Page One
a column by
Bill Shoemaker
Evan Parker: The Path is Made by Walking
Evan Parker, © Caroline Forbes
There are essays that should be reread time and again over the years, if not annually. George Orwell’s “Why I Write” and “Politics and the English Language” have always topped the list. A few of T. S. Eliot’s have gained in recent years, particularly those addressing issues of literary criticism like the first several pages of “Johnson as Critic and Poet.” Its starting point is Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, a collection of essays first issued individually as prefaces for volumes of their respective subjects, commissioned by a cartel of booksellers who determined what poets would and would not be included based on their salability.
After detailing the pros and cons of what work made the cut and the merits of Johnson’s observations, Eliot pivots to ongoing issues cleaving literary criticism. In the case of poetry, the “most stubborn cause of extreme differences of opinion” was “a difference of ear.” Eliot defined having an ear for poetry being “an immediate apprehension of two things that can be considered in abstraction from each other, but which produce their effect in unity: rhythm and diction.” Again, contemporary usage is important, as Eliot meant by apprehension a general knowledge, one absent of the fear or anxiety that now colors its use.
Diction may also now seem an odd term unexplained by Eliot; but in 1944, when Eliot wrote the essay for presentation at University College in North Wales, it was unnecessary to explicitly link diction to vocabulary and construction, separate from rhythm. It was also a given that poetry was traditionally spoken, not silently read; that it is the voice that gives words and phrases the vitality of rhythm. It even matters how a single syllable is uttered: think the difference between a Concert A whispered by Miles and one cried by Coltrane. The voice conveys the language’s musicality.
Eliot saw diction and rhythm to be the drivers of a literature’s maturation, both in terms of its mechanics and its purpose. It a process that can take decades, if not generations, to realize, and just as long thereafter to be widely perceived. Eliot’s time, much like ours, was one “in which the names of pioneer and innovator are among the titles most honored” [Eliot’s italics].
Arguably, it is this fixation on the new that often obstructs revisiting pioneering work when their languages mature. It is equally true in music as it is in literature. Evan Parker’s music for solo soprano saxophone is a prime example of this syndrome. If a generation of literature is a mere 20 years, as Eliot suggested in an essay about William Butler Yeats, the body of work initiated in 1975 by Saxophone Solos is nearing the end of its third generation.
Even though more than a dozen discs of Parker’s soprano solos have been subsequently issued – and that does not include reissues with remastered and/or additional material (and a lone album of tenor solos) – there have been two threads of commentary that are little more than reflexive defaults. One reiterates that circular breathing and the multiphonics facilitate astonishing long entwined lines of contrasting textures tapping the entire pitch range of the soprano. The other, most cynically expressed, is “the solo,” the early indictment of formatting sent down by improvised music’s more puritanical exponents.
Neither address the maturation of Parker’s language, which became apparent in the early 1980s with albums like The Snake Decides and Six in One. There was a discernible refined enunciation of each timbre woven into his solos, giving the rhythms enhanced vibrancy and creating more vivid contrasts between the serpentine lines. Subsequent releases reinforce the appearance of an ongoing, incremental development in Parker’s solo soprano music.
However, commercially issued recordings are the tip of the iceberg. Additionally, their release can be attributed to a number of factors that have little to nothing to do with comprehensive documentation. Often, it is simply opportunity that leads to their production. Parker’s output differs from that of most in that a large portion of it was released on labels he owned or co-owned; but soprano solos is only one facet of his work. Subsequently, even Parker does not release everything he deems to throw additional light on the maturation of his literature.
That was the case with a solo that was part of an ensemble concert given at the Unitarian Chapel in nearby Warwick in 1994. Too short to be released on its own, it had special qualities Parker thought to be at least partially attributable to the space. His curiosity persisted until 2023, when he returned to record solos without an audience, and his hunch was confirmed.
By then, opportunity had moved into his neighborhood. CJ Mitchell, who briefly ran the False Walls imprint in Chicago during the early 2000s, relocated several years ago to Faversham, Kent, where Parker has lived for twenty-odd years (his estimate, pending the dusting off of long-shelved records). Mitchell’s home can be seen from Parker’s front room. Mitchell had revived the label, releasing ambitious collections like Andrew Poppy’s Ark Hive of a Live, four CDs of previously unreleased music recorded from the 1980s through the 2010s, accompanied by a handsomely designed 128-page book of essays and images.
Mitchell previously issued two titles featuring Parker: 2022’s Then Through Now, a duo with Henry Dagg, a composer who improvises with electronics and handmade instruments through live signal processing; and last year’s Marconi’s Drift, a concert by the Parker and Matthew Wright’s Transatlantic Trance Map project, where groups of improvisers in New York and Faversham interact in real time. In the run-up to his 80th birthday in April, Parker suggested the release of the Warwick solos; mindful of the milestone, Mitchell suggested expanding the project from a single CD.
