Tuesday 21 July 2026, 7.30pm
Join us as we celebrate the launch of ‘May Spring Last a Lifetime’, the first duo release from improvising tenor saxophonists Tom Challenger and Evan Parker which will be released by False Walls.
There will be a duo performance from Challenger and Parker plus a solo cello set from regular collaborator Hannah Marshall.
The album emerged after years of informal practice sessions; then, following two live performances, the duo recorded this session at Arco Barco in Ramsgate.
Extracts from the CD booklet conversation between Tom and Evan:
Evan: “Duo is the simplest form of group playing. And so it’s the simplest, the purest in a certain sense, and the
most challenging. There’s nowhere to hide, really. It’s about the exchange. With two tenor saxophones, they have a shared language as instruments and I think we both have a relationship with the saxophone which is about: what does this thing do, what can it do? And then I’ve learned things from Tom that he has discovered: you can do this and can I approximate that? Can I incorporate that into my language or my relationship with the output of the instrument?”
Tom: “I mean, as much as there is just two of us and you can tell there’s two of us, there are moments where
there’s no one [laughs], and then there’s moments where there are four or five. This duo has challenged the way
that I listen, or the way I don’t listen sometimes. But there are these weird moments where there might be three
perceivable, four perceivable things going on, you know, in terms of what you might call a voice.”
"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.
Tom Challenger is a saxophonist, improviser and composer based in London. Having curated and composed for a variety of ensembles over the years, his current work explores improvisation in various guises, alongside developing composed works for various lineups. He has collaborated with the likes of Evan Parker, Charles Hayward, Ed Bennett, Byron Wallen, Kit Downes and Alex Hawkins, in addition to leading his own ensembles, such as Brass Mask. Recordings of improvised and written works are available on his label Sche-ima Recordings.
Hannah Marshall is a cellist who is continuing to extract, invent, and exorcize as many sounds and emotional qualities from her instrument as she can. She has been a regular member of Alexander Hawkins’ Ensembles and has toured in Europe and South America with Luc Ex and Veryan Weston’s ensembles – SOL 6 & 12. She plays with ‘String Terrorists’ - Barrel (a trio with Violinist Alison Blunt & Violist/poet Ivor kallin). And has been invited by Fred Frith and Suichi Chino in their residencies at café Oto. She also plays with Terry Day, Tim Hodgkinson, Roger Turner, Paul May, Kay Grant, and the London Improvisers Orchestra.
