The Squid's Ear Magazine


Company: Trios [VINYL 2 LPs] (Honest Jons Records)

Nine improvisers--Joelle Leandre, J.D.Parran, Ernst Reyseger, Hugh Davies, Jamie Muir, Peter Brotzmann, Evan Parker, Vinko Globokar, & John Corbett--joined Derek Bailey for this 1983 Company week, recording at the I.C.A. in London over 4 days in 1983, mostly performing in trio configurations, with one duo between Bailey & Reijseger, and a final ensemble with all 9 players.
 

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Personnel:



Joelle Leandre-bass, voice

J.D.Parran-basset horn, piccolo flute

Ernst Reyseger-cello

Hugh Davies-electronics

Derek Bailey-guitar, electric guitar

Jamie Muir-percussion

Peter Brotzmann-tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone

Evan Parker-tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone

Vinko Globokar-trombone, voice, flute

John Corbett-trumpet, flugelhorn


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UPC: 769791975606

Label: Honest Jons Records
Catalog ID: HJR 214LP
Squidco Product Code: 28427

Format: 2 LPS
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: UK
Packaging: LP - Gatefold w/ 2LPS
Recorded during Company Week 1983 at the I.C.A. in London, United Kingdom, on May 24th-28th, 1983, by Adam Skeaping.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"A typically eclectic collection of guests joined Derek Bailey for Company Week in 1983: saxophonists Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann; cellist Ernst Reijseger, mainstay of Dutch new jazz (ICP Orchestra, Clusone Trio); American wind virtuoso J.D.Parran, veteran of the Black Artists' Group and Anthony Davis and Anthony Braxton ensembles.

The French bassist Joëlle Léandre is equally at home playing free or performing works by Cage and Scelsi, while Vinko Globokar is an acclaimed composer as well as a trombonist of monstrous virtuosity.

British electronics pioneer Hugh Davies served time alongside Globokar with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Percussionist Jamie Muir was with Davies on the very first (Music Improvisation) Company outing in 1970, before a brief stint with King Crimson.

Is there an ideal number of musicians for free improvisation? Bailey once described playing solo as a "second-rate activity" - though he did it spectacularly well - while at the other end of the spectrum, large improvising ensembles can descend into an unwieldy racket.

Three may be a crowd for some, but for Pythagoras it was the perfect number, and trios work surprisingly well in improvised music. Sometimes one instrument takes centre stage, like Parker's circular-breathing soprano at the beginning of Five, but knowing when to lie low, as he does in the brief austere Three, is just as crucial to the success of the whole. Muir makes sure he doesn't get in the way of Globokar and Parran's leisurely exchanges on Four, but the trombonist is all over the place on One, with Léandre racing up and down her bass and Davies all spikes, squeaks and squiggles.

With a touch of Bailey's dry humour, two of these seven recordings aren't trios at all: Trio Minus One is his duo with Reijseger, running the gamut from crazed polyrhythmic strumming (imagine Reinhardt and Grappelli playing Schoenberg and Nancarrow simultaneously) to what must be the fastest cello pizzicati ever recorded. And on the closing ecstatic nonet, Brötzmann and trumpeter John Corbett prove that more cooks don't necessarily spoil the broth but sure as hell can spice it up."-Honest Jon's Records


Artist Biographies

"Joëlle Léandre is a famous French Bassist and is known for her collaborations with other musicians in the field of improvised music. Born in France on September 12th, 1951, she made her music debut in 1984 with Les Douze Sons. Her childhood was filled with music, and she was particularly interested in the piano during her early years. In her later years, she developed an interest in double bass, which won her many honors and scholarships during her education. Her double bass teacher Pierre Delescluse encouraged her to apply to the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris, where she was formally trained and noticed for her talent in the bass. Her outstanding musicianship took her to the United States and to the Centre for Creative and Performing Arts in Buffalo through a scholarship. In the United States, she expanded her network and met some of the best composers, such as John Cage, Giacinto Scelsi, and Morton Feldman. Among them, John Cage greatly influenced her music and compositions. Her time in the United States also enabled her to experience downtown New York music, which was another significant influence that led to her continued involvement in the field of improvised music.

