Evan Parker

Britain ranks Evan Parker among its most inventive and endlessly active saxophonists, his approach set apart by inventive applications of circular breathing, false fingering, tongue slapping and further extended improvisational methods. These tools enable him to sustain intense flurries, screeches, bleats, honks and spiraling phrases across protracted durations. Subsequent forays into electronics and groups of varying scale broadened his sonic palette. His extensive catalog exceeds two hundred releases under his leadership and approaches one thousand total appearances. The 1970 trio recording Topography of the Lungs ignited upheaval within European avant circles, while 1976’s Saxophone Solos proved similarly consequential. Parker has collaborated with nearly every significant avant-garde voice to arise across Great Britain, Europe, Asia and Africa, alongside notable American figures such as Cecil Taylor and Steve Lacy. The Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble’s 1997 ECM debut, Toward the Margins, launched a series of five acclaimed albums that concluded with The Moment’s Energy in 2009. Parker partnered with pianist Matthew Shipp for the 2013 Rogue Art release Rex, Wrecks & XXX and again for Leonine Aspects in 2021, the same year he appeared as guest with Natural Information Society on Descension (Out of Our Constrictions). Sweet Nothings, issued in 2022, documents a 2003 live duo with Joe McPhee. In 2023 Intakt presented Etching the Ether by Trance Magic+, the electro-acoustic ensemble Parker founded with sound designer Matthew Wright and additional guests.

Born in Bristol in 1944, Parker took up the saxophone at fourteen, selecting alto out of admiration for Paul Desmond. By 1960 he had added tenor and soprano, shaped by John Coltrane, whom he later credited as determining “my choice of everything.”

Parker relocated to London in 1965 and joined drummer Tony Oxley’s ensemble. There he encountered kindred spirits including guitarist Derek Bailey, bassist Dave Holland, drummer John Stevens and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. Although Coltrane remained an influence, Parker and his peers pursued a distinctly European strain of free jazz and improvisation. After further work with Oxley’s groups, he entered John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble for the 1968 album Karyōbin. That year he also participated in Peter Brötzmann’s octet sessions for the landmark Machine Gun and returned for Nipples the following year.

In 1970 Parker, Oxley and Bailey established the Incus imprint. Their initial release, Topography of the Lungs, featuring Han Bennink in place of Oxley, helped spark the European avant revolution. The same year Parker, Bailey, King Crimson percussionist Jamie Muir and live electronicist Hugh Davies issued The Music Improvisation Company on ECM, drawing international attention from forward-thinking musicians. Parker spent ensuing years with Oxley’s projects, composer Basil Kirchin and the London Jazz Composers’ Orchestra while maintaining duo and trio activity. He joined the cross-European Globe Unity Orchestra for its 1973 Live at Wuppertal and appeared with Kenny Wheeler’s big band on Song for Someone that year.

American soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy recruited Parker and Bailey for 1975’s Saxophone Special, also enlisting altoist Steve Potts and tenorist Trevor Watts; the encounter initiated multiple soprano collaborations across two decades. By 1976 Parker stood recognized among the new music’s most daring exponents. Saxophone Solos showcased his extended techniques and influenced players on both sides of the Atlantic, earning regard as one of the twentieth century’s landmark solo saxophone statements. Alongside Globe Unity and Schlippenbach’s ensembles he performed with Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath and recorded duos and trios with Stevens and Paul Lytton. Following solo concerts he captured the studio album Monoceros in 1978, joined Wheeler for the acclaimed 1979 Around 6 and began issuing material on his PSI label, including Six of One in 1980 and Hook, Drift and Shuffle in 1983. In 1984 he featured on Scott Walker’s Climate of Hunter after the singer-songwriter postponed sessions until Parker consented. Two years later he released the solo soprano classic The Snake Decides.

Parker maintained extraordinary productivity across subsequent decades, issuing 1991’s Process and Reality, 1995’s Breaths and Heartbeats and, in 1997, the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble’s ECM debut Toward the Margins, followed by the widely praised Drawn Inward in 1999. With bassist Barre Phillips and pianist Paul Bley he recorded Sankt Wendel Variations for ECM in 2000, while also appearing in an improvising quartet with Cecil Taylor, Oxley and Barry Guy on FMP and in duo with AMM guitarist Keith Rowe on Dark Rags. The next year he released the triple-length Strings with Evan Parker on Emanem and joined British electronic duo Spring Heel Jack for Masses. In 2003 the trio album Alder Brook with September Winds appeared on Leo Records.

