Evan@70: Evan Parker / John Edwards / John Russell
No Longer Available
"Each man is a master of unconventional instrumental language; collectively, they are fluent beyond eloquence." - Bill Meyer, Dusted, review of 'House Full of Floors' on Tzadik
Evan Parker is one of the great saxophone players, pushing the instrument into uncharted waters since his emergence in the late 1960s. To mark his 70th year, Parker curates a week of performances at the Vortex and Cafe OTO, performing with some of the artists he’s worked so closely with over the years. Both venues are close to Parker’s heart, having built reputations as spaces where musicians can experiment and take risks, and for this week they present a very special programme of concerts on alternating nights.
For the fifth night of the celebrations, Parker performs with two great improvising musicians with whom he has had many memorable encounters in the past in the form of bassist John Edwards and guitarist John Russell.
"Improvisation as it should be—players completely attuned to each other and their instruments—yet aware of the listeners' reactions as well. Parker is well established—and with good reason—as one of the best improvisers of our time. He plays intuitively, his changes, movement and sense of need completely right." - All About Jazz, review of Parker/Edwards/Russell at The Vortex, 2013
Video by Helen Petts:
EVAN PARKER / saxophones
"ln The Human Province, Elias Canetti writes "lt is not enough to think, one also has to breathe. Dangerous are the thinkers who have not breathed enough." In Evan Parker's music, thought and breath are continuous, each the instrument and measure of the other." Stuart Broomer, Coda 1995
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.
John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke and many others.
"I think John Edwards is absolutely remarkable: there’s never been anything like him before, anywhere in jazz." - Richard Williams, The Blue Moment
JOHN RUSSELL / guitar
John Russell got his first guitar in 1965 while living in Kent and began to play in and around London from 1971 onwards. An early involvement with the emerging free improvisation scene (from 1972) followed, seeing him play in such places as The Little Theatre Club, Ronnie Scott’s, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Musicians’ Co-Op and the London Musicians’ Collective.
“For Russell the fingerboard is apparently multiple. He finds new tones in the same place, new relationships in the same gesture. A second trip across the fingerboard is always a different excursion. The harmonic is a transparent sound: silence and ambient sound pass through it. It accounts for Russell’s unhurried pace and his sense of order, even when he’s playing fast: there’s simply so much going on.” - Stuart Broomer, Point of Departure
From 1974 his work extended into teaching, broadcasts (radio and television) and touring in the United Kingdom and, ever extensively, in other countries around the world. He has played with many of the world’s leading improvisers and his work can be heard on over 50 CDs. In 1981, he founded QUAQUA, a large bank of improvisers put together in different combinations for specific projects and, in 1991, he started MOPOMOSO which has become the UK’s longest running concert series featuring mainly improvised music.