Some of her notable collaborations in the field of contemporary music are with Pierre Boulez, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and Giacinto Scelsi. Among them, John Cage and Giacinto Scelsi were the biggest influences in her life and music. In an interview, Joëlle Léandre said that John Cage was her spiritual father and changed her perception of sound and music. In another interview, she tells how Giacinto Scelsi allowed her to discover her own music and how his music transported her into a new world of improved consciousness. In the field of jazz music, she collaborated with Derek Bailey, William Parker, and Sebi Tramontana. Her music was owned and distributed by different music labels, including FMP, Leo, RougueArt, and Red Toucan. Some memorable songs and albums she released throughout the years include Instant Replay, Les Douze sons, Trios, Sweet Zee, Frerebet, Joelle et Tetsu, Philippe Fenelon, Voyages, etc. Some of the recent releases include Can You Hear Me and Unleashed. She has also performed live at the Tampere Jazz Festival twice, where popular international artists compete with each other.

Joëlle Léandre is also the member of European Women's Improvising Group (EWIG). The group evolved from the Feminist Improvising Group, and Joëlle Léandre joined the group in 1983. In the early 1900s, she co-founded Les Diaboliques with Irene Schweizer and Maggie Nicols, who were her long-time musician friends. Besides that, she also teaches several classes in prestigious universities about contemporary and improvised music. She has lived in France, Germany, and U.S during her lifetime, teaching at academic institutions in the religions and playing concerts. In 2002, she was invited to Canada as a visiting professor for music and composition."

-Joelle Leandre Website (https://www.joelle-leandre.com/biography/2/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Hugh Seymour Davies (23 April 1943 - 1 January 2005) was a musicologist, composer, and inventor of experimental musical instruments.

Davies was born in Exmouth, Devon, England. After attending Westminster School, he studied music at Worcester College, Oxford from 1961 to 1964. Shortly after he travelled to Cologne, Germany to work for Karlheinz Stockhausen as his personal assistant. For two years, he assembled and documented material for Stockhausen's compositions and was a member of his live ensemble.

From 1968 to 1971 Davies played in The Music Improvisation Company. The group's guitarist Derek Bailey later wrote that "the live electronics served to extend the music both forwards and backwards (...) Davies helped to loosen what had been, until his arrival, a perhaps too rarified approach". He was also a member of the group Gentle Fire, active from 1968 to 1975, which specialised in the realisation of indeterminate and mobile scores, as well as verbally formulated intuitive-music compositions (such as Stockhausen's Aus den sieben Tagen) and in the performance of its own Group Compositions.

Davies invented musical instruments that he constructed from household items. Among them was the shozyg, a generic name he used for any instrument housed inside an unusual container. The name is derived from the first of such instruments, which was housed inside the final volume of an encyclopaedia (covering the subjects from SHO- to ZYG-).

From the 1960s onwards Davies made very significant contributions to the documentation of electronic music history, and in 1968 published a catalogue in which he listed - ostensibly - all the works of electronic music ever composed worldwide. It has been argued that, through his research and documentation, Davies characterised electronic music for the first time as a truly international, interdisciplinary field.

Davies was also a member of the Artist Placement Group during the mid-1970s.

Davies was the founder and first Director of the Electronic Music Studios at Goldsmiths, University of London from 1968 to 1986 and was subsequently a researcher there until 1991.

Davies had been a part-time Researcher and Lecturer in Sonic Art at the Centre for Electronic Arts, Middlesex University, London from 1999 until the end of his life."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Davies_(composer))
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Derek Bailey (29 January 1930 - 25 December 2005) was an English avant-garde guitarist and leading figure in the free improvisation movement.

Bailey was born in Sheffield, England. A third-generation musician, he began playing the guitar at the age of ten, initially studying music with his teacher and Sheffield City organist C. H. C. Biltcliffe, an experience that he did not enjoy, and guitar with his uncle George Wing and John Duarte. As an adult he worked as a guitarist and session musician in clubs, radio, dance hall bands, and so on, playing with many performers including Morecambe and Wise, Gracie Fields, Bob Monkhouse and Kathy Kirby, and on television programs such as Opportunity Knocks. Bailey's earliest foray into 'what could be called free improvised music' was in 1953 with two other guitarists in their shared flat in Glasgow. He was also part of a Sheffield-based trio founded in 1963 with Tony Oxley and Gavin Bryars called "Joseph Holbrooke" (named after the composer, whose work they never actually played). Although originally performing relatively "conventional" modal, harmonic jazz this group became increasingly free in direction.

