It is always a treat to see some major musical innovators in action. Especially in a mind-blowing line-up, at the top of their game and unrecorded until now on this impressive new Dropa Disc release. Evan Parker might be a member of some legendary trios – one with von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens and one with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton – still this brilliant master of the saxophone and pioneer of free music managed to surprise us big time when he introduced his trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble to the Belgian audience in January of 2015. Together with this ultimate rhythm section – backing artists like Peter Brötzmann, Akira Sakata and Julie Kjaer, to name a few – Parker reals out a truly mesmerising demonstration, full of individual brilliance, but most of all with a collective cohesion rendered with majestic imagination and endless iridescence. Dropa Disc #004 Evan Parker – John Edwards – Steve Noble: PEN is the first release of this trio ever, fitting perfectly next to the best works in these stellar musicians ever expanding discography. Evan Parker: Tenor saxophoneJohn Edwards: Double bassSteve Noble: Drums & PercussionRecorded by Michael Huon at the Oorstof concert series, Zuiderpershuis, Antwerp 24 January 2015Edited & Mixed by Michael Huon and Koen Vandenhoudt at Odeon 120, Brussels 2016Mastered by Michael Huon at Odeon 120, Brussels 2016Live concert produced by Sound in MotionProduced by Koen VandenhoudtExecutive Producers: Koen Vandenhoudt & Christel KumpenCover Design & Layout: Pascal Cools First release for the stellar trio Evan Parker, John Edwards & Steve Noble.You can order the cd Evan Parker – John Edwards – Steve Noble: PEN (Dropa Disc#004) by mailing us here ! or go to the PayPal buy button.You want to order more Dropa Disc releases at once? Mail us for combined shipping prices here ! Extended text by Guy Peters (Enola Magazine, Gonzo Circus, Cadence … ): Without a doubt, Evan Parker belongs to the top league of free improvisers. For half a century now, he has been one of the most innovative, challenging and consistent members of the European avant-garde. Together with Alexander von Schlippenbach, Peter Brötzmann, Fred Van Hove and a handful of others, he is among the trailblazers who set and raised the bar. The best thing about it: he’s still going strong. When he appeared in the Oorstof series with the terrific rhythm section of John Edwards (bass) and Steve Noble (drums), we were in a for a memorable night. Parker is not only a legend because of his technical mastery and individual approach to the soprano and tenor saxophone, but also because he was/is a member and/or leader of several crucial bands. He was part of the legendary Brötzmann Octet that cut the Big Bang-record Machine Gun and he is a member of two of the most formidable trios in the history of improvised music: one with Von Schlippenhach and Paul Lovens, the other with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton. Also his documented trio with John Edwards and Mark Sanders is well-respected. Also his documented trio with John Edwards and Mark Sanders is well-respected. In the meantime, Parker has played with so many improvisers that it’s hard to believe his stunning trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble, until now, went unrecorded. Edwards and Noble are a tight rhythm section, appearing beside a.o. Alex Ward, Hans Koch, Alan Wilkinson, Peter Brötzmann, Sophie Agnel and, most recently, Julie Kjær. Though teaming up with Parker seemed inevitable the music generated by this trio – as displayed perfectly on this new Dropa Disc release – is stunning. There is no holding back, the musicians are not too respectful and it’s no feast of impatient fury either. No, instead we hear three masters displaying an enormous control of their respective instruments – with Parker sticking to tenor saxophone – without losing the overall cohesion of the performance. It’s rife with remarkable solo and duo moments, and even though these often belong to the highlights, you hear an exceptional solid unit. We were already familiar with the breadth of Steve Noble’s playing, as he appeared on Dropa Disc #001 (los bordes de las respuestas, by the Saint Francis Duo with Stephen O’Malley), but it’s exciting to witness his amazing dynamics, range of textures, energy and rhythm. Equally at ease within abstract expression as in inflammatory interaction, he is the guy you need for a balance of thoughtfulness and vital energy. Edwards is his ideal sidekick: a player with agility, intelligence and a physical approach that sometimes borders on harassment. Together they create an intricate, lively and surprisingly soulfulperformance, serving as foundation, trigger and sparring partner for Parker’s associative approach. As such, this exceptional concert is not about easy effects, wild climaxes or raucous energy. Instead, it’s a celebration of freedom and the direction in which it can be taken. During its best moments it sounds as if the music almost becomes self-evident in its organic cohesion. Not because the musicians rely on predictable patterns, but because the music seems to take over, flowing from three musicians in one identifiable language – something similar happened a few months later, when Ballister visited Oorstof, check the Dropa Disc #005 release. When you observe Parker in action, the man often stands there with a stoic, immovable pose, but these adjectives couldn’t be further removed from this music’s essence. The performance contained on this album is all about restless movement and ceaseless interaction. It is a celebration of the potential of improvised music.