The outcome is The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc. It has the same configuration as the Poppy collection, the book featuring essays, photos by Caroline Forbes – both of Parker and his visual art (heretofore a hermetic practice) – and reprints of interviews conducted by Hans Falb and Martin Davidson. The latter, first published in Opprobrium, includes parenthetical notes made by Parker in ‘24 about dates and goings-on he was unsure of when he spoke with his longtime ally in ‘97. It is a document central to understanding Parker’s development.
In addition to the Warwick solos – which constitutes “The Heraclitean Two-Step,” there are three discs of solos Parker recorded between 2018 and last April at the Arco Barco studio in Ramsgate by its founder, Felipe Gomes – they form the “etc.” Like the Warwick solos, these sides provide an excellent opportunity to hear Parker in the same space over a period of time, albeit one significantly shorter than those made in the Unitarian Chapel. However, by virtue of the fact that Parker was sufficiently taken with the ‘94 Warwick solo to revisit the space nearly 30 years later, and that these solos would be top of mind in his initial discussion with Mitchell, is cause to pay particularly close attention to them.
What is immediately striking about the Warwick solos – all of which are titled with the names of rivers – is the sonic consistency between the two sessions despite the years between them. It is obvious why Parker wanted to revisit the space; it provides him with everything necessary for optimal recordings. The listener delving deep may well find decades elapsed upon resurfacing, as the 22 minutes of the ‘94 solo are among the fastest Parker has committed to disc. There are obvious markers of continuity between it and Parker’s early recordings, particularly the nappy altissimo textures, the weaving of contrasting timbres, and elongation of shards of pitch material into serpentine phrases.
There is a striking difference between the ‘94 and ‘23 recordings that points to a maturation of Parker’s language during that interval. It can be likened to that of Steve Lacy’s throughout the 1980s and 90s, when his sound became fuller and richer, even in the stratospheric range of the soprano. Lacy referred to “curing” as a creative process to fully realize ideas, a term equally applicable to his pursuit during those years in regards to sound production. How he played shaped what he played, and he played with increasing sophistication. Similar curing is abundantly evident in both the earlier and later Warwick recordings. It is not to denigrate or minimize the work to say Parker’s earliest solos were severe, astringent, and practically concussive. These qualities are central to the enduring importance of the work.
However, given that Parker has practiced the soprano for hours on end most days for decades, refinements in diction and rhythm were inevitable. The ‘94 solo is one marker of this, the ‘23 solos comprise another. While all of his solos exude a palpable sense of purpose, what distinguishes these from his work in the 70s and 80s is the nature of the purpose. Then, Parker was alone in a vast untouched frontier, faced with the implications of work that melded content and technique – the what and how of it – in an unprecedented manner. His purpose was discovery.
By the mid-90s, Parker had cultivated this new world of sound, embedding the hundreds of hours spent each month each year each decade into each successive solo. As the pitch patterns and the Escher-like interlocking textures evolved over time, one factor remained constant in Parker’s solo music – its reliance on the space in which it is created. What the Warwick chapel provides for Parker, acoustically, is unsurpassed brilliance and clarity, equally captured by both Andy Isham’s recording in ‘94 and Sam Parker’s in ‘23 – every detail shines and is immaculately edged. Parker’s desire to return to the chapel after almost 30 years suggests why the ‘23 solos are, arguably, the most compelling in a multi-disc collection that consistently presents Parker at the height of his powers. Named for the river running through Suffolk, not the author, “Orwell” is especially stunning.
The other three CDs, recorded by Felipe Gomes at Arco Barco in Ramsgate between July 2018 and April 2024, constitute a complementary body of work of equal importance. Without dates for each solo, one can only surmise their chronology – it is likely that “Reality (for Kary Mullis)” was recorded during the beginning of the pandemic – and how earlier pieces may have sparked Parker in one direction or another. With the Warwick solos, there is a clear, illuminating apposition between the two dates. No such guidance is afforded the listener with the Arca Barca solos, which is only a hindrance if one wants to construe a larger statement about Parker and his art during those years. It is sterling work throughout. Regardless, there are enough fleeting resemblances between pieces recorded at Arca Barca to confirm a gestational aspect to Parker’s creative process – more evidence of curing – and its role in the evolution of his diction and rhythm.
Both Eliot and Johnson valued poets who contribute to the common language of their times, perhaps too much so. The advocacy for and cultivation of common languages can be traced through the history of jazz criticism, even though it is the strange new tongues that have propelled the art through the decades. Many of these dialects have been mainstreamed; others remain on the margins. It is a syndrome that is part and parcel of an art form struggling with ever-waning commercial viability, an increasing reliance on institutional support, and metastasizing irrelevancy among youth.
Anyone contemplating this should perhaps look to the example of experimental music’s history of languages that have not proliferated, let alone become common, remaining predominantly if not exclusively associated with their originators. Evan Parker’s is prominent among them. The title of a CD-length solo included in the False Walls collection pretty much tells the tale: “The Path is Made by Walking.” Parker has certainly walked the walk. He remains a pioneer, alone in the vastness he discovered and chronicled. The unity of method and material, of diction and rhythm, of his soprano solos still stands apart, singular, after a half-century. That is why collections from Saxophone Solos to The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc. should be revisited time and again over the years.