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| 4.374 Ft
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| 1. | Overture
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| 2. | Furrow 1
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| 3. | Furrow 2
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| 4. | Furrow 3
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| 5. | Furrow 4
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| 6. | Furrow 5
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| 7. | Furrow 6
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| 8. | Finale
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Jazz
Recorded September 2004
Evan Parker soprano saxophone
Roscoe Mitchell alto and soprano saxophones
Anders Svanoe alto saxophone
John Rangecroft clarinet
Neil Metcalfe flute
Corey Wilkes trumpet, flugelhorn
Nils Bultmann viola
Philipp Wachsmann violin
Marcio Mattos cello
Craig Taborn piano
Jaribu Shahid double-bass
Barry Guy double-bass
Tanni Tabbal drums, percussion
Paul Lytton drums, percussion
Evan Parker and Roscoe Mitchell co-founded the Transatlantic Art Ensemble in 2004. The ensemble's account of Mitchell's "Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3" was issued by ECM to critical acclaim (including an album-of-the-year award from France's Jazzman). "Boustrophedon", featuring Evan Parker's music, is the companion volume. Like nothing else in Parker's discography it features him as composer-conductor, guiding the transatlantic instrumental forces into chamber orchestral territory "somewhere between Gil Evans and Luigi Nono". There is also, amongst many highlights, some transcendent saxophone playing - from both Parker and Mitchell. Recorded live in Munich.
* Caroline Forbes - Photography
* Manfred Eicher - Engineer
* Max Franosch - Cover Image
* Samuel Beckett - Liner Notes
* Sascha Kleis - Design
* Stefano Amerio - Engineer
* Steve Lake - Liner Notes, Producer
Recorded live in Munich, Evan Parker's "Boustrophedon" is the companion volume to Roscoe Mitchell's highly-acclaimed "Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3" and features an identical line-up, the Transatlantic Art Ensemble assembled by the two great saxophonists.
Unlike any other album in Evan Parker's vast discography (he has appeared on more than 250 discs, mostly for small labels specialized in improvisation) "Boustrophedon" uniquely emphasises his compositional capacity, and presents a music that opens some new windows. Each of the piece's six "Furrows" (the title ‘Boustrophedon' translates as ‘like an ox plowing') features a combination of detailed written music for the players, specific performance instructions and ‘open' areas. What does it sound like? The composer at one point spoke of locating a space "between Gil Evans and Luigi Nono", but there is more to the story. "I wanted to use some of the big chords that Slonimsky talks about: all these very big all-interval structures." Conventional tonality meanwhile is at a premium, sometimes referencing "East European folk music with a pedal tone and a variety of scales based on that tone." Juxtaposing the complex and then archaic-sounding, Parker avoids "the middle ground of diatonic harmony," with frequently electrifying results.
The album's liner notes map out the central event in the work: The brief overture with ensemble and the foregrounded drums of Tani Tabbal and Paul Lytton leads swiftly to the first of the "Furrows", in each of which a player meets a ‘transatlantic' counterpart. "Furrow 1" is an encounter for John Rangecroft's flute and the piano of Craig Taborn (which has a particularly important role to play as the work develops). "Furrow 2" is occupied by Phil Wachsmann and Nils Bultmann, engaged in quite beautiful violin-viola dialogues which spill over into "Furrow 3", where Marcio Mattos (Brazilian-born string player long a British resident) and Anders Svanoe (American saxophonist with Norwegian roots) are featured, Anders's solo lifted up by dense ensemble agitations. "Furrow 4" is for John Rangecroft's clarinet and Corey Wilkes's trumpet, and bassists Jaribu Shahid and Barry Guy compare dynamic meditations in "Furrow 5" - at first in isolation then against increasingly turbulent group playing. The emotionally-powerful "Furrow 6" features solos from first Evan Parker and then Roscoe Mitchell, tumultuously leading us toward a finale set up by massive chords and capped with rapid fire cadenzas. We hear, in succession, Jaribu Shahid, Neil Metcalfe, Anders Svanoe, Philipp Wachsmann, Craig Taborn, Marcio Mattos, Nils Bultmann, John Rangecroft, Corey Wilkes, Barry Guy, and Roscoe Mitchell. The atmospheric climates in which these episodes are developed through the Furrows and the Finale, and the richness and strangeness of the chamber ensemble textures that envelop them, are frequently as remarkable as the solos themselves.
***
Evan Parker, regarded by many critics as one of the most important saxophonists of the post-Coltrane era, was amongst the first musicians to record for ECM, appearing on "The Music Improvisation Company" in 1970, the fifth album released by the label. Over the years he has been featured on recordings with Kenny Wheeler, Gavin Bryars and the Globe Unity Orchestra and since the 1990s has been recording more frequently for ECM, two well-received trio recordings with Paul Bley and Barre Phillips ("Time Will Tell, "Sankt Gerold") followed by the introduction of Parker's ground-breaking Electro-Acoustic Ensemble which has thus far released four albums: "Toward The Margins", "Drawn Inward", "Memory/Vision" and "The Eleventh Hour". (A fifth, recorded during the 2007 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, is in preparation).
The Transatlantic Art Ensemble, put together by Parker and Roscoe Mitchell in 2004, pooled personnel from the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble and Mitchell's Note Factory. Bassist Barry Guy, violinist Phil Wachsmann and drummer Paul Lytton are members of the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Wachsmann/Lytton have recorded also in duo for ECM, on "Some Other Season". Guy has recorded his compositions for the New Series on "Folio" and "Ceremony" and performed also with the Dowland Project ("In Darkness Let Me Dwell", "Care-Charming Sleep") and the Hilliard Ensemble ("A Hilliard Songbook"). Flutist Neil Metcalfe and clarinettist John Rangecroft were at different times members of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, the flagship band of European improvisation with whom Evan Parker recorded the now-legendary "Karyobin" album of 1968.