His first Tzadik outing, Time Lapse, arrived in 2006 alongside Crossing the River on PSI. Three further albums emerged in 2007, among them A Glancing Blow on Clean Feed; he also collaborated with Roscoe Mitchell on Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 for ECM and recorded his initial project with Matthew Shipp, Abbey Road Duos. Parker debuted on Smalltown Superjazz with Brewery Tap in 2009 and completed the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble’s fifth and final ECM recording, A Moment’s Energy. House Full of Floors, his second Tzadik date, featured bassist John Edwards, guitarist John Russell and, on selected tracks, Aleks Kolkowski on wax cylinder and saw; he additionally appeared on David Sylvian’s Manafon that year.

Among 2010 releases issued under his name, Two Chapters and an Epilogue with pianist John Tilbury stood out, as did Twine with Urs Leimgruber and Scenes in the House of Music with Guy, Lytton and Peter Evans. In 2011 he joined Mark Nauseef, Ikue Mori and Bill Laswell for Near Nadir on Tzadik and recorded It Won’t Be Called Broken Chair in duo with Misha Mengelberg. Meetings with Remarkable Saxophonists, Vol. 1, with Edwards and Eddie Prévost, surfaced on Matchless in spring 2012, followed by the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble’s Hasselt and a reissue of Topography of the Lungs on PSI.

Parker and Shipp delivered the half-live, half-studio Rex, Wrecks & XXX on Rogue Art in 2013; he also issued the concert document Live at Maya Recordings Festival with Guy and Lytton on NoBusiness and the duo album What/If/They Both Could Fly with McPhee on Rune Grammofon. Further 2014 projects included Quintet/Sextet/Duos with Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Edwards, Tony Marsh and John Butcher, Either or And with Sylvie Courvoisier and Ninth Square with Americans Joe Morris and Nate Wooley. Releases in 2015 comprised Hello, I Must Be Going with Fred Frith, Title Goes Here with AMM and Filu ’E Ferru by the Sant’Anna Arresi Quintet. The 2016 quartet album Miller’s Tale featured Courvoisier, Mark Feldman and Mori.

Sounding Tears with pianist Lucian Ban and violist Mat Maneri appeared in 2017, the same year Parker joined Binker Golding and Moses Boyd for the double-length Journey to the Mountain of Forever. In 2018 he reunited with Dave Holland for the cross-generational Uncharted Territories quartet alongside Craig Taborn and Ches Smith, re-teamed with Guy and Lytton for Music for David Mossman: Live at Vortex London, issued Tools of Imagination with Prévost and recorded The Village with Morris. After Concert in Vilnius with Guy and Lytton in 2019, he released Chiasm on Clean Feed with Eastern European trio Kinetics and joined dark-ambient producer Daona for The Secret Assembly; the year closed with digital collaborations with Dublin pianist Paul G. Smyth on the EP The Dogs of Nile and the full-length Calenture and Light.

Collective Calls with Lytton opened 2020; Parker also appeared with tenor saxophonists Ingrid Laubrock and Louise Elliott on Penny Rimbaud’s Arthur Rimbaud in Verdun. QW3 gathered unreleased material from Holland’s 2018 Uncharted Territories sessions. In 2021 he issued the quartet album All Knavery and Collusion with Edwards, Lytton and pianist Alexander Hawkins, featured as soloist on the latter’s Togetherness Music (For Sixteen Musicians), released Leonine Aspects with Shipp on Rogue Art, presented the archival Warszawa 2019 by the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble and guested with Josh Abrams’ Natural Information Society on Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) for Eremite.

Sweet Nothings surfaced on Corbett vs. Dempsey in 2022, capturing the 2003 live duo with McPhee from Chicago’s seventh annual Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music—their second duet performance. Relative Pitch documented his first New York solo concert as NYC 1978 in June 2023. In August Intakt issued Etching the Ether by Trance Magic+, the electro-acoustic project Parker and Matthew Wright established with guests trumpeter Peter Evans and percussionist Mark Nauseef.