evan parker tour

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Evan Parker tour dates

This page lists known forthcoming concerts by the British saxophonist Evan Parker . Corrections and additions are welcome – use the form below.

Past concerts are listed here .

Last updated 30 April 2024.

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Ivan Parker

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Home » Jazz Musicians » Evan Parker

Evan Parker

• Has Influenced

Evan Parker was born in Bristol in 1944 and began to play the saxophone at the age of 14. Initially he played alto and was an admirer of Paul Desmond; by 1960 he had switched to tenor and soprano, following the example of John Coltrane, a major influence who, he would later say, determined "my choice of everything". In 1962 he went to Birmingham University to study botany but a trip to New York, where he heard the Cecil Taylor trio (with Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray), prompted a change of mind. What he heard was "music of a strength and intensity to mark me for life ... l came back with my academic ambitions in tatters and a desperate dream of a life playing that kind of music - 'free jazz' they called it then."

Parker stayed in Birmingham for a time, often playing with pianist Howard Riley. In 1966 he moved to London, became a frequent visitor to the Little Theatre Club, centre of the city's emerging free jazz scene, and was soon invited by drummer John Stevens to join the innovative Spontaneous Music Ensemble which was experimenting with new kinds of group improvisation. Parker's first issued recording was SME's 1968 Karyobin, with a line-up of Parker, Stevens, Derek Bailey, Dave Holland and Kenny Wheeler. Parker remained in SME through various fluctuating line-ups - at one point it comprised a duo of Stevens and himself - but the late 1960s also saw him involved in a number of other fruitful associations.

He began a long-standing partnership with guitarist Bailey, with whom he formed the Music Improvisation Company and, in 1970, co-founded Incus Records. (Tony Oxley, in whose sextet Parker was then playing, was a third co- founder; Parker left Incus in the mid-1980s.) Another important connection was with the bassist Peter Kowald who introduced Parker to the German free jazz scene. This led to him playing on Peter Brötzmann's 1968 Machine Gun, Manfred Schoof's 1969 European Echoes and, in 1970, joining pianist Alex von Schlippenbach and percussionist Paul Lovens in the former's trio, of which he is still a member: their recordings include Pakistani Pomade, Three Nails Left, Detto Fra Di Noi, Elf Bagatellen and Physics.

Parker pursued other European links, too, playing in the Pierre Favre Quartet (with Kowald and Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer) and in the Dutch Instant Composers Pool of Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink. The different approaches to free jazz he encountered proved both a challenging and a rewarding experience. He later recalled that the German musicians favoured a "robust, energy-based thing, not to do with delicacy or detailed listening but to do with a kind of spirit-raising, a shamanistic intensity. And l had to find a way of surviving in the heat of that atmosphere ... But after a while those contexts became more interchangeable and more people were involved in the interactions, so all kinds of hybrid musics came out, all kinds of combinations of styles."

A vital catalyst for these interactions were the large ensembles in which Parker participated in the 1970s: Schlippenbach's Globe Unity Orchestra, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO) and occasional big bands led by Kenny Wheeler. In the late 70s Parker also worked for a time in Wheeler's small group, recording Around Six and, in 1980, he formed his own trio with Guy and LJCO percussionist Paul Lytton (with whom he had already been working in a duo for nearly a decade). This group, together with the Schlippenbach trio, remains one of Parker's top musical priorities: their recordings include Tracks, Atlanta, Imaginary Values, Breaths and Heartbeats, The Redwood Sessions and At the Vortex. In 1980, Parker directed an Improvisers Symposium in Pisa and, in 1981, he organised a special project at London's Actual Festival. By the end of the 1980s he had played in most European countries and had made various tours to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. ln 1990, following the death of Chris McGregor, he was instrumental in organising various tributes to the pianist and his fellow Blue Notes; these included two discs by the Dedication Orchestra, Spirits Rejoice and lxesa.

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. Parker's first solo recordings, made in 1974, were reissued on the Saxophone Solos CD in 1995; more recent examples are Conic Sections and Process and Reality, on the latter of which he does, for the first time, experiment with multi-tracking. Heard alone on stage, few would disagree with writer Steve Lake that "There is, still, nothing else in music - jazz or otherwise - that remotely resembles an Evan Parker solo concert."

While free improvisation has been Parker's main area of activity over the last three decades, he has also found time for other musical pursuits: he has played in 'popular' contexts with Annette Peacock, Scott Walker and the Charlie Watts big band; he has performed notated pieces by Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman and Frederic Rzewski; he has written knowledgeably about various ethnic musics in Resonance magazine. A relatively new field of interest for Parker is improvising with live electronics, a dialogue he first documented on the 1990 Hall of Mirrors CD with Walter Prati. Later experiments with electronics in the context of larger ensembles have included the Synergetics - Phonomanie III project at Ullrichsberg in 1993 and concerts by the new EP2 (Evan Parker Electronic Project) in Berlin, Nancy and at the 1995 Stockholm Electronic Music Festival where Parker's regular trio improvised with real- time electronics processed by Prati, Marco Vecchi and Phillip Wachsmann. "Each of the acoustic instrumentalists has an electronic 'shadow' who tracks him and feeds a modified version of his output back to the real-time flow of the music."

The late 80s and 90s brought Parker the chance to play with some of his early heroes. He worked with Cecil Taylor in small and large groups, played with Coltrane percussionist Rashied Ali, recorded with Paul Bley: he also played a solo set as support to Ornette Coleman when Skies of America received its UK premiere in 1988. The same period found Parker renewing his acquaintance with American colleagues such as Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy and George Lewis, with all of whom he had played in the 1970s (often in the context of London's Company festivals). His 1993 duo concert with Braxton moved John Fordham in The Guardian to raptures over "saxophone improvisation of an intensity, virtuosity, drama and balance to tax the memory for comparison".

Parker's 50th birthday in 1994 brought celebratory concerts in several cities, including London, New York and Chicago. The London performance, featuring the Parker and Schlippenbach trios, was issued on a highly-acclaimed two-CD set, while participants at the American concerts included various old friends as well as more recent collaborators in Borah Bergman and Joe Lovano. The NYC radio station WKCR marked the occasion by playing five days of Parker recordings. 1994 also saw the publication of the Evan Parker Discography, compiled by ltalian writer Francesco Martinelli, plus chapters on Parker in books on contemporary musics by John Corbett and Graham Lock.

Parker's future plans involve exploring further possibilities in electronics and the development of his solo music. They also depend to a large degree on continuity of the trios, of the large ensembles, of his more occasional yet still long-standing associations with that pool of musicians to whose work he remains attracted. This attraction, he explained to Coda's Laurence Svirchev, is attributable to "the personal quality of an individual voice". The players to whom he is drawn "have a language which is coherent, that is, you know who the participants are. At the same time, their language is flexible enough that they can make sense of playing with each other ... l like people who can do that, who have an intensity of purpose."

Evan Parker 80th Birthday Celebration

by John Sharpe April 11, 2024

On 6 April, the day after his 80th birthday, North London's Cafe Oto hosted a virtually sold out two-day celebration in honor of groundbreaking saxophone icon Evan Parker, bringing together a host of colleagues from across his career. Contingents from North America and Europe swelled the ranks of local well-wishers and were rewarded by some marvelous music reflecting different aspects of his artistry. Starting off proceedings on the Saturday evening, the saxophonist revisited one of his most ...

Evan Parker - Barry Guy: So It Goes

by John Sharpe February 17, 2024

Two masters who have invented a (the?) lexicon for their instruments meet on So It Goes. British saxophonist Evan Parker and his compatriot bassist Barry Guy should need no introduction to anyone interested in European free improvisation. Both active since the 1970s, they remain vital forces even with as they both move into their eighth decade. Their association was formalized in 1980 with the inception of the long running trio completed by drummer Paul Lytton. But they have also appeared ...