Evan Parker: Barry Guy and I first met and played together in a version of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble in the days of the legendary Little Theatre Club. The late John Stevens, visionary prophet of the coming music was the key figure at the centre of things who brought us together. “So it goes“ – John often used this figure of speech. I was reminded of this when I was looking through Samuel Beckett’s Collected Letters, hoping to glean some titles, knowing that Barry would be happy with a Beckett quote. Somewhere on one of the three thousand one hundred and eighty two pages I recall Beckett using the same expression in signing off a letter. Two of our heroes connected by these three words in this way give us our title, which indeed expresses the very nature of creating music together. “So It Goes.”

Double concert of sax titan Evan Parker and Italian electronic musician Walter Prati. The first CD is a reissue of Hall of Mirrors released in 1991 on MM&T; label. Digitally recorded at FX studio Milan, February 1990. The second CD, Pulse, was recorded in May 2016 at the Limonaia of Villa Strozzi, Florence, during Tempo Reale festival.

A big anniversary is celebrated on this recording: Evan Parker and Paul Lytton got to know each other in 1969 and after months of rehear- sals their first performance followed in 1970. It was the time of the jazz avant-garde, which renewed and expanded the traditional ways of playing and the Parker-Lytton Duo was an active part of this process. “Over the past fifty years, they have each minutely sorted through aesthetics, methods, and protocols, maintaining an ongoing dialogue. The years have yielded a rich diversity of music, complemented by the current recording, the first to feature only tenor saxophone and a jazz kit,” writes the American jazz journalist Bill Shoemaker in the liner notes. Shoemaker, who supervised the recordings in Chicago, goes on to say: “The dynamic of free improvisation and a long personal history docu- mented on this Chicago studio session bears out what Parker told Bai- ley forty years ago: ‘In practice, the closest I would get to a laboratory situation is working with the people I know best ... the people I’ve played with the longest actually offer me the freest situation to work in.’ On the basis of this unprecedented music, that assessment has stood the test of time.”

It’s difficult to say if it was Evan Parker who invited Jacob Anderskov’s trio Kinetics to start this new collaborative project or if the initiative came from the Danish pianist. The doubt results from the permanent equilibrium of forces detected in “Chiasm”: the British saxophonist can be the protagonist, the frontline voice, but the music reflects in every step the most important motivation for Anderskov and his Kinetic partners, Adam Pultz Melbye and Anders Vestergaard: to celebrate the entire evolution of jazz by means of using some particularities of that patrimony through a compositional concept turned to the invention of the future. Either way, we can understand, just by hearing the music, why this connection with Parker is happening. The London-based musician is an illustrious representative in present days of the long line of innovators in both the tenor and the soprano saxophones: nobody else could symbolize better the double focus of this record in History and in the creation of the New. This task to detect and distill the old soul of jazz, at the same time refreshing it, comes from a radical point of view – radical because it goes to the roots in order to finally reach the flowers and make them bloom. Are you fascinated by the way Coltrane resounds in Evan Parker’s playing these last few years? Well, there’s plenty of that here for your delight… Recorded at London’s Vortex club and live in the studio in Copenhagen, Chiasm is a documentation of what interplay may sound like when an established piano trio meets a master of improvisation. On the four improvised tracks, the group explores melodic, timbral and rhythmical structures on both micro and macro levels, creating a matrix of nonlinear dynamics from which emerges an oscillating and shimmering sonic image, propelled by a shared approach to the real-time generation of structure and form.  Evan Parker - tenor saxophone Jacob Anderskov - piano Adam Pultz Melbye - bass Anders Vestergaard - drums

Recorded in concert at Vilnius Jazz Festival, 15th October, 2017 at Russian Drama Theater, Vilnius, Lithuania Music composed by Evan Parker, Barry Guy (PRS/ MCPS/PPL) and Paul Lytton (GEMA) Sound Engineer - Valdas Karpuška Mixed by Evan Parker Mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios Original cover painting by Paul Lytton Photos by Vytautas Suslavičius Design by Oskaras Anosovas Produced by Danas Mikailionis Co-producer - Valerij Anosov Evan Parker - soprano and tenor saxophones Barry Guy - bass Paul Lytton - drums

