By Stuart Broomer

Given the dimensions of Evan Parker’s discography (no grievance right here, it’s each
file of an excellent, modern profession and a boon to many micro labels
and a few lesser-known musicians), it’s nonetheless barely shocking to search out
contemporary gems, whether or not 45 years previous or 14. Here’s a classic solo live performance with
the earliest solo tenor saxophone items I can recall listening to and a quartet
that’s as worthy of the adjective “free” as any music may be, a
wonderland of impulse and achievement.

Evan Parker – NYC 1978 (Relative Pitch, 2023) 

Few musicians have influenced solo improvisation as Evan Parker has, from the difference of round respiration to the huge exploration of his
devices’ potential for harmonics, quarter tones and obvious polyphony.
Whereas there are quite a few recordings of its extra developed phases, there’s
far much less of the early solo work.

Whereas Parker had beforehand travelled to America to listen to music, 1978 marked
his first appearances as a performer, touring in Canada and the United
States as a soloist and in addition showing in numerous advert hoc
formations. He had recorded his first CD of solo soprano saxophone (Saxophone
Solos) in 1975 and had recorded Monoceros, the primary
recording to start documenting the numerous scale of his technical
innovation in April 1978, simply previous to the tour.

Parker’s creating virtuosity drew on a number of methods, each
tough to grasp. The inspiration to develop the harmonic vocabulary
may be traced to John Coltrane’s prolonged cadenza on “I Wish to Discuss
about You” from Reside at Birdland. The round respiration approach
that he was creating, used discreetly by some earlier jazz musicians like
Duke Ellington’s baritone saxophonist Harry Carney, appears to have come from
Indian wind musicians like Bismillah Khan, whose accompanists additional
substituted a double-reed drone for a tamboura; the overblowing and
polyphony are prefigured within the tenor jeremiads that Pharoah Sanders
began to supply round 1965. The marvel was that Parker was continuing
alongside all of those traces, whether or not sounding just like the inhabitants of an offended
aviary or a gaggle of flutes.

Recorded on the efficiency house Environ, the items listed here are merely
entitled “Environ” and numbered sequentially. 4 are soprano saxophone
solos, starting from “Environ 1” with its impression of a flock of birds to
the last word “Environ 6”, given over to fast quick phrases that tumble
over one another, typically with sharply differentiated timbres in a single
burst. Not like his contemporaneously launched solo work,

New York 1978

contains examples of his solo tenor saxophone, already as developed because the
soprano and making efficient use of the instrument’s decrease register.
“Environ 2” strikes from turbine-like blasts to wild, burred runs, whereas “4”
offers the impression of a financial institution of oscillators in an enormous cavern.

As soon as, on the conclusion of a later Parker solo soprano efficiency, a
Buddhist good friend exclaimed, “it’s like illumination in music”, and it’s
exactly that which makes it extra than simply technical achievement, however
somewhat achievement close to the present limits of identified music’s potentialities.
Right here one will get extra of the origin story. 

Marteau Rouge (Foussat/Pauvros/Sato) & Evan Parker – Reward (Fou Information,
2023)

Parker’s historical past with the French trio Marteau Rouge dates from a minimum of as
early as 1988, evidenced on Reward by a photograph of the quartet from
that 12 months, however the current live performance recording comes from Les Instants
Chavirés in 2009. It stands out amongst Parker’s collaborations due to
the group’s particular character, combining a collective attentiveness with a
penchant for fabricating competing layers of turbulent sound. Jean-Marc
Foussat, on AKS synth, toys and voice, and Jean-François Pauvros, electrical
guitar and voice, create an excellent variety of sound, typically arduous to
divide up for attribution however by some means typically each chaotic and delicate, whereas
drummer Makoto Sato is a delicate and important acoustic associate, a actuality
precept in a dreamscape.

There are two lengthy improvisations right here, “Air Frais” operating to 27 minutes,
“Into the Deep” 35, with a 7-minute

“Will-o’-the Wisp”

as encore. Parker’s tenor saxophone is the primary voice on the opening “Air
Frais”, directly summary and pensive, suggesting a form of nocturne, however it
will quickly flip to an anarchic carnival of sound with the entry of Foussat
and Pauvros (greatest sorted out on headphones), the previous producing a maze
of whirrs, whistles, blast and roars, the latter accountable for sounds
which may come from a processed electrical guitar, together with passages on
each of the lengthy tracks that counsel numerous string devices (Asian and
African and cello), whether or not bowed, plucked or Echoplexed. Sato is, on this
context, an understated drummer, exact however propulsive, by some means urgent
within the undergrowth, coming to the fore within the midst of “Into the Deep”
which concludes with a wondrously unusual passage of electronically
processed muezzin vocal that regularly shifts to African chant, no
ensures of authenticity past the quartet’s personal.

Given how a lot the band has created within the hour, it’s exceptional how a lot
is left for that “Will-o’-the Wisp”, with processed free vocalizing and
constant drive and but extra cascading tenor saxophone, a music of each
excessive and good spirits. Amongst Foussat’s credit are recording, mixing,
enhancing and mastering – all at a excessive normal and all of the extra noteworthy
given how a lot of the music he was additionally making.