Sergio Armaroli & Evan Parker: Dialog

by John Eyles January 20, 2024

In 2022, Italian-born vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli and British-born saxophonist Evan Parker were scheduled to tour Italy together, and go into a recording studio together to record a set of freely improvised music in real time. However, the plan fell apart because Parker became unable to leave Britain (maybe for Covid-related reasons?) Although Parker cancelled the tour and the recording session, Armaroli was keen to consider alternatives. At the time, technology did not allow musicians in distant locations to record together ...

by Chris May December 29, 2023

Sergio Armaroli and Evan Parker's collaboration on Dialog was made possible by state-of-the-art 2022 digital technology, on which it was wholly reliant. But the structure of the music itself--call and response a.k.a. antiphony--predates the digital era by an unknown number of millennia. Located in different studios hundreds of miles apart, on different days, the two players used file-sharing to engage in what is, if not the oldest form of music making, then almost certainly the second oldest. One day in ...

Trance Map+: Etching the Ether

by Glenn Astarita December 28, 2023

"Trance Map+" is a collaborative project involving some incredibly talented musicians exploring the realms of avant-garde jazz and experimental sounds. Etching the Ether features three extended pieces, treated with Matthew Wright's live electronics and sound design. It is a production that embarks on a sonic journey, pushing the boundaries of improvisation and musical exploration.The album delves into intricate soundscapes, where each track is an evolving entity. The musicians known for their prowess in improvisation, create an enticing tapestry ...

Evan Parker / Matthew Wright, Trance Map+ with Peter Evans and Mark Nauseef: Etching the Ether

by Mark Corroto August 22, 2023

Humans have seemingly always feared new technologies. We're not even talking about AI and ChatGPT. When the first electric light bulb was invented, folks worried it would end civilization as they knew it. Artificial light certainly changed how late one stayed up at night. On the other hand, it also allowed people to find their keys after the sun had set. Any new technology can be either a master or a servant, a tool or a tyrant. The programmable drum ...

Joe McPhee & Evan Parker: Sweet Nothings For Milford Graves

by John Sharpe February 9, 2023

Two soprano saxophones loosely harmonize. They finish each other's lines, languidly intertwine, pause for air at the same moment. And simultaneously end on a dime. Musical twins. In the wrong hands such empathy might become soporific; but with two of the planet's foremost improvisers on hand in the persons of Evan Parker and Joe McPhee, instead they unlock deep wells of emotionally charged feeling. Captured at Chicago's 7th Empty Bottle Festival in 2003, this archive recording amply ...

Jazz this week: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Evan Parker & Peter Evans, Ronnie Burrage's RoBu Big Band, and more

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman September 30, 2015

This week's schedule of jazz and creative music in St. Louis is jam-packed, with three notable big band performances, two shows benefiting an ailing elder statesman of the local jazz scene, an evening of free-form music from two intriguing improvisors, and much, much more. Let's go to the highlights... Wednesday, September 30 The eclectic acoustic ensemble The 442s perform for the first of two nights at Jazz at the Bistro, and pianist Greg Mills plays free improv and contemporary compositions ... read more

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Evan Parker and Peter Evans

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman September 26, 2015

Today, let's spend a few minutes with saxophonist Evan Parker and trumpeter Peter Evans, who will give a duo performance to kick off New Music Circle's 2015-16 season next Friday, October 2 at Joe's Cafe. (Both men also will take part in a free workshop/Q&A at 11 a.m. the next day (Saturday, October 3) at Foam.) Parker is a 71-year-old Englishman who began his career in the 1960s, at first briefly emulating the cool stylings of Paul Desmond and Lee ... read more

Free Improv Pioneer Evan Parker To Give Master Class At NEC

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications September 10, 2014

Thursday, September 18 at 3 p.m. As Part of Nearly 100 Free Events for 2014-2015 NEC Season A pioneer of free improvisation, Evan Parker is considered one of the most influential saxophonists in the post-Coltrane era. Since the late 1960s he has remained a dynamic and innovative voice who has expanded the range of his instrument and the expressive possibilities of improvised music. Parker comes to New England Conservatory at 3 p.m. on Thursday, September 18 to give a workshop ... read more

New John Escreet Featuring Evan Parker On Sunnyside (5/13)!

Source: Sunnyside Records April 17, 2014

Jazz and contemporary improvised music have had numerous iconoclasts, who questioned and reshaped forms that they inherited, and, as an aural tradition, the music develops as these boundary pushers collaborate and share their knowledge, so the future generations of musicians can push ahead. Pianist/composer John Escreet knew that he wanted to perform with just such a musician - the legendary saxophonist Evan Parker - for a long while. He was finally able to find the opportunity to partner Parker with ... read more

Improvisation Day at Kingston University, London

Source: Diana Salazar March 10, 2011

The Improvised Space: Techniques, Traditions and Technologies A Research Day on Improvised Music Kingston University, London Wednesday 6th April 2011 10:30am-6:00pm, Concert 6:30pm The Department of Music at Kingston University presents a research day on improvised music, with special guests Evan Parker and Bennett Hogg. The programme includes presentations, demonstrations and workshops by researchers and practitioners in a range of fields, from jazz to free improvisation, acoustic performance to laptop music and live electronics, ... read more

Steve Lacy and Evan Parker - Chirps (FMP, 1991, 2010)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland October 19, 2010

Records and compact discs (or downloads for that matter) by the German FMP label have been somewhat scarce (in the USA at least) so Destination Out's agreement with the label to set up a downloading storefront is a big break for fans of progressive jazz. This album features a live meeting between soprano saxophone masters Steve Lacy and Evan Parker, in an unaccompanied duet that is complex and abstract, but continually exciting and accessible. The title of the album references ... read more

Evan Parker - Whitstable Solo (Psi)

Source: Master of a Small House June 29, 2010

Nearly four decades deep into the Evan Parker solo performance precedence and despite what some critics might contend the saxophonist is still finding fresh things to say on both straight horn and curved. A confluence of new recording space (St. Peter's Church, Whitstable), trusted engineer (Adam Skeaping) and extra-disciplinary collaborators (artist Polly Read and film-maker Neil Henderson) help make this set recorded in the summer of 2008 special. Parker states a preference for the pristine acoustics of the space in ... read more

Jazz Musician of the Day: Evan Parker

Source: Michael Ricci April 5, 2010

Born Bristol, 5 April 1944; Tenor and soprano saxophones. The sources for these notes have come from various places, but in particular from Martin Davidson\'s notes to recent Emanem releases and Evan Parker\'s notes to 50th birthday concert... more

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Evan Parker with Susan Alcorn and Michael Formanek at The WindUp Space in Bailtimore on April 18th

Source: Michael Ricci March 24, 2010

CREATIVE DIFFERENCES presents EVAN PARKER - solo saxophone plus SUSAN ALCORN - pedal steel guitar MICHAEL FORMANEK - double bass EVAN PARKER - saxophones SUNDAY APRIL 18 AT 6PM @ The WindUp Space 12 W.North Ave Baltimore MD thewindupspace.com 410 244 8855 THIS CONCERT WILL BEGIN AT 6PM. DOORS OPEN AT 5PM Admission is $10 on the door Evan Parker is widely regarding as ... read more

New Red Toucan Release: "Relevance" by Dave Liebman and Evan Parker

Source: Michael Ricci February 22, 2010

“After decades of playing with musicians from the famous to the esoteric to relatively unknown, there still exists for me a wish list of those who for one reason or another I haven't performed or recorded with. Near the top of ... read more

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Dave green trio with evan parker, 'shuffle boil'.