Tracklisting: 1. Line 1 - 27:232. Line 2 - 12:303. Line 3 - 22:20"Let's get the facts out up front: Lines Burnt in Light is pure insane genius. Evan Parker, for decades a master of the saxophone in various contexts, steps up about three levels on his new solo disc. As the inaugural release on his new Psi label, this is going to be a hard act to follow. Parker insistently pursues a high-level spiritual energy on these three extended improvisations for solo soprano saxophone. And he does not relent. Lines Burnt in Light documents a live performance with no effects or overdubs (apart from the rich acoustics of London's St. Michael and All Angels Church). Parker wastes no time firing up his engines during the first piece, recorded before the audience's arrival. His playing operates at many levels. At its most literal, the music cycles through a long series of short, high loops. As time moves on, these cycles drift fluidly through musical space, acquiring new elements, leaping up and down, and defining new tonalities. But this music is clearly about much more than the literal. Parker colors his fundamentals with an inexhaustible array of overtones, and it's at this level that these improvisations really come alive. Each note turns furry, spikey, or rounded, depending on how the saxophonist chooses to shape it. The high notes sail through the air with birdlike delicacy, chirps and whistles all about, as if a flock of songbirds have alighted on the microphone. As the recording proceeds, Parker meets his audience head-on with a similar urgency. While some listeners may find the sheer density and intesity of Lines Burnt in Light daunting, those with open ears and hearts can look forward to over an hour of pure invention and delicacy. The saxophonist's pursuit lies far beyond technical fluency (which he happens to have in great abundance), much as Coltrane aimed for a higher realm. It's this process of transcendence which lifts Lines Burnt in Light to a spectacular zenith of light and sound. Maybe it's the glow of the full moon outside as I listen, but this music provides express transportation to another world." - All About Jazz

The mid 1970s was an exciting time for free improvisation and a great deal was happening all over the world as like minded musicians were drawn to each other by a magnetic pull that had us crossing oceans and large distances of land to work together. England, America, Italy, Germany, Holland, Canada, Japan, Australia and many other territories all boasted scenes of various sizes, and players were mixing and matching in a wide variety of formations, across several generations. Recorded in 1977, this recording is an intimate duo session capturing the first meeting of two of the most brilliant musicians in the free improv scene—Evan Parker and Andrea Centazzo.   Of course Evan Parker is a living legend. One of the most original and influential saxophonists in the history of the instrument, he continues to be a force of nature to this day. His saxophone language, articulation and sonic conception changed everything. Placed chronologically between Saxophone Solos (1975) and Monoceros (1978) this recording is an important and fascinating document of a transitional period in Evan’s oeuvre—he was still using the plastic reeds that helped define the sharp articulations of his early sound, and was beginning to refine the circular breathing that became a major focus of exploration in years to come. His playing with Centazzo is particularly varied on this recording, and you can hear him exploring and stretching, discovering new sounds along the way. There is even a rare and beautiful melodic passage at the beginning of track 6 which eventually morphs into the circular breathing multi-phonics that was to define his solo masterpiece Monoceros a year later.   Andrea Centazzo is a meticulous master percussionist whose language has always drawn as much upon the contemporary classical world as upon jazz. With Andrea every note counts—a master of space and color with a remarkable sense of timing, he is a perfect match for Evan’s flights of sonic fancy. He listens deeply and responds immediately with imagination, confidence and often counter-intuitive decision-making that is both surprising and inspiring.  Four decades has not dated these sounds a jot: this is exciting music.Long thought lost, it is an historic meeting of two master improvisers at the very peak of their powers, and sounds just as fresh and modern as the day it was made. This is music that transcends time, style and genre. It is pure. It is real. It is Truth and Beauty.   —John Zorn, October 7, 2016—NYC   Andrea Centazzo (drum set, percussion, electronics) Evan Parker (soprano & tenor saxophones) Recorded live in concert in San Marcello (PT) and at Ictus Studio, Pistoia, Italy, July 1977

A sequence of free improvisations -- eight duos, two piano solos & one tenor saxophone solo -- recorded at Gateway Studios. Recorded 9/28/03. 62 minutes.

