By Stuart Broomer

Evan Parker and Barry Man first performed collectively within the Spontaneous Music
Ensemble in 1967 and so they’ve been common collaborators since 1979 within the
Parker – Man – Lytton trio with drummer Paul Lytton, a bunch that additionally
shaped the idea of Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble in 1992; as effectively,
there have been Man’s massive ensembles, the London Jazz Composers’ Orchestra
and Elsie Jo. They’ve additionally been recording recurrently as a duo since 1980. As
a part of Parker’s 80^thbirthday celebrations, Man and Lytton will
be part of Parker at Café Oto in a model of Trance Map +, in a way the newest
outgrowth of the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble.

Parker has a knack for creating artistic partnerships, however there’s
nothing fairly like Parker and Man, whose “prolonged methods” mirror one
one other’s, every with a standard fluency lengthy prolonged into polyphonic
and steady realms. Whereas Parker has mixed round respiration,
compound overtones and polyphony right into a uniquely fixed and compound
discourse, Man has equally explored counterpoint, short-term “bridges” to
divide the fingerboard into distinct zones of pitch and timbre, and speedy
shifting between or combining arco and pizzicato methods.

The particular connection between them has been evident in earlier duo
recordings on Maya and it continues right here, each in three duets and within the
similarities in solos by every of them. The title phrase comes from Samuel
Beckett, chosen by Parker in recognition of Man’s lengthy involvement with
Beckett’s writing (e.g., the latest all this, this right here by his Blue
Shroud Orchestra’s [Fundacja Sluchaj, 2023]), and there’s one thing within the
duets right here that means music grown remarkably near speech, a richly
allusive and exploratory discourse.

The opening “So it goes… 1” is a developed
tenor/ bass duet working to 12 minutes with an speedy sense of
engagement, brief tenor phrases wafting upward amidst a community of bass
harmonics. There’s a temper right here as a lot calm as looking out, one thing nearly
balladic, a way of a number of inside tempos that can finally resolve
in a simultaneous explosion of speedy interlocking runs from the duo.

“So it goes… 2” is a comparatively temporary pairing of soprano saxophone and
bass, starting in dense, speedy circularity. There is a way of a number of
voices, every musician producing a high and low voice. The complexity
suggests pure structure, as if a cavern is echoing and repeating
voices, as if the devices are pure phenomena, till the strains skinny
barely and the diploma of shut echoing and interplay turns into clearer,
Man at instances punctuating Parker’s continuum, at different instances surrounding it,
but a sure lyricism – empathy, track — appears all the time the item, right here
seized at the conclusion.

Tracks three and 4 are solos, no less than insofar as just one musician is
taking part in on every, although polyvocality or multiplicity is a lot part of
every musician’s voice that the unitive notion of a solo could be
inappropriate. Man’s “Grit” is an explosion of plucked notes, excessive and low
concurrently, with sudden elisions and an occasional upward glissando
rising from the maze. Short-term bridges could come into play, the
instrument a collection of distinct registers, typically simultaneous, someday
mingling plucking and bowing with a sure delicate thrashing, even
occasional results that recommend underwater percussion. It’s one instrument
– bass, soprano, strings, percussion, close to, far – reimagined as hive, as
orchestra.

Parker’s “Creek Creak” is sustained soprano track, one other sort of
steady self-duetting through which one voice’s winding continuum is at instances
matched to a different’s punctuation, the continual and the staccato each
steady components.

The concluding “So it goes… 3” is a tenor saxophone/bass duet, imbued once more
with a standard lyricism, every musician by some means concurrently referencing
gradual and quick tempos – a speedy reverie, one other magical interplay,
a number of moods engaged in a vital continuum, becoming conclusion to a
outstanding program.