Bailey moved to London in 1966, frequenting the Little Theatre Club run by drummer John Stevens. Here he met many other like-minded musicians, such as saxophonist Evan Parker, trumpet player Kenny Wheeler and double bass player Dave Holland. These players often collaborated under the umbrella name of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, recording the seminal album Karyobin for Island Records in 1968. In this year Bailey also formed the Music Improvisation Company with Parker, percussionist Jamie Muir and Hugh Davies on homemade electronics, a project that continued until 1971. He was also a member of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra and Iskra 1903, a trio with double-bass player Barry Guy and tromboneist Paul Rutherford that was named after a newspaper published by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.

In 1970, Bailey founded the record label Incus with Tony Oxley, Evan Parker and Michael Walters. It proved influential as the first musician-owned independent label in the UK. Oxley and Walters left early on; Parker and Bailey continued as co-directors until the mid-1980s, when friction between the men led to Parker's departure. Bailey continued the label with his partner Karen Brookman until his death in 2005[citation needed].

Along with a number of other musicians, Bailey was a co-founder of Musics magazine in 1975. This was described as "an impromental experivisation arts magazine" and circulated through a network of like-minded record shops, arguably becoming one of the most significant jazz publications of the second half of the 1970s, and instrumental in the foundation of the London Musicians Collective.

1976 saw Bailey instigate Company, an ever-changing collection of like-minded improvisors, which at various times has included Anthony Braxton, Tristan Honsinger, Misha Mengelberg, Lol Coxhill, Fred Frith, Steve Beresford, Steve Lacy, Johnny Dyani, Leo Smith, Han Bennink, Eugene Chadbourne, Henry Kaiser, John Zorn, Buckethead and many others. Company Week, an annual week-long free improvisational festival organised by Bailey, ran until 1994.

In 1980, he wrote the book Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice. This was adapted by UK's Channel 4 into a four-part TV series in the early '90s, edited and narrated by Bailey.

Bailey died in London on Christmas Day, 2005. He had been suffering from motor neurone disease."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bailey_(guitarist))
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Jamie Muir (born in Edinburgh, Scotland) is a Scottish painter and former percussionist, best known for his work in King Crimson.

Muir attended the Edinburgh College of Art during the 1960s, and began playing jazz on trombone before settling on percussion.

After moving to London, Muir worked with choreographer Lindsay Kemp, and was active in free improvisation, recording, and performing with Derek Bailey and Evan Parker in The Music Improvisation Company from 1968-1971. Muir used various found objects as part of his percussion repertoire. He spoke of "approach[ing] the rubbish with a total respect for its nature as rubbish", and that "The way to discover the undiscovered in performing terms is to immediately reject all situations as you identify them (the cloud of unknowing) - which is to give music a future". During this period he also played in the band Boris with Don Weller and Jimmy Roche (both later of jazz-rock band Major Surgery) and put in a stint with Afro-rock band Assagai in which he met keyboard player Alan Gowen. Muir and Gowen subsequently formed the experimental jazz-rock band Sunship with guitarist Allan Holdsworth and bass player Laurie Baker, although Muir has admitted that "we spent more time laughing than playing music" and suggests that the band played no gigs and got no further than rehearsals.

Muir was a member of King Crimson from mid-1972 to early 1973. With King Crimson, Muir occasionally played a standard drum kit, but more often he contributed an assortment of unusual sounds from a wide variety of percussion instruments, including chimes, bells, thumb piano, mbiras, a musical saw, shakers, rattles, found objects, and miscellaneous drums. Muir initially appeared on a single King Crimson album, 1973's Larks' Tongues In Aspic. Several live recordings featuring Muir have been released later by DGM records; the 15-CD box set released in 2012 for the 40th anniversary of the album includes every recording from that line-up, be it live or studio, documenting everything Muir has ever contributed. King Crimson violinist/keyboardist David Cross reports that "We all learned an incredible amount from Jamie. He really was a catalyst of this band in the beginning and he opened up new areas for Bill [Bill Bruford, the group's "conventional" drummer] to look into as well as affecting the rest of us."

