Monoceros

[Bright Moments]

My New Year's Resolution was to give Evan Parker another try. So i pulled out Monoceros and gave it a spin. "Please" i whispered a prayer to Ayler and Brotzmann - "let me like it - or at least let me understand what is going on here."

My ears started to bleed. O.K. not really - but i still don't get it.

The circular breathing is impressive. The energy and effort is intense. The music? well still not my thing.

Oh well, I tried.

Why don't I get it?

[jeffcrom]

Others may disagree, but I think it may be because Parker's music is not about melody at all. As radical as his music is, Ayler was still playing melody - often abstract, atonal, non-tempered, intense melody, but still melody, with a familiar logic to the shape of his phrases. Parker's music is about sound and movement and intensity and space (not always all at the same time), but it's usually not about melody. He's working from a different aesthetic from many "free jazz" players.

Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. But that's how it strikes this Evan Parker/Albert Ayler/Charlie Parker/Sidney Bechet fan.

[Bright Moments]

Others may disagree, but I think it may be because Parker's music is not about melody at all. As radical as his music is, Ayler was still playing melody - often abstract, atonal, non-tempered, intense melody, but still melody, with a familiar logic to the shape of his phrases. Parker's music is about sound and movement and intensity and space (not always all at the same time), but it's usually not about melody. He's working from a different aesthetic from many "free jazz" players.

Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. But that's how it strikes this Evan Parker/Albert Ayler/Charlie Parker/Sidney Bechet fan.

well jeff i certainly can agree with you on tht! but parker seems to me to be about variations in intensity only. in other words it seems to me like he is having a wrestling match with his instrument. does he need a sax to do this? of course not. if he were playing a flute though it would not make as much noise worse still it seems like he is intentionally blowing in the upper register to make sounds which grate on ones nerves (akin to fingers on a blackboard?). WHY?

i love ayler and brotzmann - i just don't get parker.

[clifford_thornton]

Impressive and wonderful LP, but not one I pull out that often. It's an easy recommendation to see what Parker is, in some sense, "about," but if you're looking for an easier pathway there are other records. Perhaps you'd like Conic Sections more - I seem to remember a sense of delicacy in that disc though it's been a while since I've heard it (and unlike Chuck and Larry, one hearing doesn't seal it in memory). The quartets with George Lewis retain a broad sense of sound/movement as their modus operandi, but "group melody" has a way of emerging. The duets with John Stevens are great as well in that same vein. I would try The Longest Night on Ogun or the early archival material that Emanem has issued.

FWIW, I've always found it easier to listen to his tenor playing.

And there is nothing wrong with just not being all that into someone.

[jeffcrom]

I'll add that, as much as I like his records, Parker's solo approach works better when experienced in person. A few years ago he gave a solo concert (soprano & tenor) in a stone church near my house - high ceilings and wooden floor. He only played for about 55 minutes, but it was an overwhelming experience. The sound swirled around until it was difficult to distinguish the sounds Parker was producing from the reverberation. It was a very stange and beautiful hour. I have a recording of that concert, and I enjoy listening to it, but it's not the same. I've always wanted to go back and play the CD in the same building.

And of course:

And there is nothing wrong with just not being all that into someone.

True that.

[A Lark Ascending]

I'll add that, as much as I like his records, Parker's solo approach works better when experienced in person.

I agree. I've been lucky enough to see him many times (solo, in small groups and in larger ensembles) and he can be absolutely mesmerising. He used to do a regular afternoon session with hand picked musicians at the Appleby Festival in a small church (well known from the recordings that have been issued). He also took a group into the main marquee on a Saturday afternoon for 50 minutes. As it was a mainly bop/big band type festival, the marquee emptied the moment the group before finished, leaving a few dozen listeners.

I have several records by him but they don't get played much - on record I prefer to hear him in a larger group context like the London Jazz Composers Orchestra or one of Barry Guy's other bands; or the two discs he did with Roscoe Mitchell on ECM a while back.

One of those musicians I can't claim to be even close to understanding but he keeps drawing me back.

Now Brotzmann is the one who loses me!

Edited January 5, 2010 by Bev Stapleton

[Joe]

Maybe not terribly representative, but this recording finds Parker playing is a more approachable / accommodating style and context... I think it helps that he sticks to tenor throughout. His soprano sax work stirs a different pot, IMO.

Evan Parker / Stan Tracey, SUSPENSIONS AND ANTICIPATION (Psi)

(My overlong and sloppy OFN review of this disc)

[Bright Moments]

perhaps evan parker is visual art, not music?

[Chuck Nessa]

no.