Daniel Brown

With 200+ recordings as a soloist and collaborator, the overall body of work of U.K. reeds polymath Evan Parker has remained remarkably consistent and always worthy of deep engagement. But... where to start?

This recent collab with the Dave Green Trio, "Shuffle Boil," is a compelling entry point – a Monk tune that remains an avant-jazz standard. In this performance, Parker is ably supported, abetted and goaded by bassist Green, drummer Gene Calderazzo and fellow reeds player Iain Dixon. In under nine minutes, through a volley of just-familiar intervals and paradigm-smashing techniques including Parker's truly Olympian circular breathing, the 77-year-old free-jazz titan highlights, PowerPoints and decimates a decades-deep saxophone vernacular that he helped invent, while the band deftly and generously trade off on hosting and co-hosting duties in this upgrade of Monk's masterpiece.

◈ Stream "Shuffle Boil" by the David Green Trio with Evan Parker

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FOURTH PORTAL

Gateway to the fourth industrial revolution.

Sun, 18 Feb

Fourth Portal Lab

EVAN PARKER

Fourth Portal is proud to present saxophonist Evan Parker, a substantial figure in European free jazz and free improvisation, who pioneered or significantly expanded an array of extended techniques. Doors 3.30pm Tickets: Adv. £9 | Conc. £6 | Otd. £12 Licensed Bar | Under 16 accompanied by adult

Time & Location

18 Feb 2024, 15:30 – 18:00

Fourth Portal Lab, Royal Pier Rd, Gravesend DA12 2BD, UK

About the event

Innovation is not exclusive to engineering or changing social or work spheres; it comes in many forms, including innovation in how to play an instrument.

The Fourth Portal is proud to welcome another British music legend, saxophonist Evan Parker. 

"Few musicians have influenced solo improvisation as Evan Parker has, from the adaptation of circular breathing to the vast exploration of his instruments’ potential for harmonics, quarter tones and apparent polyphony."   (Stu Broomer, The Free Jazz Collective)

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS:  £9 Advance | £6 Concessions | £12 On the Door  

British tenor and soprano saxophone player Evan Parker has been a consistently innovative presence in British free music since the 1960s.

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, double tonguing, multiphonics and cross-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. (Cafe OTO).

Parker has recorded a large number of albums both solo or as a group leader and has recorded or performed with  Peter Brötzmann ,  Michael Nyman ,  John Stevens ,  Derek Bailey ,  Keith Rowe ,  Joe McPhee ,  Anthony Braxton ,  Cecil Taylor ,  John Zorn ,  Fred Frith ,   Ikue Mori ,  Thurston Moore ,   Milford Graves ,  George E. Lewis ,  Tim Berne ,  Mark Dresser ,  Dave Holland ,  Sylvie Courvoisier , and many others.

Full Bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Parker

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Dave Green Trio plus Evan Parker: Raise Four review – celebrating a lifetime of open-minded jazz

(Trio) One of Britain’s best-connected jazzers marks his 80th birthday with a session heavy on Thelonious Monk

N o musician can have covered more of the British jazz scene than bassist Dave Green. From Humphrey Lyttelton to Stan Tracey, not to mention some of the grandest visitors to Ronnie Scott’s, he has understood and underpinned them all. He turns 80 next week and he’s chosen this, a BBC archive session from 2004, to mark the occasion. His trio, with saxophonist Iain Dixon and drummer Gene Calderazzo, is joined by free improvising saxophonist Evan Parker. Green’s open-mindedness in music used to cause mutterings among more straight-ahead jazz lovers, but maybe it’s died down by now. There are five tracks here, after a brief chat with producer Jez Nelson. Three are based on Thelonious Monk tunes, one a ballad by Billy Strayhorn and one freely improvised.

The simple strength of Monk holds his pieces together and the result is quite refreshing. The ballad, A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing, features a restrained and delicate duet by Parker and Dixon (on clarinet). Back in the 1960s, some wit remarked that free improvisation sounded like a fire in a pet shop. This one, entitled Ex-Changes, isn’t quite that, but it has its moments.

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Friday 15 March 2024

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Evan parker at roundhouse, london, england, evan parker at huddersfield contemporary music festival 2019, evan parker at improtech athens 2019, evan parker at jazz is dead 2019, evan parker at first presbyterian church of santa monica, los angeles, ca, usa, evan parker at big ears festival 2018, evan parker at gnration, braga, portugal, evan parker at teatro sant'andrea, pisa, italy.

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Happy birthday evan parker at 80.

Evan Parker, one of the formative and transformative figures in the music of our time, celebrates his 80th birthday today, 5 April 2024. We (*) asked friends and colleagues to send birthday greetings:

Joshua Abrams :

psi science spirit intersection within breath wry laughs & story

Dear Evan, a very happy 80th solar return! Buckets of gratitude for always lifting the bandstand & the ongoing 30 year conversation.  Your trenchant generosity of sound, knowledge & inspiration stretches out past the horizon.

Django Bates : Last time our Venns intersected, we were celebrating Charlie Parker at Wigmore Hall.  I suggested, “Commentate freely over my dense arrangements”, but Evan insisted on playing all the written material, saying before our only rehearsal:

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“I’ve got hold of a Grafton acrylic Alto like Charlie’s, so send me Eb parts.”

Then, “Grafton’s broken, I’d like tenor parts.”

Then, “Can you redo those an octave lower?”

Constant tweaking of possibilities, and conversations rich with red herrings and laughter; this is Evan’s modus operandi: the never-ending introduction of gentle chaos. Thank you for your works; for sax gruffles squeezed into a nanosecond of silence with a honed skill so easily mistaken for magic. Your gestures move the dial, transform the band, illuminate any concert. Happy 80th to our belovèd chaotician.

Corrado Beldì : A memory of NovaraJazz: Evan playing a solo at dawn in Novara. Early June, swallows flying around. The medieval courtyard full of people. Everyone gets hypnotized. No words, notes in the amber sky, unforgettable Evan!

Happy Birthday from Corrado and the whole NovaraJazz crew!

Riccardo Bergerone : Evan e’ come una buona bottiglia di Barolo! Piu’ invecchia e piu’ la sua arte, il suo coraggio e la sua visione musicale sprizzano profumi e regalano sorprese infinite. Che arrivano dal passato e si proiettano verso il futuro. Come il buon Barolo.

(Evan is like a good bottle of Barolo! The older he gets, the more his art, his courage and his musical vision release fragrances and provide endless surprises. Which come from the past and project themselves into the future. Like good Barolo.)

Stuart Broomer: Happy birthday, Evan. In a career running from the 1960s to the 2020s, in a music where supposedly anything goes, you have mapped out some of the broadest and most welcoming pathways, explored some of the richest and rarest veins, harmonized the common and the arcane, and contributed to building community wherever it might arise. Wonderfully, you continue to do all those things. Thank you for all the music.

Tom Challenger: Dear Evan, Happy birthday! It’s hard to know where to begin, although it definitely began for me in 2000 (?) at Appleby Jazz Festival. Easier to talk about is where it’s been…Well, of course, the Vortex every month, god knows how many other countless places; and when you first asked me to play. Those moments all matter. Your willingness to be self critical and critical has shown me the lighter (important) side of study: nothing is ever above the other. Long may that continue! Again, happy birthday!

Sylvie Courvoisier : Dear Evan, Happy Birthday… Miller’s Tale in Russia, Lucy’s lounge in Brooklyn, Octaven in Yonkers, stinky basement studio you know where, Cast-a-net with the cows, all these great memories… I love your playing, I love you, and can’t wait to play and hang with you again!

