourite studio and I have recorded there as often as possible.
 Over the many visits Fil has tested various microphones and their positioning. The variation means that some recordings are noticeably “dryer” and/or “closer” than others. Much of the thinking was inspired by the work of the late Michael Gerzon and his pioneering ambisonics. What I brought to the occasions was variability in reed behaviour and embouchure and perhaps most importantly my state of mind.”
THE HERACLITEAN TWO-STEP, etc.
BOOK CONTENTS:-- Writing by John Corbett (writer, curator, producer; Corbett vs Dempsey Gallery, Chicago), Filipe Gomes (Arco Barco, Ramsgate), Richard Leigh (writer), Stephen C. Middleton (writer/poet) and Robert Stillman (musician).-- An extended interview with Evan Parker by Martin Davidson (Emanem label).-- An email exchange between Evan Parker and Hans Falb (Konfrontationen Festival, Nickelsdorf).-- Writing and visual artwork by Evan Parker. 

Helping to mark Evan Parker’s 80th birthday in 2024, the book compiles both historical and contemporary perspectives on Evan’s work, by a range of contributors as well as Evan himself. The book also includes a selection of Evan’s visual collages, which are shared publicly for the first time. 

The Heraclitean Two-step, etc – Evan Parker

Evan Parker and Matthew Wright’s Trance Map project has included improvised live events across Europe and the US, involving other invited guest performers, with various Trance Map+ recordings released on psi, Intakt and FMR Records. Since 2020, Trance Map+ have undertaken ambitious streamed and networked performances, connecting with musicians around the world from The Hot Tin venue in Faversham, Kent, UK. In 2022, this resulted in Transatlantic Trance Map, a simultaneous performance between seven musicians in Kent and six musicians in Roulette, New York City, which is profiled on this album release. Transatlantic Trance Map helps to mark Evan Parker’s 80th birthday in 2024. It is the second Evan Parker release on False Walls, following THEN THROUGH NOW by Evan and Henry Dagg (2022). In November 2024, False Walls will also release THE HERACLITEAN TWO-STEP, etc., a 4 CD set of solo, improvised recordings by Evan Parker, along with a 128 page book, including writing by John Corbett, Richard Leigh and Stephen C. Middleton; an extended interview with Evan Parker by Martin Davidson; along with writing and visual artwork by Evan Parker. --- THE HOT TINFaversham, UK, 8pm GMT:Evan Parker: soprano saxophone
Matthew Wright: turntable, live sampling and processing
Peter Evans: trumpet, piccolo trumpetRobert Jarvis: trombone
Hannah Marshall: celloPat Thomas: live electronicsAlex Ward: clarinet ROULETTEBrooklyn, USA, 3pm EST:Sylvie Courvoisier: piano, keyboardMat Maneri: violaIkue Mori: laptop live electronicsSam Pluta: laptop live electronicsNed Rothenberg: clarinet, bass clarinet, shakuhachiCraig Taborn: piano, keyboard, live electronics  

Transatlantic Trance Map – Marconi’s Drift

"Found in the archives of FMP!
 The very first – never released – recordings of the Schlippenbach Trio." "Pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach along with Evan Parker on tenor and soprano saxophone and Paul Lovens on drums are one of the longest lasting and most well respected groups in free jazz improvisation. Apparently it all began here on April 2, 1972 during the Workshop Freie Musik at the Acadamy of the Arts, Berlin. It hardly sounds like a first recording, because they come out of the gate with almost telepathic unity on "Deals" which is a continuous collective improvisation lasting over thirty eight minutes. The musicians show an amazing degree of stamina considering that the music is played with a very exciting degree of high energy. While each of these musicians were well on their way to developing their own unique original sounds, Schlippenbach displays a fascinating degree of classical technique filtered through the funhouse fractals of Thelonious Monk's music and Evan Parker's love of John Coltrane is evident. A comparison for Paul Lovens escapes me, but perhaps the fast fleet form of Andrew Cryille or Sunny Murray would be apt. "Deals" is a wonderful roller coaster, most exciting for me when they are barreling ahead full blast with Parker's caustic tone leading the charge over percussive piano and drums. There is quite a bit of dynamism at play as well, the musicians throttle through different speeds and dissolve into solos and duos as the joyride plows onward. Far from exhausted, there are three more shorter improvisations: "Village", "With Forks and Hopes" and then appropriately "Then, Silence." These shorter tracks point to a sharper juxtaposition than the lengthy leading track and show that the group has a wide range and diverse manner of approaches at their command. This was a very enjoyable album, quite exiting in the rough and tumble way that I enjoy, since I often lose my way listening to very quiet and abstract music. This is a must for fans of European free improvisation and is quite interesting in that it shows where the heralded trio got its start." (Music and More) --- Alexander von Schlippenbach / piano 
Evan Parker / tenor and soprano saxophone Paul Lovens / drums --- Recorded by an unknown engineer april 2nd 1972 during the Workshop Freie Musik at the Acadamy of the Arts, Berlin.
All music by Parker/Von Schlippenbach/Lovens
Mastering by Olaf Rupp & Martin Siewert. Produced by Jost Gebers. Cover by Lasse Marhaug. Photos Dagmar Gebers

Schlippenbach Trio – First Recordings

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