In 1972 Muir decided to pursue a monastic lifestyle, in accordance with the strict principles of Buddhism. He left King Crimson abruptly in early 1973 and moved to Samye Ling Monastery near Eskdalemuir in southern Scotland. He had just completed his contribution to Larks' Tongues, released subsequent to his departure. The British Press at the time attributed his decision as the result of "personal injury sustained onstage during performance", a phrase attributed to the band's management company, E'G.

Jamie Muir also showed Yes's Jon Anderson about Paramahansa Yogananda's works during the wedding reception of the previous Yes drummer Bill Bruford, which ultimately led up to influencing the album Tales From Topographic Oceans by Yes, based on the Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi.

In 1980, Muir returned to the London music scene, recording with Evan Parker and Derek Bailey. He was also on the soundtrack of the film Ghost Dance, a collaboration with another Crimson alumnus, drummer Michael Giles and David Cunningham recorded in 1983, and eventually released in 1996.

Muir has since withdrawn completely from the music business and now devotes his energies to painting."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Muir)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Born Remscheid, Germany on 6 March 1941; soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass saxophones, a-clarinet, e-flat clarinet; bass clarinet, tarogato.

Peter Brötzmann's early interest was in painting and he attended the art academy in Wuppertal. Being very dissatisfied with the gallery/exhibition situation in art he found greater satisfaction playing with semi-professional musicians, though continued to paint (as well as retaining a level of control over his own records, particularly in record sleeve/CD booklet design). In late 2005 he had a major retrospective exhibition jointly with Han Bennink - two separate buildings separated by an inter-connecting glass corridor - in Brötzmann's home town of Remscheid.

Self-taught on clarinets, he soon moved to saxophones and began playing swing/bebop, before meeting Peter Kowald. During 1962/63 Brötzmann, Kowald and various drummers played regularly - Mingus, Ornette Coleman, etc. - while experiencing freedoms from a different perspective via Stockhausen, Nam June Paik, David Tudor and John Cage. In the mid 1960s, he played with American musicians such as Don Cherry and Steve Lacy and, following a sojourn in Paris with Don Cherry, returned to Germany for his unorthodox approach to be accepted by local musicians like Alex von Schlippenbach and Manfred Schoof.

The trio of Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kowald and Sven-Ake Johansson began playing in 1965/66 and it was a combination of this and the Schoof/Schlippenbach Quintet that gave rise to the first Globe Unity Orchestra. Following the self-production of his first two LPs, For Adolphe Sax and Machine gun for his private label, BRÖ, a recording for Manfred Eicher's 'Jazz by Post' (JAPO) [Nipples], and a number of concert recordings with different sized groups, Brötzmann worked with Jost Gebers and started the FMP label. He also began to work more regularly with Dutch musicians, forming a trio briefly with Willem Breuker and Han Bennink before the long-lasting group with Han Bennink and Fred Van Hove. As a trio, and augmented with other musicians who could stand the pace (e.g. Albert Mangelsdorff on, for example, The Berlin concert), this lasted until the mid-1970s though Brötzmann and Bennink continued to play and record as a duo, and in other combinations, after this time. A group with Harry Miller and Louis Moholo continued the trio format though was cut short by Miller's early death.

The thirty-plus years of playing and recording free jazz and improvised music have produced, even on just recorded evidence, a list of associates and one-off combinations that include just about all the major figures in this genre: Derek Bailey (including performances with Company (e.g. Incus 51), Cecil Taylor, Fred Hopkins, Rashied Ali, Evan Parker, Keiji Haino, Misha Mengelberg, Anthony Braxton, Marilyn Crispell, Andrew Cyrille, Phil Minton, Alfred 23 Harth, Tony Oxley. Always characterised as an energy player - and the power-rock setting of Last Exit with Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharock and Bill Laswell, or his duo performances with his son, Casper, did little to disperse this conviction - his sound is one of the most distinctive, life-affirming and joyous in all music. But the variety of Brötzmann's playing and projects is less recognised: his range of solo performances; his medium-to-large groups and, in spite of much ad hoc work, a stability brought about from a corpus of like- minded musicians: the group Ruf der Heimat; pianist Borah Bergman; percussionist Hamid Drake; and Die like a dog, his continuing tribute to Albert Ayler, with Drake, William Parker and Toshinori Kondo. Peter Brötzmann continues a heavy touring schedule which, since 1996 has seen annual visits to Japan and semi-annual visits to the thriving Chicago scene where he has played in various combinations from solo through duo (including one, in 1997, with Mats Gustafsson) to large groups such as the Chicago Octet/Tentet, described below. He has also released a number of CDs on the Chicago-based Okka Disk label, including the excellent trio with Hamid Drake and the Moroccan Mahmoud Gania, at times sounding like some distant muezzin calling the faithful to become lost in the rhythm and power of the music.