Marilyn Crispell: Happy Birthday, dear Evan. Good wishes from here and beyond! Love, Marilyn.

Tony Dudley-Evans: When Evan Parker was a student at the University of Birmingham he lived with other students in a large house round the corner from where I live now. I walk past this house virtually every day and think of the many wonderful concerts Evan has given in Birmingham. I remember him playing solo, with Spring Heel Jack, with the Electronic Project, with the Riot Ensemble, and with small groups with Mark Sanders and John Edwards. Great memories.

John Edwards: Happy birthday Evan xx 

John Etheridge: Evan, you have been an inspiration for years, and listening to you a few weeks ago at the Vortex, I was thinking: “Age cannot wither nor custom stale…”

Jeremy Farnell: Hey you were born ! So your free, Happy Birthday.

Binker Golding: Happy birthday Evan. It’s always been an honour to work with you & a pleasure to listen to you. Your music still has the same impact for me as it did when I first heard it at 16 years old.

Alexander Hawkins:

Günther Huesmann: You completely redefined the way a saxophone can sound. Thank you for that: Evan Parker is the magical lungs of free jazz.

Charlotte Keeffe: WOW, thank you for your pioneering, powerful, mesmerising music-making throughout all of these decades! You’ve inspired SO many folks and of course continue very much to do so! Seeing and hearing you will always be an exciting experience and an honour – I’ll always be starstruck in your presence!  Sending LOVE and Birthday wishes on behalf of your Mopomoso and London Improvisers Orchestra buddies too!  Lots of LOVE, Charlotte.

Patrik Landolt, Intakt Records: Happy birthday! Wonderful moments at Evan’s many concerts at the Taktlos Festival, the unerhört Festival in Zurich and in 25 recordings by Evan for Intakt Records with Barry Guy, London Jazz Composers Orchestra, Globe Unity Orchestra, Schlippenbach Trio, Alexander Hawkins, Matthew Wright Trance Map, etc. These recordings write music history and remain in the very best of memories. And of course the many good dinners in the Rheinfelder Bierhalle in Zürich. I look forward to the next time.

Chris Laurence: I have always had a great relationship with Evan. Our common denominator has been Kenny Wheeler, who always loved having Evan in any big band projects we did together. I find him a very broad-minded musician ,and I’ve enjoyed and been honoured that he has always had a positive attitude to my playing ,and the music I’ve been involved with. He’s skilled at dealing with musician’s rights, not just for himself, but for the jazz fraternity as a whole. Well done Evan for this milestone in time, and keep up your individual spirit in this tricky world, Chris.

Marcello Lorrai: So much of Evan Parker’s work has the rare gift of being completely and permanently contemporary. Even if made half a century ago or more, his music is not of the past but of the present and the future: happy birthday Evan!

Joe Lovano: Happy Arrival Day Evan Parker 🎉.  I want you to know how inspiring it’s been being in your audience and sharing the space with you on occasion through these years.  Your passion and love comes through your horn in every breath you take and has a sound and life all its own… Have a joyous day and years to come 🙏.  Looking Forward. 🎷

Francesco Martinelli: Fearless sonic explorer of the XX and XXI Centuries, Evan Parker brought the soprano saxophone where it had never been before, developing a unique approach to solo performance whose impact was felt across all the music spectrum. As a group improviser or bandleader he was a founder or member of the most influential ensembles of the global free improvisation movement: Globe Unity, London Jazz Composers Orchestra, Brotherhood of Breath, Dedication Orchestra, M. I. C., as well as his own long-standing trio, Electro-acoustic Ensemble. His articulate reflections on creativity and passion for all musics have enriched us all. His music has been a companion of my life for 50 years and I have been inspired by all our personal interaction – as well as having a lot of fun.

Ikue Mori : Happy Birthday dear Evan!  Wishing you the best of 80s and more to come. Hope to get to see you and play again. Sending my love from NY. 

Maggie Nicols: Evan, a dear kindred spirit and innovator who plays and speaks truth to power with love , courage and integrity.

Roberto Ottaviano: Many years ago, wandering Towards the Margins , I was sucked into the Conic Sections of the Topography of the Lungs and found you looking at me slyly… From that moment on you have been present like a circular breathing in my music world. Luckily, because you always keep my attention awake on the principles and rigor of choices. Thank you always and especially on this day. Happy Birthday Maestro.

Walter Prati:  Alternating energy and tranquillity, impetuosity and patience, acoustics and electronics, solo and ensemble, leader and supporter; these are the worlds in which Evan has accompanied me in 39 years of collaboration. Is there still much to discover? Maybe yes maybe no; I don’t know exactly…

Veniero Rizzardi: Evan the Master. At 17, I had been just got shocked – and hooked – by “Topography of the Lungs” when I discovered that my newfound hero was set to perform in my hometown, Milan, at none other than the Piccola Scala, with the Brotherhood of Breath – marking the first time jazz graced La Scala’s stage! It was an unforgettable night, a life-altering experience. Little did I know, this was merely the beginning of a long journey that would gradually lead to a friendship, a gift from Evan himself, on his birthday. This is the essence of encountering true masters. When we pay homage to them, we are simply acknowledging the gifts they bestow upon us.

Ned Rothenberg : Dear Evan, I will be so happy to join you for the festivities in London around your birthday. We chose the title ‘Monkey Puzzle’ for our first release, acknowledging our common place in the Chinese system, as I reside one cycle behind you. We were relatively young monkeys back then but time has fled. Still, I regard you as a prime musical mentor and I know that is the case for many others, regardless of whether they share the nerdy saxophonic commonalities that we do. I look forward to making music together for this hallowed occasion and hope we can find a little more gold in the mine. With deep love, nr.

Mark Sanders: Happy birthday Evan!  Have a great weekend celebrating your 80th at Cafe Oto. I look forward to seeing you there. Many happy returns. Mark x 

Pino Saulo: Dear Evan, it has been a pleasure to play your music during all these years here at the station. And it has been a pleasure to meet you in Italy. I have a vivid recollection of the first time, here at Radio Rai studios for a wild improvised session with Alvin Curran. Pure joy. There’s a statement of yours, “My roots are in my record player”, that we love so much and that we use every time we invite a musician, a producer, a critic to tell us the soundtrack of his life. I said it has been a pleasure to play your music and still is. After all, I think the best way to celebrate your birthday will be playing some of your music on air tonight. Stay well and in great shape. Happy Birthday from Pino Saulo and the ‘battiti’ team with Antonia Tessitore, Ghighi Di Paola and Chiara Colli.

Wolfgang Schmidtke: Ich habe Evan Parker seit mehr als vierzig Jahren immer wieder gehört. Die Essenz die ich dabei zu hören meine, ist eine Reduktion an Masse zugunsten einer Konzentration im Detail. Der frühe EP produzierte eine faszinierende Vielfalt an Saxophonkaskaden. Ein Melodieverlauf im konventionellen Sinn war nicht gewollt, schon allein, weil die Kaskaden einen Großteil an Mikrotonalität und Geräuschanteil hatten. Anders und einfachst ausgedrückt: In kürzester Zeit verliessen wahnsinnig viele Klangeriegnisse den Schalltrichter. Der EP den ich den letzten zehn Jahre regelmäßig gehört habe, macht eigentlich das Gegenteil. Ich meine zu hören, dass er sich von Jahr zu Jahr intensiver mit der Qualität jedes einzelnen Tons beschäftigt. Die Summe der Töne, die aus dem Trichter kommen ist viel kleiner geworden, aber jeder einzelne wiegt eine Tonne. EP war und ist ein Avantgardist, denn er wagt die Änderung.“

(I have been listening to Evan Parker for more than forty years. The essence I think I hear is a reduction of mass in favour of a concentration on detail. The early Evan produced a fascinating variety of saxophone cascades. A melodic progression in the conventional sense was not the intention, if only because the cascades had a large proportion of microtonality and noise. To put it simply: an incredible amount of sound left the bell of the instrument in a very short space of time. The Evan Parker I’ve been listening to regularly for the last ten years actually does the opposite. I think I can hear that from year to year he is more and more concerned with the quality of each individual sound. The sum of the sounds coming out of the bell has become much smaller, but each one weighs a ton. Evan Parker was and is an avant-gardist, because he dares to make changes.)

