Evan Parker at The Stone

I was fortunate to be in NYC this week for business and able to attend the first night of Evan Parker's 2-week residency at The Stone. The English saxophonist is here to play with just about everyone in New York in a series of duets, trios and larger groupings at John Zorn's performance space in the Lower East Side. Last night, Parker kicked it off with a solo set.

If you're not familiar with Parker, he has developed a unique vocabulary for solo performance on both the soprano and tenor saxophones based, partly, on circular breathing techniques. He manages to take what could just be a gimmick and turn it into a basis for expressive improvisation. The solos he played last night were what I've come to expect. His explorations with the soprano are focused, intense and based around cyliclic rhythmic ideas, with interesting overtones and colors emerging from his constant, circular breathing. The solos on tenor tend to be less fiery, and tend to explore the tonal colors of the instrument, the mechanical clicking of the horn's keys, space and silence. The circular breathing is here too, but often, you get a kind of melodicism and a sense of a phrasal line. Parker ended the set with a short soprano solo based around Steve Lacy's composition, "Hubris." This gave a taste of Parker's versatility beyond his own original approach.

I'm not doing what I heard justice, I suppose, and my lack of expository skill and musical knowledge forces me to make up jargon like "phrasal line." Just go on Youtube and search on "Evan Parker solo" or buy any of the numerous recordings of his solo playing. "Conic Sections" on the Ah-Um label (now reissued on Psi) is a good one to start with. It's all soprano solos, so you'll have to seek out his recorded work on solo tenor elsewhere.

The solo set was followed by a set with synthesist Richard Teitelbaum. They had never performed together before, though have known each other for years - going back to Teitelbaum's work with Musica Elettronica Viva in the 60's and 70's. Both players showed themselves to be masters of free improvisation and carried on an interesting musical conversation for about an hour. Teitelbaum's synth work never overwhelmed Parker's sound, and Parker didn't betray that fact that he has just been the soul focus of attention during the previous solo set. It was a a quiet, almost reflective set of music.