Jeff Parker

Jeff Parker (b. Bridgeport, Connecticut USA) is a guitarist, composer/arranger/producer and educator.

A longtime member of the influential indie-band Tortoise, Parker is recognized as one of contemporary music’s most versatile and innovative electric guitarists and composers. With a prolific output characterized by musical ideas of angularity and logic, he works in a wide variety of mediums - from pop, rock and jazz to new music—using ideas informed by innovations and trends in both popular and experimental forms. He creates works that explore and exploit the contrary relationships between tradition and technology, improvisation and composition, and the familiar and the abstract.

His sonic palette may employ techniques from sample-based technologies, analog and digital synthesis, and conventional and extended techniques from over 35 years of playing the guitar.

An integral part of what has become known as “The Modern Chicago Sound" he is also a founding member of the critically acclaimed and innovative groups Isotope 217˚ and Chicago Underground, and has been an associate member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1995. A look at his work as a sideman offers a glimpse into Mr. Parker’s diversity. This list includes: Andrew Bird, The Ex, Joshua Redman, Toumani Diabate, Nicole Mitchell, Yo La Tengo, Daniel Lanois, Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band, Jason Moran, Matana Roberts, Joey DeFrancesco, Nels Cline, Charles Earland, Ken Vandermark, Dave Douglas, Fred Anderson, Tom Zé, and Meshell Ndegeocello. Parker has released several albums as a leader, all to critical acclaim, including: Like-Coping (2001), The Relatives (2004) and Bright Light In Winter (2012). Currently, he has been focusing on music production, small ensembles and solo performance – to cultivate and establish an idiosyncratic relationship between electronic and acoustic compositional properties in music. The coming months will see new releases from Parker in the forms of an album of solo guitar, Eno-inspired ambient duo music with famed cornetist Rob Mazurek, an album that features his long-time (and mostly undocumented) interest in hip-hop production and sample-based music (blended with orchestration and improvisation), and a long-awaited new album from Tortoise.

Read more

Somehow, Jeff Parker manages flow through all these incarnations without copping a dilettante's superficiality. He applies the same depth of musicality and keen ear for quality to everything he does, which is part of what has made him one of the most sought-out musicians in the Windy City. Another part of that appeal, it must be said, is Parker's immense generosity and warm humility, the latter of which perhaps explains why he's only made one other CD as a "leader," the acclaimed trio outing Like Coping, released on Delmark in 2003.

Founded in 1995, The Relatives is a quartet of like-minded musicians drawn from the Chicago Underground Orchestra. Parker's been working with bassist Chris Lopes since college days, when they were at Berklee together in Boston in the mid-80s. Drummer Chad Taylor, who recently moved back to New York after a fruitful period in Chicago, has been a colleague of Parker's since just after the guitarist moved to Chicago in 1991. The newest comrade, Sam Barsheshet, who plays electric piano on the record, sat in on a gig with Parker in 2002. "I enjoyed his playing and open conception," says Parker.

Parker says this session, which was waxed in January, 2004 at SOMA and engineered by John McEntire, is "more 'song-oriented' than the previous album, and less of a jazz-oriented 'blowing date.'" It includes original compositions by Taylor ("Istanbul") and Lopes ("Sea Change," "Bean Stalk,""Toy Boat"). Parker's own compositional contributions include "Mannerisms," a piece that's become a local standard, prized by various groups - Chicago Underground Quartet, Ted Sirota's Rebel Souls - for its sinuous, groovy lines. "Rang (for Michael Zerang)" is a piece written by Parker for his friend and colleague, percussionist Michael Zerang. "It was written when we were both on a tour of France with the Vega Trio, right at the start of the Iraq War."

"The Relative" was composed by Parker and bassist Matthew Lux, with whom the guitarist worked in Isotope 217, the band for whom it was originally conceived. "I decided to revive it for this recording," says Parker. "I composed the bulk of the tune, but the weird, twisty bassline that roots the intro and outro was composed by Matt Lux. The first two-and-a-half minutes of the tune are my attempt at demonstrating an abstraction of my perception of Relativity, which essentially means that as one moves in space, one's perception of said space is altered by one's movement. I tried to aurally capture this by having everyone perform various repeating figures on different tracks that start at one tempo, then ramp up or down to another tempo, and end together at the original tempo."

The CD's one non-original is a gorgeous reworking of Marvin Gaye's "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You," on which Barsheshet shines particularly brightly. "I've always embraced the feelings of melancholy that I experience when I listen to the original version of this song," says Parker. "I thought it would be a challenge to try and capture some of that spirit in a swinging, but slightly abstract version of the tune, which is, essentially, how I perceive the original version to be. The premise was to have the band improvise over the form of the tune, and then I overdubbed the guitar melody (with embellishments) over top of it. I was trying to get a vibe like some of the great jazz recordings from the 70s when they actually used to play good jazz on commercial radio and people dug it."

Of the group and CD's name, Parker returns to his Einsteinian explanation: "The Relatives refers to the notion of a community (in this instance a community of musicians) functioning much like a family does, and also the abstraction of Relativity, which implies that as one moves, one's perspective changes along with one's movements. Since we're always moving, we're always changing."

Always moving, always changing. Good thoughts for this polyglot poster-child. —>

Source: John Corbett