Sebastian Scotney: Dear Evan, your spontaneous and conspicuous act of generosity towards me in 2011, opening the liner note for the album “The Long Waiting” with words from my review of the first gig of the Kenny Wheeler 80th birthday tour, still touches my heart. I can never thank you enough.

Bill Shoemaker: Happy 80 th  birthday, Evan, with many thanks.

Nick Smart : Happy Birthday dear Evan! Huge congratulations and many happy returns to come. Thank you for all you’ve given over the years with your fearless innovation and artistic vision – you’ve been a guiding light for as long as I can remember. It has been a pleasure to work with you in all the various projects we’ve collaborated on; your calm leadership, musical open-mindedness and generosity have been an inspiration. Looking forward to celebrating with you in person soon.

David Toop : When I first heard Evan play live, probably 1972, it was a revelation. His sound was harsh, explosive, like splintering wood, fire spreading through a building, sparks showering from skidding train wheels. We became friends and occasional collaborators when he contributed to a small book, New/Rediscovered Musical Instruments. What I have gained is immeasurable. We share common interests in music from Korea, Japanese gagaku, Papua New Guinea sacred flute music, shamanism, bird song, duration and the ethics and workings of improvisation. In more recent years we became a double act called Sharpen Your Needles, an opportunity to play records from our personal collections and talk about them. His contribution to music is vast.

Mark Turner: Hello Mr Parker, Happy Birthday with appreciation and respect. It’s musicians like yourself that remind me to play the long game and continue what I believe in.  Regards, Mark

Peter Urpeth: Happy birthday Evan! With thanks for so much inspiration (on-going), support (on-going), and no little amount of patience over so many years. I first heard Evan on Tony Oxley’s Ichnos, aged about 14, and then came the solo recordings and gigs, that rush of wow and awe that changed everything in music for me, and in my life. Thanks for those first gigs when I was starting out, and for the craic, and all the times I’ve felt so proud having you play at my various club nights. 

Alex Ward: Dear Evan, Happy Birthday! Long may you continue to cause reeds, air columns and eardrums to do things no-one would have suspected them capable of until you proved otherwise.

Oliver Weindling: Evan’s monthly gigs at the Vortex, which continued for nearly 30 years, were an education for me – with too many very special experiences to list here. It is a rare privilege to have got to know a musician who’s taken the saxophone, and improvised music, into new dimensions, the impact of which have touched us all.

Richard Williams: Evan Parker’s singularity is one of the great features of modern music. There’s nothing and nobody like him, although he fits brilliantly into just about any context you might imagine, from the early SME through Scott Walker and Basil Kirchin to Spring Heel Jack and his endlessly fascinating solo work. And to think I once thought of him as a rather austere, even forbidding figure. That impression lasted about two minutes into our first conversation. Nobody tells better stories. Many more of them, please, dear Evan, and many happy returns.

Geoff Winston: Evan, it doesn’t seem so long ago that we were celebrating your 70th! It’s always been an inspiring roller-coaster ride following your musical journey, often treading where others rarely tread. Just to pick out a few in the last year or so – the transcendent solo performance at St James’s Piccadilly echoing that at the Royal Naval Chapel, Greenwich ten years earlier; the warm and generous collaborations with poet Peter Urpeth at Hundred Years Gallery; the stunning opening sequence on Alexander Hawkins’ ‘Togetherness Music for Sixteen Musicians’ recorded during lockdown; the return to the mesmeric Treader recording, ‘Evan Parker with Birds’ live at Cafe Oto with Ashley Wales and John Coxon. It’s always been a joy! With very best wishes, Geoff.

Matt Wright:  Dear Evan, Happy 80th Birthday!  I’m so thankful to Richard Whitelaw for looking out to sea with a steely gaze and keeping his nerve! The clouds parted, your gig went ahead and after that we had our first conversation, the first of so many. Thank you for 16 years of traversing the trance map, from Athens to Zurich, from London to Lisbon, from NYC to Knoxville to… Great Yarmouth! Pork and clams forever! 

Nikki Yeoh: My love of freedom in all aspects of life brought me to search for freedom within music. As a teenager, I would scan  ‘Jazz in London’ religiously to see where I could get my fix of anarchic, honest expression. This pilgrimage led me to the Mecca that was usually hidden behind several rooms in an obscure pub. I first saw Evan play at The Green Man; he played solo, it was transcendental, the real deal, life-affirming and very VERY good. The same freedom facilitated by dexterity and absolute fluency that I heard in Bird, I heard in Evan. Evan is our unsung hero, I feel blessed to have been alive at the same time as him and play together. 

(*) LJN would like to thank Alexander Hawkins for his tireless work generating many of the connections for this piece. Thanks also to Ann Braithwaite, Julian Maynard-Smith, Michael Ruesenberg and Jeremy Farnell

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Categories: Birthday Greetings , Features/Interviews

Tagged as: Alexander Hawkins , Django Bates , Evan Parker , Joe Lovano , Mark Turner , Nikki Yeoh

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Buon compleanno, Maestro! An episode here – in early 1995 we set up a double series of solo concerts along our then nascent circuit of independent venues in Italy, named ‘Circ.a’ – a batch of ten gigs in a row, firstly, with seven more gigs soon after. A tour de force you faced with incredible strength where anyone else would have been exhausted, and a string of unforgettable lessons for audiences everywhere. Music. Generosity. Wisdom.

One final evening after your trademark twin sets on tenor and soprano, you took time to talk to me on how the tour went – with always warm response in bigger venues as in Torino, Firenze, Venezia, Roma, Pisa, Bologna, as well as in smaller clubs and friendly homes in Rovereto, Volta Mantovana, Meldola, Roccamorice. We ended up speaking interminably of recently departed John Stevens and his teachings – teacher to teacher to teacher… Then you kindly refused my biro for signing the inevitable Polaroid picture, and took out your own ink pen instead. A Parker, obviously. Music. Generosity. Wisdom. And, style!

i might remember that

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Natural Information Society with Evan Parker

descension (Out of Our Constrictions)

Eremite Records MTE-74/75 x2LP

Joshua Abrams guimbri Lisa Alvarado harmonium & effects Mikel Patrick Avery drums Evan Parker soprano saxophone Jason Stein bass clarinet 

Track Listing:

MTE-74 Side 'A' 1.d(OoOC) I MTE-74 Side 'B' 1.d(OoOC) II MTE-75 Side 'C' 1.d(OoOC) III MTE-75 Side 'D' 1.d(OoOC) IV

recorded London, Cafe Oto, 2019-07-09 producers Abrams & Michael Ehlers engineer James Dunn cover painting Lisa Alvarado

bandcamp lossless download

Rich in musical associations yet utterly singular in its voice, joyous with an inner tranquility, the music of Natural Information Society is unlike any other being made today. Their sixth album in eleven years for eremite records,  descension (Out of Our Constrictions)  is the first to be recorded live, featuring a set from London’s Cafe OTO with veteran English free-improv great Evan Parker, & the first to feature just one extended composition. The 75-minute performance, inspired by the galvanizing presence of Parker, is a sustained bacchanalia of collective ecstasy. You could call it their party album.

