LJN tributes to octogenarian Evan Parker on his 80th birthday

[Serial_Apologist]

Colleagues', collaborators', promoters' and writers' tributes -

http://londonjazznews.com/2024/04/05/happy-birthday-evan-parker-at-80/

[smittims]

It's always a surprise to discover how old someone is. I still think of Evan Parker as I saw him performing in Manchester c.1976. I'm glad to hear that, unlike so many other musicians, he is still alive and kicking.

[anorak]

I have to thank the old BBC radio programme Jazz Today, presented by Charles Fox, for introducing me to Evan Parker's work in the mid-1970s. I think it was a session of Evan with Derek Bailey and John Stevens. I suppose it was quite a bold thing to play radical free improvisation on a jazz show.

[Jazzrook]

Evan Parker with Alex Von Schlippenbach & Paul Lytton at Tonic, NYC, April 20, 2003:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=G9JtAljhBi8

& interview with Evan:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=jUraho8X5eA

JR

[anorak]

Evan Parker with Alex Von Schlippenbach & Paul Lytton at Tonic, NYC, April 20, 2003:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=G9JtAljhBi8

& interview with Evan:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=jUraho8X5eA

JR

Thanks for those uploads. At the end of the interview with Evan he says he's good at finding people with the right chemistry to improvise together. That approach is completely different to what his former improvising partner, Derek Bailey, liked to do. Derek's Company Week performances often brought together musicians who had never worked together before, who came from different musical genres, and who had not improvised much or at all. Derek seemed to prefer the challenge of having to work though difficulties that would inevitably arise.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for those uploads. At the end of the interview with Evan he says he's good at finding people with the right chemistry to improvise together. That approach is completely different to what his former improvising partner, Derek Bailey, liked to do. Derek's Company Week performances often brought together musicians who had never worked together before, who came from different musical genres, and who had not improvised much or at all. Derek seemed to prefer the challenge of having to work though difficulties that would inevitably arise.

I would think Derek's approach to different genres or culturally-defined inputs to have been totally relativistic, inasmuch as not seeing any one as better or superior to any other. The assumption one might draw is that in an attempted atmosphere of total openness the opportunities for transcending culturally-implanted normative prejudices would be strengthening for the individual and community, thus highlighting the sources of division and injustice to be other than the individual, something for political empowerment to overcome, though I dare say Derek would not have put it quite this way. This holds interesting ramifications for any musical culture.