Home » Jazz Articles » Jonah Parzen-Johnson
Jazz Articles about Jonah Parzen-Johnson
About Jonah Parzen-Johnson
Instrument: Saxophone, baritone
Jonah Parzen-Johnson: I Try To Remember Where I Come From
by Karl Ackermann
Chicago native and Brooklyn resident Jonah Parzen-Johnson has strong links to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), having studied with that organization's Mwata Bowden. Parzen-Johnson--a co-leader of the Afro-beat ensemble, Zongo Junction--plays the baritone saxophone and analog synthesizers in each of his lofi solo outings, to date. His new album I Try To Remember Where I Come From furthers Parzen-Johnson's exploration of his genre-defying music.A creator of experimental music in a different vein, Parzen-Johnson had ...
Continue ReadingJonah Parzen-Johnson: Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow
.jpg)
by Dave Wayne
In the hands (and minds) of certain artists, self-imposed limitations can actually become fertile ground for creative work- arounds, new strategies, new ways of seeing and hearing things. Multi-instrumentalist Jonah Parzen-Johnson is one such artist. Parzen-Johnson plays baritone saxophone and analog synthesizer simultaneously and spontaneously. No overdubs or studio trickery. As you might imagine, his music is quite distinctive. After listening to Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow, I would say that what Parzen-Johnson is doing is attempting to merge ...
Continue ReadingJonah Parzen-Johnson: Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow
by Dan Bilawsky
Hymn-like melodies, oscillating and quivering sounds, and a mixture of solemnity and adventurousness all inform the solo work of saxophonist Jonah Parzen-Johnson. On Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow, Parzen-Johnson is all by his lonesome with his baritone saxophone and analog synthesizer, creating what could rightly be described as trance spirituals for the modern epoch or, in the words of the man himself, “lo-fi experimental folk music." Parzen-Johnson, a Chicago native who's now based in Brooklyn, was ...
Continue ReadingJonah Parzen-Johnson: Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow
by Karl Ackermann
The young baritone saxophonist Jonah Parzen-Johnson, a Chicago native and Brooklyn resident, has an enviable musical pedigree. With music degrees from NYU and Manhattan School of Music, he also studied under Mwata Bowden, of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and a member of the eclectic (but long defunct) 8 Bold Souls. Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow is Parzen-Johnson's second release following Michiana (Primary Records, 2012)--both solo outings. Parzen-Johnson, while being strongly influenced ...
Continue ReadingStrange Solo Sounds: SK Kakraba and Jonah Parzen-Johnson
by Jakob Baekgaard
Sounds are all around us. Some of them are so familiar that we barely recognize them. Music is a special kind of sound. It puts us in touch with the world or provides an escape from it. Sometimes, music is even able to conjure a world of sound that is hard to imagine. It can be done through artistic manipulation with an already known instrument or, perhaps, a strange instrument is introduced that is like seeing the world with a ...
Continue Reading