This was the second time Parker played with NIS. Joshua Abrams: “Both times we played compositions with Evan in mind. I don’t tell Evan anything. He’s a free agent.” 

The music is focused & malleable, energized & even-keeled, drawing on concepts of ensemble playing common to musics from many locations & eras without any one specific aesthetic realization completely defining it. 

“The rhythms that Mikel plays are not an exact reference to Chicago house, but that’s in there,” Abrams says. “I like to take a cyclic view of music history, can we take that four-on-the-floor, & consider how it connects to swing-era music? Can we articulate a through line? I dee-jayed for years in Chicago & lessons I learned from playing records for dancing inform how I think about the group’s music. The listener can make connections to aspects of soul music, electronic music, minimalism, traditional folk musics, & other musics of the diaspora as well. It’s about these aspects coming together. I don’t need to mimic something, I need to embody it to get to the spirit, to get to the living thing.”

For jazz fans, the sound of Parker’s soprano & Jason Stein’s bass clarinet might evoke Coltrane & Dolphy, even though they didn’t necessarily set out to do that & they play with complete individuality. Abrams sees a bridge to the historical precedent, too. “Since we first met in the 1990s, one of the things that Evan and I connected on was Coltrane’s music,” he says. “I hoped that we would tap into that sound world intuitively. In this case, I think that level of evocation adds another layer of depth, versus a layer of reference.” 

Indeed, this is a performance in which the connections among the ensemble & the creative tension between improvisation and composition build into a complex mesh of associations & interactions. While the band confines itself to the territory mapped out by Abrams’ composition, they are remarkably attentive & responsive, making adjustments to Parker’s improvisations. When Parker’s intricate patterns of notes interweave with the band, the parts reinforce one another & the music rockets upward. Sometimes, Parker’s lines are cradled by the group’s gentle pulse & an unearthly lyrical balance is struck. 

Drummer Mikel Patrick Avery is locked-in, playing with hellacious long-form discipline, feel & responsiveness. Jason Stein’s animated, vocalized bass clarinet weaves in & out with Lisa Alvarado’s harmonium to state the piece’s thematic material; the pulsing tremolo on the harmonium brings a Spacemen 3 vibe to the party. Abrams ties together melody & rhythm on guimbri, a presence that leads without seeming to. Like his bandmates, he shifts modes of playing frequently, improvising & then returning to the composed structure.

“As specific as the composition is, the goal is to internalize it & mix it up,” Abrams says. “The idea is to get so comfortable that we can make spontaneous changes, find new routes of activity, stasis & byways every gig. It’s like a web we’re spinning. If someone makes a move, we all aim to be aware of it, make room for it. Experiencing & listening is what it’s about, & Evan supercharges that.”

& “supercharged” is the word for this album. With Parker further opening up their music,  descension (Out of Our Constrictions)  is the sound of Natural Information Society growing both more disciplined and freer, one of the great bands of its time on a deep run. 

x2LP, mte-74/75, pressed on premium audiophile-quality vinyl at RTI from Kevin Gray / Cohearent Audio lacquers. Mastered by Helge Sten, Audio Virus, Oslo. Liner Notes by Theaster Gates. First eremite LP edition 1200 copies. First 200 direct order LPs come with the eremite signature retro-audiophile inner-sleeves, hand screen-printed by Alan Sherry, Siwa studios, Northern New Mexico. CD edition & EU x2LP edition available thru our new EU new partner, Aguirre (Belgium). 

washington post #6 album all genres 2021 the wire #2 jazz & improv album 2021  john mulvey #4 favourite albums 2021 free jazz blog top albums of 2021 HHVmag top 50 albums 2021 boomkat call super 2021 magnet magazine #2 best jazz/improv releases 2021 UNCUT best of 2021 halftime report merge records 2021 year end list mac mccaughan matador records artists & staff favorites 2021 reckless records 2021 employees best of  KFAI best of 2021  2021 francis davis jazz critics poll #44 liner notes

Breath & pulse, an unforgettable strategy for transferring energy between musicians feels more directly related to endurance than typical designations of music. The possibility of a never-ending breath allows for the weaving of complex explorations of tonal possibility between harmonium, guimbri, drum, & horn that leads to non-conventional strategies of harmony & unity. The rhythmic engine further develops the pulse, shifting the sounds from recognizable forms to other worlds of sound development & masterful play. Natural Information Society balances knowledge of historical musics with the possibility of new futures, combing many exploratory cultural idioms that help us remember the heart & low sound and hum through meditative, spiritual new music.

Music has the potential to embed us in a state of unlimited possibility that leads to another kind of emotional & spiritual territory. It is this meditative possibility that leads to trans-potentials. The music constantly allows us to shift if we stay with it long enough. Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) , a 75-minute composition spanning four stations on a double-sided LP, allows us to experience that build-up. In July of 2019, I had an opportunity to play with Natural Information Society in Berlin at Arkaoda & experience the build-up first-hand. I remember feeling very happy to be away from the political complexities of the United States but still close to the culture that made me. I came to hear the ensemble as a listener & believer in the music and Joshua asked me to sit in with the group. Given the times, I chose to riff on, “My Country Tis of Thee.” Descension began & for the first 45 minutes, it unfolded. People danced & cheered & really listened. The groove was set & the intentional house/trance/drone was so evocative & in many ways, a polyphony of Chicago sounds. Abrams nodded & I joined. The ongoing rhythmic intent made it easy for me to choose a phrase & stay with it. I remember chanting over & over, sweet land of liberty , sweet land of liberty . Then, from every mountainside…. from every mountainside …..toward the end of the 40 minutes of so, I was exhausted from wailing… from breathing & shouting, let freedom ring . By the time it was over, I was on the floor & the energy made a shift from a state of trance-like intention to, what felt like a rock concert. We were all the way in. I opened my eyes & the band was still holding it down, with more intensity, but still in the zone, locked. It was like freedom was being nestled between pulse & breath & I was exhausted from wanting it & wanting to participate, in a freedom song or a free state.

Breathing in the wake of George Floyd’s death then takes on a new dysfunction – a new tonal idiom. To be choked or to be unbalanced, for a note to be held back or a sound to be silenced, no longer feel like jazz devices, but rather, a reaction to the complexities that occur on our streets & in our cities. There are shouts, but they are not wailings, there are utterances, yet they are not full speech. It is this truth that links Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) as a sign of the times. Natural Information Society forces us to imagine the myriad of voices that have fallen on our streets and hear cries & shrieks in the music as a way to understand the immeasurable & often unmediated circumstance of violence that is our new truth. & yet, within the unsettling horror of this day, there is a mantric pull that refuses to cease. An impulse toward redemption. Theaster Gates

Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is the sixth long-player by the Joshua Abrams-led Natural Information Society, and the band's first live offering. Recorded at London's Cafe OTO in July of 2019, this set offers a single, 75-minute rendering of Abrams' title composition with guest collaborator Evan Parker on soprano saxophone. While NIS has gratified listeners and live audiences with their intricate meld of jazz, folk styles, and polyrhythmic improvisations drawn from a variety of world music traditions, this proceeding is unlike anything else in their catalog. Descension exists in the ecstatic sonic terrain between 21st century Western raga, free jazz, and a rave-like party album. Abrams' guimbri (a plucked, three-stringed skin-covered bass lute of the Gnawa heritage) offers a six-note, single-tone vamp. He's joined in the theme by Mikel Patrick Avery's hypnotic drumming and Jason Stein's bass clarinet. Lisa Alvarado's harmonium adds a breath-like pulse before Parker's snaky soprano wades in. The repetition is constant, but thanks to his horn, there is subtle variation from line to line, both harmonically and tonally. There is rippling energy just under the surface as Parker begins to pour out resonant skeins of circular notes, opening his lines to the rhythms then countering them. The clarinet and harmonium remain on the theme as Abrams and Avery play double time. Six minutes in, Stein responds directly to Parker's fire breathing with countermelodies and polyrhythmic breath control. The pace quickens and dynamic tension ensues as the entire ensemble lifts off. Over the next 70 minutes, what transpires is a serpentine celebration of rhythm, polytonality, and multivalent modalities as NIS circle one another, and Parker, in turn, revolves around them. The interplay between Stein and Parker is almost jaw-dropping given its locked-on intensity; it alternately traverses across distinctive solo statements, call-and-response, and resonant unison playing while Alvarado and Avery push and pull at the fabric of sound between them.Abrams' guimbri drives from underneath and the ensemble approaches funk; Avery's four-beat rhythm approximates dance music as Alvarado expands her attack with reverb and delay. The constant presence of the vamp-like theme recalls at once the harmolodic groove of Ornette Coleman's Dancing in Your Head and the wheezing, evolutionary development of ManuelGottsching's proto-techno E2E4 . About two-thirds of the way in, the cadence shifts, and the band responds empathically with single clarinet and soprano tones offered in singsong response. Abrams, Alvarado, and Avery alight around one another, outlining the reeds' interlocking groove. The rhythm players develop and release tension; they spiral and retreat to express intimacy, joy, and catharsis. By the time Descension reaches its nadir, all that's left are gossamer notes, subtly refracted rhythms, and softly uttered, undulant whole tones, whispering to and caressing one another as they approach silence and the resounding, yet astonished approval of the crowd. Descension is a collaboration for the ages: It is ecstatic, improvised jazz that reverberates inside the human body like a heartbeat.

Thom Jurek, Allmusic

Life on pandemic time tends to feel like an endless blur, and it might now also be the readiest example ofwhat bassist and composerJoshua Abrams calls “mandatory reality.” “If our music’s political, it’s because it offers the possibility of slowing down,” the Natural Information Society leader once said. “We live in the age of attention and availability, and [our music] is offering a certain level of experience, and it operates in slightly different ways.” In the past year, however they may have attempted to fill the days, millions found themselves in the realm of experience described by the title of NIS’ 2019 album: Stuck in the same mandatory crawl of time. But those who caught a NIS performance in the months leading up to 2020 witnessed the delectable possibility of Abrams and bandmates speeding back up. At live shows that summer and fall, the band took a new tack, playing an expansive 40-plus minute piece that revved up to twice the speed of Mandatory Reality . Even guests sitting in with the band, like drummer Jim White, appeared propelled along like a leaf in a fast-moving river. Stripped down to a lean quartet, guided by Abrams’ thrummed guimbri, a sound that had previously felt as steadfast and measured as a walking meditation now hovered at 142 BPM, more appropriate for club goers in Berlin. And —as Abrams sought a throughline between ancient Gnawa trance and1980s Chicago house— it didn’t feel like too much of a stretch. “It’s the original 808, because it has a percussive skin mixed with a bass tone,” he has said of the guimbri. Though NIS is commonly labeled as jazz, its primary instruments of guimbri and harmonium stretch back centuries before the birth of that art form. Spread across four sides of vinyl and now approaching 75 minutes, that single extended piece comprises the entirety of descension (Out of Our Constrictions) . Recorded live at London’s Café Oto in summer 2019, the quartet of Abrams, harmonium player Lisa Alvarado, bass clarinetist Jason Stein, and drummer Mikel Patrick Avery are joined by British free jazz legend Evan Parker on soprano saxophone. Exploring the outer edges of the ecstatic as well as the physically exhausting, the four sides of descension push deeper, higher, and wider, using kinetic movement to interrogate stasis.

After an introductory figure on the guimbri from Abrams, the band quickly gets to it. Avery’s stickwork is astonishing throughout, maintaining that high BPM with clock-like precision. Though tireless as a drum machine, he somehow always slides around a steady 4/4, framing it yet never slotting into it. On previous NIS albums, Alvarado’s harmonium favored the instrument’s droney, slow-evolving aspects; watching her work its bellows now might cause your carpal tunnel to flare up. She chops her lines into 16th notes, making the thing hyperventilate rather than breathe deep. Breath is a natural metaphor when considering Parker’s long, storied career in European free improvisation—an early album was titled The Topography of the Lungs . His circular breathing on descension is a dream pairing for NIS, his cascading solos as ardent, mesmerizing, and pattern-focused as his bandmates. He weaves around, roots under, then circles above them. Hearing him in conjunction with Stein evokes seemingly contradictory qualities: Is it skronking free jazz or early swing? A high-altitude dogfight or a highly attuned conversation, akin to John Coltrane’s soprano trading solos with Eric Dolphy’s bass clarinet at the Village Vanguard a half-century prior? It feels silly to roadmap, recap, much less discern the four parts of descension . Both journey and landscape, the piece lifts off and soars to maximum cruising altitude, where, even at top speed, it seems to stand completely still —and then, over an hour later, you’re on the other side. Saying it all sounds the same might seem dismissive, but one of descension ’s remarkable aspects is its ability to convince your ears and mind otherwise. It’s as transformative and banal as a transatlantic flight. Grumbling about it feels like bemoaning the number of trees in a forest, that the Sahara is just sand dunes. It’s utterly maddening, and to get lost within it feels like the past calendar year: undifferentiated, infinite, and delirious.

Andy Beta, Pitchfork

This live 2019 performance at London’s Cafe OTO, is just one 75-minute piece, and still ends way too soon. Over the foundation of an immersive groove, the ensemble works up to a trance-like state, where acrobatic solos increase the hypnotic effect, rather than shatter the spell. The spellcasters are Joshua Abrams on guimbri; Lisa Alvarado on harmonium and effects; 
Mikel Patrick Avery on drums; Evan Parker on soprano saxophone; and Jason Stein on bass clarinet.

Dave Sumner, The Best Jazz on Bandcamp: April 2021

While it’s impossible to pinpoint a single peak in John Coltrane’s vast discography, Ascension is one of his most intense expressions of transcendental intent. Local musician Joshua Abrams knows his Coltrane, so it’s no accident that he’s given the name Descension to this summit between his group Natural Information Society and English saxophonist (and fellow Coltrane aficionado) Evan Parker, recorded in 2019 at London’s Cafe Oto. The title of the 75-minute piece suggests downward movement, but the recording proves just as effective as Coltrane’s music at inducing an ecstatic state —even though it incorporates influences that never showed up in the master’s work. Abrams is a multi-instrumentalist who has worked as a jazz and pop bassist, a free improviser, a DJ, and a soundtrack composer, and he understands the importance of bringing the right tool to the job. With NIS, he plays the guimbri, a Moroccan three-string lute that’s often used in prayer and healing ceremonies by the Gnawa (an ethnic group descended from an enslaved population brought to Morocco from the Sahel). Abrams is fully cognizant of the instrument’s spiritual role in traditional contexts, but he’s also characterized it as “ the original 808 ” because of its visceral bass tones. The hurtling rhythms that he and drummer Mikel Avery lay down on Descension sound like a convergence of Gnawa ritual rhythms with disco and house beats, and bass clarinetist Jason Stein and harmonium player Lisa Alvarado braid spiraling melodies and flickering textures into those grooves. While NIS are quite capable of evoking rapture on their own, the intricate and astoundingly lengthy lines that Parker threads through their playing put the music over the top.