The "Chicago Tentet" was first organized by Brötzmann with the assistance of writer/presenter John Corbett in January 1997 as an idea for a one-time octet performance that included Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang (drums), Kent Kessler (bass) and Fred Lomberg-Holm (cello), Ken Vandermark and Mars Williams (reeds), and Jeb Bishop (trombone). The first meeting was extremely strong and warranted making the group an ongoing concern and in September of that same year the band was expanded to include Mats Gustafsson (reeds) and Joe McPhee (brass) as permanent members (with guest appearances by William Parker (bass), Toshinori Kondo (trumpet/electronics), and Roy Campbell (trumpet) during its tenure) - all in all a veritable who's who of the contemporary improvising scene's cutting edge. Though the Tentet is clearly led by Brötzmann and guided by his aesthetics, he has been committed to utilizing the compositions of other members in the ensemble since the beginning. This has allowed the band to explore an large range of structural and improvising tactics: from the conductions of Mats Gustafsson and Fred Lonberg-Holm, to the vamp pieces of Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake, to compositions using conventional notation by Ken Vandermark and Mars Williams, to Brötzmann's graphic scores - the group employs almost every contemporary approach to composing for an improvising unit. This diversity in compositional style, plus the variety in individualistic approaches to improvisation, allows the Tentet to play extremely multifaceted music. As the band moves from piece to piece, it explores intensities that range from spare introspection to all out walls of sound, and rhythms that are open or free from a steady pulse to those of a heavy hitting groove. It is clear that the difficult economics of running a large band hasn't prevented the group from continuing to work together since its first meeting. Through their effort they've been able to develop an ensemble sound and depth of communication hard to find in a band of any size or style currently playing on the contemporary music scene."

-EFI (European Free Improvisation Pages) (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mbrotzm.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"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 Website (http://evanparker.com/biography.php)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Chicago based John Corbett is a guitarist, turntablist, and music writer for the Chicago Reader and Down Beat magazine.

3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1 Trio - One 13:27

SIDE B



1 Trio - Two 14:39

2 Trio - Three 2:02

SIDE C



1 Trio - Four 9:00

2 Trio - Five 5:20

SIDE D



1 Trio - Minus One 7:50

2 Trio - Trio 11:03

Related Categories of Interest:


Vinyl Recordings
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Bailey, Derek
Peter Brotzmann
Large Ensembles
Trio Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Honest Jons Records.


