By John Shiurba
There once was a time when jazz was jazz, and then came Evan Parker. Although the British saxophonist humbly explains his ground-breaking ventures into "free improvisation" in the late 1960s as simply following in the tradition of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy, the truth is that he and his associates literally brought the walls down, creating a music so exciting and different that it virtually defied categorization.
"He has single-handedly changed the face of saxophone technique and saxophone music," says notoriously iconoclastic saxophonist John Zorn. "He is simply speaking a hero of modern music."
Parker's singular language on the soprano saxophone involves the use of circular breathing to unleash a veritable hurricane of sound, often splitting the overtones to give the illusion of several instruments playing at once.
This week Parker's trio (with bassist Barry Guy and percussionist Paul Lytton) makes it's West Coast premier in the Bay Area. Speaking over the phone from a tour stop in Germany last week, he says he looks forward to bringing his uncompromising music to open-minded American audiences.
"I like to be slightly confrontational, to pose a challenge for the brave listener," he says.
And brave listeners, among them a younger generation of improvisors, coming from a rock-oriented background, are generously rewarded. Parker, however,seems at a loss to describe why musicians such as experimental guitarist Fred Frith are champions of his music, "It does seem that people coming from an art rock background do see a relevance (in my music), but quite why, I've never been sure."
Art rock this is not. Parker's music is pure improvisation. It's about "listening ahead and anticipating the music at the same time the audience does," he says. And although Parker is known for his uncanny ability to react instantly to any shifting musical current, he emphasizes the role the audience also plays in the direction the music takes.
"The whole philosophy of why we improvise is to maximally involve the listener," he says. "You always get more of people's attention if they think they're witnessing something they may never see again."
Between "Karyobin," his first recording in 1968 with The Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and his latest release, "Breaths and Heartbeats" (due out this week on Bay Area label Rastascan Records), Parker has recorded roughly 140 albums. Given that most have been released in limited pressings, most listeners only have access to about a dozen of his more recently recorded CDs and a handful of recent reissues, most notably the Chronoscope reissues of "Karyobin" and "Saxophone Solos."
"I would like to get (my earlier material) back out," he says. "I think it does help explain why the music sounds like it does now, if people can hear the gradual evolution." Parker feels that recordings of improvised music are important to both the artist and the listener. "For me, documentation of phases of activity encourages you not to repeat yourself and to look for fresh stuff...For a listener the repeatability is actually quite important."
When I comment on the lower dynamics and sparse arrangements the trio explores on "Breaths and Heartbeats" Parker notes "that's all to do with (playing in) the studio, as opposed to live... the pace tends to slow down and you tend to mess around with stuff that's laying around." But when I ask if we should expect a kinder, gentler Evan Parker during his live performances this week, the saxophonist just laughs.
from San Francisco Bay Guardian June 21, 1995 pg 54