Recorded live by Takeo Suetomi at Café Amores, Hofu, April 29, 1996.The CD version includes a bonus track (“Two Chaps 1“). New, unsealed, includes Obi

Tracklisting: 1. Jump Start - 12:352. Gambade - 12:023. Capriole - 9:364. The Shimmy (For Tony Marsh) 34:50"Saxophone colossus Evan Parker is no stranger to the duo format with a pianist, and the recordings with the likes of Agustí Fernández, Sylvie Courvoisier, Matthew Shipp, Georg Graewe, Stan Tracey, Borah Bergman and John Tilbury are there to confirm it. His encounter with Alexander Hawkins isn’t just one more experience in that context, however. “Leaps in Leicester” may put him in known territory instrumentally (after all, which contexts hasn’t Parker seen over the course of his illustrious career?); but it’s not the context which provides the route to new directions here, so much as the personality of the individual with whom the dialogue is developed. A self-taught improviser and composer, Alexander Hawkins is one of a kind and the best partner possible for someone as unique as Parker. Although over recent years Hawkins has appeared in various Parker-led formations (ranging from trio through to a 15-piece large ensemble), this album captures the pair’s very first explorations in the duo format. It’s not the first time Clean Feed has released a CD featuring him – Hawkins is a member of The Convergence Quartet, playing with Taylor Ho Bynum, Dominic Lash and Harris Eisenstadt. His background speaks for itself, including collaborations with Louis Moholo-Moholo, Joe McPhee, John Surman, Mulatu Astatke, Wadada Leo Smith, and Anthony Braxton. Additionally, the work he has developed in the collaborative trio Decoy (with John Edwards and Steve Noble) has brought the possibilities provided by a particular instrument, the Hammond organ, to new grounds. Prepare yourself for something special."

"In the hands of John Butcher, the saxophone can sound like anything, from a piece of hollowed out brass baubled with pads and valves to an hermetically sealed feedback system, a miniature sound environment teeming with ever-evolving note-forms, or a huge echo chamber inflicting dub scale damage on every breath. The first half of the CD provides some particularly hallucinatory perspectives. The Oya Stone Museum was originally a working mine and it now consists of a series of enormous resonant chambers cut clean from the rock face. “From the first note I could almost physically feel the sound hanging in the air,” Butcher recalls. “lf solo improvising is to make any sense it has to respond to the particular acoustic of wherever you're playing. It's your partner, and it tests the flexibility, the usability, of your own language. The Oya concert makes for some very deep listening, with Butcher loosing darts of single notes and long oscillating currents deep into the bowels of the building only to hear them rebound as bat calls and foghorns. As the performance unravels, he starts to work real-time layers of overlapping call and response into a weave of ectoplasmic forms. The Tokyo club date, alongside no-input mixing board operative Toshimaru Nakamura, forms the 19 minute duet that caps the new CD. Butcher engages with the gulf of Nakamura's almost-sounds with shrill, sibilant hisses, squeaky balloon tones and luminous single notes that swell on the horizon like pregnant suns." WIRE - David Keenan.

JOHN BUTCHER - tenor/soprano saxophones, (feedback tenor on # 4) In the summer of 2022 Thomas Buhl-Wiggers, of the Cejero festival and label, kindly invited me to play inside the mammoth Brønshøj water tower. The very resonant spaces I’ve worked in before include a giant gasometer, a hollowed-out Japanese mountain, an underground reservoir, a Victorian mausoleum and a massive World War II oil tank. I’m still fascinated by how different these enormous environments all sounded and felt. They each inspired different approaches in trying to find the music for the actual space, and my recent experience within this extraordinary construction was no exception. The Brønshøj Vandtårn is a concrete water-tower, built almost a hundred years ago in the suburbs of Copenhagen. It’s 20m wide and 34m high - smaller than some similar shapes I’ve played in, but with a large, lingering reverberation. Some sounds seem to float away as if through liquid, others acquire a shifting haze, and some just prefer to sit around. John Butcher

Florian Stoffner - guitar John Butcher - tenor & soprano saxophones Chris Corsano - drums & half-clarinet Here, then, are three men who have, if you will, won the argument already. They don’t need excess volume or headline soloing to get their message across. Their message is inscribed in elegant lower-case and rarely used aural fonts. You will find yourself leaning forward because not a note or whisper should be missed ... (Brian Morton)