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At Sound 323 [VINYL 180gm WHITE 2 LPs]
(Confront)
The full performance of legendary improvising guitarist Derek Bailey's 2001 exhilarating duo with bassist Simon H. Fell at Sound 323, originally released as a mini-CD and voted record of the year in 2002 by The Wire, then released on CD and now as a deluxe 2 LP set on 180gm White Vinyl.
Armaroli, Sergio / Evan Parker
Dialog
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Recording remotely in a call-and-response, vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli and saxophonist Evan Parker resolved an issue of recording in the same physical space by interleaving recordings of solo improvisations recorded in response to each other's sequential recordings, Armaroli with the 6-part "Two Rooms One Vibraphone" and Parker with the 5-part "Interludes".
Parker, Evan / George Lewis
From Saxophone & Trombone [VINYL]
(Otoroku)
The first vinyl re-issue of the 1980 duo between UK saxophonist Evan Parker and US trombonist George Lewis, captured live at the Art Workers Guild in London, using the natural resonance of the space and phenomenal technique in an intense set of dialogs showing the mastery of each player and the forceful voice each of them brings to free improvisation.
Parker, Evan / Paul Lytton
Collective Calls (Urban) (Two Microphones) [VINYL]
(Otoroku)
A much-needed reissue of saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer/percussionist Paul Lytton's first duo album, recorded in London at the loft of The Standard Essenco in 1972 and originally released on the Incus label, the duo approaching their instruments in fantastic and unusual ways in a dialog far ahead of its time, augmented with recordings and eccentric assemblages.
Leandre, Joelle / Vinicius Cajado
Storm Dance
(Not Two)
Six "Dances" of a deeply turbulent nature as legendary French bassist Joëlle Léandre meets Brazilian bassist Vinicius Cajado for a 2022 live concert in Vienna at Alte Schmiede, both employing massively powerful techniques, Léandre vocalizing at times to push their dialog into tempestuous territory; at times darkly explosive but illuminated by incredible creative intent.
Brotzmann / Toyozumi
TRIANGLE, Live at OHM, 1987
(NoBusiness)
Never before issued, this stunning concert between long-time collaborators, Japanese drummer Sabu Toyozumi and German multi-reedist Peter Brötzmann performing on tenor saxophone and tarogato, was captured live at OHM, in Koiwa, Tokyo in 1987, in an energetic and enthusiastic free concert of impressive skill and expression, a vital addition to the discography of both.
Parker, Evan / Matthew Wright Trance Map + Peter Evans / Mark Nauseef
Etching the Ether
(Intakt)
Evan Parker and Matthew Wright are the core of Trance Map, the soprano saxophonist and live electronics duo expanding on their original 2011 concept with Trance Map+, adding guest musicians to their unique approach to electroacoustic improvisation, here in an exceptional quartet configuration with Peter Evans on trumpet & piccolo trumpet, and Mark Nauseff on percussion.
Brotzmann / Van Hove / Bennink
Outspan No 2 [VINYL]
(Cien Fuegos)
Recorded a month after Outspan No 1, this album was captured live at 1974 Ost-West-Festival in Nurnberg, Germany from the legendary, masterfully amusing and absolutely serious trio of Peter Brötzmann on alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, clarinet, Fred Van Hove on piano, Han Bennink on drums, clarinet, homemade junk, everything, anything.
Brotzmann / Van Hove / Bennink / Albert Mangelsdorff
Outspan No 1 [VINYL]
(Cien Fuegos)
Recorded a month after Outspan No 1, this album was captured live at 1974 Ost-West-Festival in Nurnberg, Germany from the legendary, masterfully amusing and absolutely serious trio of Peter Brötzmann on alto saxophone, tenor saxophone & clarinet, Fred Van Hove on piano, and Han Bennink on drums, clarinet, homemade junk, everything & anything.
Taborn, Craig / Joelle Leandre / Mat Maneri
hEARoes
(RogueArt)
The meeting of three masterful string and keyboard players--Craig Taborn on piano, Joelle Leandre on double bass and Mat Maneri on viola--a Transatlantic chamber jazz trio recording live at Theatre Antoine Vitez in Ivry-sur Seine, France in 2022 for seven sublime conversations of innovative and imaginative exchanges; absolutely magnificent!
Leandre, Joelle
Zurich Concert
(Intakt)
A tour-de-force solo concert from the masterful improvising French double bassist Joëlle Léandre, performing at Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zurich in 2022, mostly performed through an astounding bowing exposition, accompanied at times by her worldless vocal improvising, the five parts of this concert evoking passion, power, and a lifetime of profound expression.
Brotzmann, Peter / Heather Leigh / Fred Lonberg-Holm
Naked Nudes
(Trost Records)