[randyhersom]

Evan Parker rarely fails to move me, and I'm listening to the beginnning of Monoceros for the first time right now and digging it. But Ayler isn't the right reference point, or even late Trane. Trane and Bird and the tradition were mined for technical innovation to support what is essentially a trance music concept. For jazz precedents try the percussive, repetitive side of Mal Waldron, or Horace Tapscott's The Dark Tree. Outside of jazz, the extended live Allman Brothers jams and the Grateful Dead are in the neighborhood. The classical minimalists like Reich and Riley are in the neighborhood too. If you want your Evan Parker on the jazzy side, there's some great moments in Boustrophedon and if you're looking for avant blowout, the Birmingham Concert is a good choice. But for me, maximizing the hypnotic appeal of Parker's sound world and getting Parker means starting with the pianoless (and laptopless) dates. Even if he's using the same technique as Ayler or Trane, he's doing it for quite a different reason and the results reflect that. His control of the horn is unmatched, he distills the ecstatic peaks of most saxophonists and repeats them until a groove happens and works slow variations on that groove over time.

[David Ayers]

I like Randy's answer a lot. This 'trance' element is only one aspect of Parker's aesthetic, mainly realized on soprano. Incidentally I'd say the trance idea is found in some of the Eastern musics which Coltrane was studying, and therefore I think there is more continuity between Coltrane and Parker than Randy does. It actually does go back to 'where's the melody?', and in that respect the notion of rapidly fluctuating variation against a heard or implied harmonic framework is a constant from Parker to Parker.

[PHILLYQ]

I've never heard anything by Evan Parker- any recs as a starting point, favorites, etc? Thank you very much.

[David Ayers]

I've never heard anything by Evan Parker- any recs as a starting point, favorites, etc? Thank you very much.

I guess we are basically talking about his solo recordings on soprano sax here, and I guess a good place to start is with one of the solo recordings on Incus (Saxophone Solos is probably easier to find than Monoceros). Other things to try include probably something with Alex Schlippenbach, more of a 'free jazz' context, and definitely some group improv with Guy and/or Lytton (Tracks, or Hook, Drift and Shuffle which also features George Lewis), or with Bailey and/or Stevens (Topography of the Lungs). I like early period Parker so favor the Incus recordings. You might also try the electronic material which is is less abrasive (on ECM). Really though we have discussed Parker here in terms of one aspect of his work he is actually quite adaptable and over time has pursued a number of different (if related) aesthetics. I'd say start with those early period Incus releases. If you want just two go for Saxophone Solos and Topography of the Lungs.

The first call for Parker information is here: http://efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mparker.html, as for all European Free Improv discography etc.

Edited January 7, 2010 by David Ayers

[randyhersom]

Monoceros is solo tenor, and I played Chicago Solo last night also. I definitely hear the trance aspect on both of his instruments. In Boustrophedon I do hear Parker accomodating the tradition in some of its finest moments. It's both noticeable and enjoyable that he's playing particularly "jazzy" at those moments but I definitely feel him stepping out of his usual bag to go there. True, the solo recordings are probably the purest expressions of his trance aspect.

My wife did come by my den and ask what that squealing was during Monoceros. I'll admit he's not for everyone.

[clifford_thornton]

Brotzmann, as much as he fought (like other European jazz musicians at the time) for his own identity outside that of American jazz, is still a jazz player through and through. Parker can play in that idiom, too, but I think the connection to a saxophone tradition as we might think of it on this board is often tenuous. His most celebrated recordings, whether for technicality, intense development of group and solo structures, or sheer audio-perceptual reconstitution, fall very far from the "jazz" and "free jazz" tree(s).

If Parker is analogous to visual art, it would be to Richard Serra's sculptures - perceptual/environmental alteration through the hard facts of material relationships.

Edited January 7, 2010 by clifford_thornton

[David Ayers]

Monoceros is solo tenor, and I played Chicago Solo last night also.

He's holding a soprano sax on the cover photo for Monoceros! Chicago Solo was his first (and only?) solo tenor venture.

[A Lark Ascending]

I could be wrong here but I seem to recall reading an interview with him talking about how he came into music and jazz was not a big part of it...though late-period Coltrane was a huge inspiration. Unlike a lot of well known avant-gardists he didn't do the bebop/big band or whatever route before breaking away into the freer areas.

If I'm recalling that right it might explain why he doesn't have any obvious jazz reference points. He's certainly not 'greasy' (more woolly!)!

Always interesting to hear him with Kenny Wheeler's bands where he seems to provide a very different and distinct colour. He's also played regularly in Charlie Watts occasional bands - largely mainstream affairs but Parker still does what he does.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Bev Stapleton

[Bright Moments]

i am enjoying all of the comments very much!!

(except chucks comment )

[B. Clugston]

I really like Monoceros. At the Finger Palace is in a similar vein. Wish that would get a reissue.

[Rabshakeh]

It's been fairly low key, but Monoceros has just had a nice vinyl reissue on Treader, one of the smaller London labels. 

[mjazzg]

10 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

It's been fairly low key, but Monoceros has just had a nice vinyl reissue on Treader, one of the smaller London labels. 

It's a very nice pressing too. Other Treaders have been reissued on vinyl too. Evan P 'with Birds' and a Tchicai.

Treader seems to issue in fits and starts, presumably when John Coxon fancies a project