Bill Meyer, Chicago Reader

The finest gig this writer saw in 2019 was a set by Natural Information Society at Café Oto in London; a marathon, ecstatic jam for which the Chicago band were joined by ornery free jazz vet Evan Parker on soprano sax. It’s a relief and a delight to discover, nearly two years on, that the show was every bit as breathtaking as it seemed at the time, thanks to this exceptional live recording. NIS’s shtick is an often serene mix of spiritual jazz, minimalist composition and global trance rituals, anchored by harmonium and the three-string Moroccan guimbri that core member Joshua Abrams uses for low-end vibrations in lieu of a bass. Here, though, they’re in party mode, with Parker and bass clarinettist Jason Stein improvising around one another, while drummer Mikel Avery holds a relentless four-to-the-floor. Seventy-five non-stop minutes of high-end squawk and groove.

John Mulvey, Mojo

Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society is always more than it appears. You might mistake it for a kind of trans-cultural jam band, which it is, but what jam band takes on as many cultures (from Abrams’ ancestral Odessa to Morocco’s Gnawa people, the source of Abrams’ guimbri, a kind of bass lute) or possesses the rhythmic discipline of NIS, in this case sustaining and expanding interlocking motifs for 75 minutes. It’s also a composer’s forum, Abrams knitting dense works from minimal materials, oft repeated, subtly altered. On  Descension , the NIS consists of Abrams, Lisa Alvarado on harmonium and effects, Mikel Patrick Avery on drums, and Jason Stein on bass clarinet, as well as Evan Parker playing soprano saxophone. The title of Descension will immediately and deliberately invoke Ascension , but for this writer the first relevant Coltrane piece is a blues recorded in the fall of 1960 called “Mr. Knight” (from Coltrane Plays the Blues ). It didn’t get special attention from critics, but it got a lot from Coltrane, who a year later at the Village Vanguard, in what one might consider his greatest extended recording session, turned it into “India,”expanding the quartet of “Mr. Knight” first to a sextet and then, better still, to an octet, as well as expanding its pitch range to microtones. It followed from the big band piece “Africa” and the almost simultaneous “Olé,”crucial collaborations with Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, and Elvin Jones that turned the jazz universe from lines running from New Orleans to Chicago and New York to a global network linking India, Africa, Southern Europe, and Brazil. In a series of stages, over a series of evenings, “India” would crack open the piano-friendly, tempered pitch modality made central to jazz by Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue by emphasizing its essential component of microtonality, the thing that makes modal music genuinely modal and highly, microscopically varied. Suddenly, jazz would be in touch with the global modal, the world beyond tempered pitch, always its legitimate arena, directly linking the blues of “Mr. Knight” to the global musical reach that makes a great veena player like S. Ballachander sound like his river might be the Mississippi as much as the Ganges (and conversely, the great slide guitar player Blind Willie Johnson, whose sacred blues are more intimately alive in “India” than in “Mr. Knight”). While the various Vanguard versions of “India” will expand the drone and add Garvin Bushell’s double-reed wail (credited as an oboe but likely an English horn; see Dave Wild’s “An oud is not an oud,” available on line) and Ahmed Abdul-Malik’s strummed strings (credited as an oud but likelier a tamboura, ibid), the essential sonic quality of “India” comes from Coltrane and Dolphy treating the teno rsaxophone range of “Mr. Knight” as a void between Coltrane’s soprano saxophone and Dolphy’s bass clarinet.The two instruments likely possess the most flexible pitches of any “orthodox” Western reed instruments; each at the symbolic register stretch of its family, the two blast and bend the micro-riff of “Mr. Knight” into a radically altered and expanded wail. The second informing musical event for Descension’s essential history comes from Randy Weston’s witnessing an overnight Gnawa healing session, recounted in his memoir, African Rhythms . Weston’s musical immersion would lead to working with the guimbri master Mahmoud Ghania and the adaptation of a Gnawa melody, first recorded as “Ganawa-Blue Moses” in 1972 and then in a far more compelling version as simply “Blue Moses” with Pharoah Sanders in 1991. Another crucial relation for the kind of depth involvement heard in Descension is Terry Riley’s In C , whether in its original 1964 form or in the 2013 version realized in Mali. In those strange historical modulations, Evan Parker and Joshua Abrams have been following the same paths, Parker at least since he heard Coltrane and Dolphy on their 1961 European tour and all their contemporaneous and subsequent recordings. Arriving again at the Café Oto in the spring of 2019, we have an uncanny symmetry, the wavering tones of soprano saxophone and bass clarinet, a rhythm driven by Avery and the insistent yet evolving ostinato of the guimbri, the interweaving modal figurations of horns and harmonium, sometimes even in the same register, with Parker’s special mastery of soprano overtones creating the illusion of still other voices, impossible phantoms of a freedom beyond time and causality. The effect also touches on Parker’s long-standing interest in African string musics, something touched on in his duets with Joe Morris (The Village, 2019). The first live recording of the NIS, this is a performance of extraordinary power and vision, its relationship to the music of John Coltrane almost always magical. Occasionally there will be direct quotations (as with A Love Supreme ’s principal motif appearing at the end of part two), but this is not some kind of successful imitation. Rather, it’s genetic fraternity, Parker and Abrams, Stein, Alvarez, and Avery crossing boundaries, arriving in that special otherness, that same Interzone once called “India.”

Stuart Broomer, pointofdeparture.org

Multi-instrumental wunderkind Joshua Abrams is both the heart and heartbeat of the Chicago jazz and indie scenes. The deep-thinking composer and improviser has blazed an all-embracing trail alongside everyonefrom Fred Anderson and Roscoe Mitchell to the Roots and alt-folk singer/songwriter Will Oldham. Abrams’ unique synthesis of styles is manifest in Natural Information Society, the collective he formed in 2010; his instrument of choice in the group is not his usual bass but guimbri, a three-string Moroccan lute. Along with a rotating cast of mostly Chicago-centric musicians that has included Hamid Drake, Jeff Parker, Ben LaMarGay, and Chad Taylor at one point or another, Abrams creates blissed-out jams, blending elements of psychedelia, post-rock, West African music, and free jazz. The group’s sixth album, descension (Out of Our Constrictions) , was recorded live in London and finds Abrams, bass clarinetist Jason Stein, harmonium player Lisa Alvarado, and drummer Mikel Patrick Avery joining forces with British free-improv giant Evan Parker in an epic meeting of the minds. This single 75-minute extended composition, divided into four sections, is nothing short of pure improvisatory magic. Natural Information Society has been caught on tape in collaborative mode before, most notably on 2015’s excellent Autoimaginary , but descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is on an entirely different plane. “You could call it their party album,” reads the press sheet, and is it ever: celebratory, body-moving music rife with forward momentum. Channeling the righteous uplift of Coltrane’s touchstone “Spiritual,” NIS and Parker dance, dart, and leap with melodious fervor. Abrams, Alvarado, and Avery sculpt elastic rhythms and weave groove-heavy tapestries that are entrancingly repetitive. Parker, on soprano saxophone, and Stein are on fire throughout the set. Their rapport is unmistakable, but it’s Parker’s show; his expressive lyricism never lets up for a second. Whoever thought of teaming him with Natural Information Society hit it out of the park.

Brad Cohan, JazzTimes

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Etching the Ether

By evan parker - matthew wright, trance map+ with peter evans and mark nauseef.

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