Part of Peter Brötzmann's 80th birthday concerts in his hometown of Wuppertal, the saxophonist assembled a trio from his typically duo partner, pedal steel guitarist Heather Leigh (Charalambides, Dream/Aktion Unit) and Chicago cellist and electronic improviser Fred Lonberg-Holm, performing the extended title track at INSEL | Kultur im ADA, along with two succinct improvisations.
Schlippenbach Quartet (Schlippenbach / Parker / Silva / Lovens)
Anticlockwise [VINYL]
(Cien Fuegos)
Reissuing pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach's 1983 FMP album with his quartet of Evan Parker on soprano & tenor saxophones, Alan Silva on double bass and Paul Lovens on drums & percussion, a fertile period for the group, as heard in the probing and incisive free jazz through two extended improvisations captured live at the Quartier Latin in Berlin, Germany in 1982.
Leandre, Joelle / Nuria Andorra
BLA BLA BLA duo
(Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))
A brooding meeting between free improvising double bassist Joëlle Léandre and Catalonian drummer/percussionist Nuria Andorra (Icarus Ensemble, Barcelona 216, Patchwork Ensemble), two generations of improvisers finding common ground through a simmering boil of intelligent improvisation, imaginative technical skill and passionately assertive playing.
Brotzmann, Peter / Han Bennink
Schwarzwaldfahrt [CD + BOOK]
(Trost Records)
Expanding on their 1977 FMP album of open-air improvisations by Peter Brotzmann and Han Bennink, recording in the Black Forest of Baden-Wurttemberg using wind instruments & percussion, the ambiance of birds and planes, water, drums from logs, &c.; an idiosyncratic and wonderful album of free possibilities, now paired with a book of photos from their excursion.
Dagg, Henry / Evan Parker
Then Through Now
(False Walls)
Dublin sound inventor Henry Dagg joins soprano saxophonist Evan Parker for a live concert in Canterbury: fourteen vignettes of electro-acoustic interaction using Dagg's "Stage Cage"--valve test-oscillators, ring modulators, frequency shifter, chromatic zither, and a variable tape delay system--to both generate sound and to transform Parker's improvisations in incredible ways.
Leandre, Joelle / Paul Lovens
Off Course !
(Fou Records)
Bringing together two masterful and legendary players from the European Free Improv scene -- French double bassist and vocalist Joëlle Léandre and UK drummer & percussionist Paul Lovens -- heard in this live performance at Les Temps du Corps, in Paris, free playing in two parts with an incredible sense of communication, timing, humor, virtuosity and finesse.
Bailey, Derek / Charlie Morrow & Friends
New York 1982 [VINYL]
(Recital)
Recorded in 1982 during a series of extraordinary free improv concerts by guitarist Derek Bailey and trumpeter Charlie Marrow, performing in configurations from solo to full septet with performers from NY's "New Wilderness" collective: percussionist Glen Velez, saxophonist & sound poet Steve McCaffery, trumpeter Carol E. Tuynman, saxophonist Patricia Burgess and trumpeter Michael Snow.
Transmap+ (Evan Parker / Matt Wright / Robert Jarvis)
Grounded Abstraction
(FMR)
A 2022 concert of acoustic and electroacoustic interaction at The Jazz Centre UK from the Trans Map duo of Evan Parker on soprano saxophone and Matthew Wright on laptop processing, the "+" in Transmap+ being trombonist Robert Jarvis, a versatile collaborator since London Improvisers Orchestra and here a 3rd voice expanding their spectacular open collective free improv.
Schlippenbach, Alexander von
Globe Unity [VINYL]
(Corbett vs. Dempsey)
Wild, nearly unprecedented and an exhilarating direction in European Free Improvisation heard in the 1st recordings from 1966 of pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach's Globe Unity band, a 14-piece ensemble that included young saxophonists Peter Brötzmann, Gerd Dudek & Kris Wanders, bassist Peter Kowald, bass clarinetist Willem Breuker, trumpeter Manfred Schoof, &c.
Schlippenbach, Alexander von
Globe Unity
(Corbett vs. Dempsey)
Wild, nearly unprecedented and an exhilarating direction in European Free Improvisation heard in the 1st recordings from 1966 of pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach's Globe Unity band, a 14-piece ensemble that included young saxophonists Peter Brötzmann, Gerd Dudek & Kris Wanders, bassist Peter Kowald, bass clarinetist Willem Breuker, trumpeter Manfred Schoof, &c.
Konstrukt & Peter Brotzmann
Dolunay [VINYL 2 LPs + DOWNLOAD]
(KARLRECORDS)
A reissue of the 2008 double LP, part of the continuing collaborations between great improvisers from around the globe with the Turkish Konstrukt quartet of Korhan Argüden on drums, Özün Usta on percussion, Umut Çağlar on guitar and Korhan Futacı on tenor & baritone saxophone, here joining with European Free Jazz legend Peter Brötzmann on alto & tenor saxophones and clarinet for this formidable studio recording from Istanbul.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

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