Of the players from the other side of the Atlantic, Roscoe Mitchell is of course a major figure in new jazz/new composition and the founder of the ever-resourceful Art Ensemble of Chicago, whose ECM recordings include "Nice Guys", "Full Force", "Urban Bushmen", "The Third Decade" and "Tribute To Lester". ECM has also issued "Nine To Get Ready" by Mitchell's Note Factory. (A new Note Factory recording from 2007 is also in the pipeline). Trumpeter Corey Wilkes and bassist Jaribu Shahid are currently also members of the Art Ensemble. Shahid and drummer Tanni Tabbal have played with Mitchell in a variety of contexts for 30 years. Pianist Craig Taborn has recently been touring with David Torn and appears on his popular "Prezens" album on ECM. Saxophonist Anders Svanoe and violist Nils Bultmann have guested with the Note Factory. Bultmann is also known as a classical soloist and Svanoe as a jazz scholar, recently publishing a study of saxophonist Sonny Red.
International interest in the Transatlantic Art Ensemble, created with the release of "Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3" - an album-of-the-year in France's Jazzman magazine - has led to demands for more live performances and possibilities for festival appearances are currently being examined. More details soon.
CD package includes session photography by Caroline Forbes and liner notes by Steve Lake.
Boustrophedon (In Six Furrows) was recorded in Munich during September of 2004 -- immediately following the night Roscoe Mitchell recorded Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3. What the two recordings have in common is that they were both created using a transatlantic group of musicians, some of whom played on both dates. This disc was conceived as its counterpart. The group here is an interesting one: it consists of Evan Parker and his longtime mates and partners in crime Paul Lytton, Barry Guy, Philipp Wachsmann, and John Rangecroft. It also features Mitchell and his brilliant Note Factory quartet with Craig Taborn, Tani Tabbal, and Jaribu Shahid, with other friends such as Anders Svanoe, Neil Metcalfe, Corey Wilkes, Nils Bultmann, and Marcio Mattos -- all told, a 14-piece orchestra. Parker, who composed this music and conducts, is featured here on soprano. Like Mitchell's offering, this is a music based on strategies, as the title would suggest. Boustrophedon is a Greek word meaning "turning like an ox while plowing" -- hence, the word "furrows" in the title. In fact, Parker quotes a beautiful passage from Samuel Beckett's -The Expelled that offers its own explanation by trying to count stairs adequately first by climbing up and then again when walking down. The music here moves in much the same way, with vertical ascent and descent according to innate scalar challenges and horizontally in both directions as well. Textural elements, tonal colors by the different combinations of contrasting players on any given track, drama, dynamic, and (of course) the degree of improvisation held within this manner of working all present numerous challenges as well as opportunities. This music is not jazz -- free or otherwise -- nor is it merely classical formalism or improvisation deconstruction. Instead, Parker's compositions are scored with the idea of bringing together, through his very European outlook, the different ways region, distance, cultural difference, and discipline combine to make something else: a new work that maintains an identity that is transcultural and trans-aesthetic. This is one work divided into six sections for easy CD programming (on LP this would never happen). Parker is more restrained, much more patient to let his lines and chromatic changes occur as they begin to appear, enhancing them with spirited improvisation that nonetheless leaves its edges at the door. It is as compelling as Mitchell's album, although very different. It is an exercise in musical mystery, chance, and opaque textures that get inside the listener and stay there a bit before moving on toward the next plateau. ---Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
Evan Parker
Active Decades: '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: Apr 05, 1944 in Bristol, England
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Avant-Garde, Free Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Improvisation, Creative Orchestra, Structured Improvisation
Among Europe's most innovative and intriguing saxophonists, Evan Parker's solos and playing style are distinguished by his creative use of circular breathing and false fingering. Parker can generate furious bursts, screeches, bleats, honks, and spiraling lines and phrases and his solo sax work isn't for the squeamish. He's one of the few players not only willing but anxious to demonstrate his affinity for late-period John Coltrane. Parker worked with a Coltrane-influenced quartet in Birmingham in the early '60s. Upon resettling in London in 1965, Parker began playing with Spontaneous Music Ensemble. He joined them in 1967 and remained until 1969. Parker met guitarist Derek Bailey while in the group, and the duo formed the Music Improvisation Company in 1968. Parker played with them until 1971, and also began working with the Tony Oxley Sextet in the late '60s. Parker started playing extensively with other European free music groups in the '70s, notably the Globe Unity Orchestra, as well as its founder Alexander von Schlippenbach's trio and quartet. Parker, Bailey, and Oxley co-formed Incus Records in 1970 and continued operating it through the '80s. Parker also played with Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, other groups with Bailey, and did duet sessions with John Stevens and Paul Lytton, as well as giving several solo concerts. Parker's albums as a leader and his collaborations are all for various foreign labels; they can be obtained through diligent effort and mail order catalogs. Among his many releases are Process and Reality (1991), Breaths and Heartbeats (1995), Obliquities (1995), Bush Fire (1997), Here Now (1998), Drawn Inward (1999), Monkey Puzzle (2000), Two Seasons (2000), Alder Brook (2003) and After Appleby (2004). Eleventh Hour, officially credited to the Evan Parker Electo-Acoustic Ensemble, appeared from ECM in 2005.
---Ron Wynn, All Music Guide |
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