Download - Downbeat

natorics of limited interval types in order tobring out their inherent characters. The materialgoes beyond scales and arpeggios—the idea isto get it to fall under your fingers so you’re notsimply playing from the riff book. You have tohear your way through, know what is theunderlying cliche and how to disguise it. Imake the analogy with the armature in a sculpture.A sculptor uses a steel frame underneathto hold the clay in certain positions which otherwiseit wouldn’t hold. But it’s not the armaturethat’s interesting. It’s the form of the clay.Without those things it’s just ... lacking instructural integrity.”The weekend after Parker left town, theAbrons Arts Center, a few blocks southof the Stone, hosted a two-day festivaldedicated to the legacy of Incus Records, thelabel that Parker, Bailey and Tony Oxley cofoundedin 1970. After Oxley departed a fewyears later, Parker and Bailey—who died in2005—functioned as co-directors, producingsome of the seminal documents of Europeanfree improvisation. They split on acrimoniousterms in 1985, with Parker keeping possessionof his own copyrights and master tapes. Since2001, he has been bringing them back intoprint—along with new material by himself andvarious associates—on Psi, his imprint, whichnow boasts a catalog of more than 60 items.Parker discerned crucial differences in theways in which his and Bailey’s respective personalitiesinfluenced their musical production.“I’m interested in a more adaptive language, amore flexible sense of musical persona,” he said.“The material with which I represent myself, themusic masks that I use to play behind, orthrough, vary with the context much more thanDerek’s did. ‘Mask’ is a more complicated ideathan simply a disguise, something to hidebehind. The mask is a particular chosen projectionof identity.”Unlike Bailey and most of his contemporariesfrom the first generation of Europeanexperimental improvisers, Parker has embracedAmerican jazz as a lineal, if often hidden, influence.“It’s where I come from,” he said. “Itdoesn’t mean I don’t know about Boulez andStockhausen and Xenakis. But in shaping theidea of personal direction, the point that Coltranegot to, especially in Interstellar Space, is adefined place. Even the idea of a multi-linearapproach to soprano is derived from thinkingabout certain things Coltrane was doing on thelonger solos on “My Favorite Things,” wherehe’s hinting at keeping two lines going.Thinking you can do anything past that involvesan enormous lack of modesty, and you have tobe aware of this. But through practice and effortand concentration on what makes your directionyour direction, there are some corners left towork in.”Told that Rothenberg had remarked on his“whirling” time feel, “with a pulse that tends tobreathe in an ebb-and-flow,” Parker described itas his default mode, citing “the constellation” ofthe New York Art Quartet with John Tchicaiand Milford Graves, Graves’ duos with DonPullen, the Coltrane-Rashied Ali duos, and theJimmy Giuffre Trio. “These were the very lastbits of concerted influence, where you feel,‘These are the materials that I must learn to dealwith,’” he said. “After that, it became essentialto deal with what John Stevens (the Britishdrummer with whom partnered frequently in the’60s and ’70s) was doing, what Derek, PaulRutherford, Paul Lytton, Barry Guy, and all thepeople associated with that first generation ofLondon-based free improvisers were doing.”Parker’s simpatico for the New York contextstems from the summers of 1962 and 1963,when, by dint of a free flight enabled by hisfather’s position with BOAC (predecessor ofBritish Airlines), he was able to see hisheroes—the aforementioned encounter withLacy, Eric Dolphy with Herbie Hancock atBirdland, Cecil Taylor with Jimmy Lyons andSunny Murray on Bleecker Street, Carla Bleyin duo with Gary Peacock—on their home turf.“Coltrane was always out of town, thoughI’d heard him in England in 1961,” Parker said.“But I’m not going to forget those things. Fromthat point, New York was the center of the worldas far as the music I was interested in.”ready for a break,” Parker said at thebeginning of February from his home in‘I’mKent, reviewing his recent travels. Over amonth or so of down time, he would work on“thinking about how to practice, practicing,organizing for the label and for events comingup.” Most important among the latter were aseries of spring concerts with his Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, a project that he has documentedsince 1997 on five ECM CDs, increasingthe participants from six to 14 on the mostrecent iteration, The Moment’s Energy, a sixpartsuite that incorporates an orchestra’s worthof real-time electronic processing instruments. Indistinction to the prior dates, Parker deployedthe studio as another instrument, remixing andrealigning the materials of the real-time versionto construct a final document. It’s the latestdevelopment in Parker’s ongoing investigationof digital media as a tool to transcend the limitsof what he can do with the saxophone.“What works for a concert doesn’t necessarilywork for a record,” Parker said. “It’s partly todo with dynamic range, partly with whatManfred Eicher calls dramaturgie. You don’tquite know the circumstances under which therecord will be played. So the idea of modifyingsomething in response to that is no longer aheresy for me. It’s just part of the work, and ifpeople want to discuss it and take positions foror against, well, that’s fine.”Parker is no stranger to being on the receivingend of slings and arrows—for all the audaciousnessand fire that he projects through hishorn, his incendiary chops have sparked thewrath of some members of the “avant-gardepolice,” who critique him as an overly technical,non-interactive Johnny-one-note more concernedwith attaining individual transcendencethan dialogic interplay.George Lewis addressed this issue in a morenuanced way. “Derek liked to smash genrestogether, people from different traditions andpractices,” he said. “Evan was starting to do thisas well, but then he broke away from it. Now it’sreached a new level where he is more content tobe at the center of his own world than everbefore; he’s found ways to make music thatbears his stamp, through the medium of improvisation.It’s not being an improviser that’simportant. It’s what Evan’s music is.”For Parker, an Anarcho-Socialist during universitydays, philosophical materialism coexistsin pragmatic equipoise with his investigationsinto the mysteries of shamanism, as he denoteswith his label’s name.“I juggle those things every day,” he said.“I’m encouraged by developments that relate tofinding consensus on solving specific problems,rather than building an overarching ideology thatpurports to solve all problems at a stroke.Shamanism is one way that you can solve someof those small problems. It’s metaphysics, butit’s also practical. Spiritual is material, too. Ifyou define materialism as to recognize the waythings work, then we have to include psi phenomena,the things physicists can’t explain.”Parker himself found it difficult to explainconcretely the criteria he uses to decide whatconstitutes a successful performance, what torelease or not release. He had not yet found timeto evaluate his massive output at the Stone,which was professionally recorded and linemixed.“It would be crazy not to release some ofit, but I want to make sure I do it properly.“Sometimes it’s a good idea to wait a year ormore before you listen, otherwise you reinforcethe memories of the struggle that was involved,which may affect your objectivity and have noimportance in the bigger picture,” he said. “It’seasier to be positive about some solo thing thatcame out well. Everything else is complicatedabout expectations about what other people mayor may not do. If I think that the thing is a failure,I have no problem leaving it on the shelf.”Parker observed that Time Lapse, his 2006release for Zorn’s Tzadik imprint, took a decadeto whip into shape. He noted that he took similarpains toward conceptualizing 2009’s House FullOf Floors.Parker was looking forward to the next stageof his New York investigations, which wouldtranspire this spring. “Every time I come back, Iget a feeling unlike anywhere else in theworld,” he said. “There’s an incredible communityof players to draw on. John [Zorn]’s supportfor this venture allowed me to be amongfriends. The Stone is absolutely my kind ofspace, like a non-denominational chapel ofmusic. There’s no frills. It’s a room where youcan play some music and some people cancome and listen.”DB40 DOWNBEAT May 2010