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Jeff Parker: Slight Freedom

By Dave Wayne

One is tempted to think of Jeff Parker as the first guitar anti-hero. He's a subtle player, first and foremost, not given to showy pyrotechnics and rapid-fire flights of plectral fancy. His chameleonic, almost self-effacing, presence on recordings by Tortoise, Joey DeFrancesco, Isotope 217, Fred Anderson, the Brian Blade Fellowship, Peter Erskine, Nicole Mitchell, Yo La Tengo, Hamid Drake, Joshua Redman, Scott Amendola, George Lewis and countless others is startling for its sheer stylistic diversity. Yet, Parker, unlike pretty much ...

Jeff Parker: Reinventing Tradition

By Jakob Baekgaard

Is there such a thing as a Chicago sound? Back in the year 2000, a compilation was released that tried to portray a new and exciting musical scene. The album was called Chicago 2018... It's Gonna Change and it highlighted a brilliant mixture of free jazz, electronica, post-rock, art pop and experimental folk music. Of the eighteen different projects on the album, guitarist Jeff Parker was involved in four: Toe 2000, Tricolor, Isotope 217 and Tortoise and one could have ...

Jeff Parker: The New Breed

By Jakob Baekgaard

There are certain artists that you know you can always count on. Whenever they are involved in something, at least it is going to be interesting and often it will be great. Guitarist Jeff Parker is one of those artists. It has been an undivided pleasure following Parker through his many constellations, whether it is Isotope 217, Tricolor, Chicago Underground, Brian Blade Fellowship, Makaya McCraven or Tortoise, just to name a few. However, Parker has also carved ...

Jeff Parker: Bright Light in Winter

By Hrayr Attarian

Chicago-based guitarist Jeff Parker has cut his proverbial teeth with the Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and remains an active member of that group. His own work is very much in the spirit of the AACM's musical philosophy, but enhanced by his unique vision that draws from all sources of improvised music including but not limited to jazz. His third release as a leader, Bright Light in Winter, finds the guitarist in a lean setting ...

A Fireside Chat with Jeff Parker

By AAJ Staff

[This interview updates last year's Fireside Chat with Chicago guitarist Jeff Parker.]

All About Jazz: You reunited with Scott Fields for Song Songs Song.

Jeff Parker: I first played with him on this double trio project that he had called Dénouement that came out on his label, Geode, in 1998. It was with myself and him on guitars, Jason Roebke and Hans Sturm on string basses, and Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang on drums. ...

Jeff Parker: The Relatives

By Rex Butters

Jeff Parker's second session as a leader, The Relatives, surprises by taking easygoing mainstream flavors and, stirring with spice, manages to honor the forms while tweaking them. Parker's regular rhythm section, Chris Lopes on bass and NY-Chicago drum machine Chad Taylor on percussion, keep the momentum crisp. Parker's earnest and deliberate delivery plays off space, often adding the right pinch of Grant Green.

Frothy wah-wahed chords yawn through Taylor's brushed cymbals on “Istanbul. Parker winds a wiry line around the ...

Jeff Parker/Scott Fields: Song Songs Song

By Budd Kopman

Although we are told that first impressions are usually correct (the “go with your gut" approach), the liner notes for this release nearly derailed my enjoyment of the music. The notes, such as they are, were written by Fields and consist of a stream-of-consciousness collection of words and phrases in a postmodern style full of in-jokes and self-references, but also a lot of information if you stay with them (including a somewhat snide reference to Kali Fasteau , who does ...

Jeff Parker/Kevin Drumm/Michael Zerang: Out Trios Volume Two

By John Kelman

When the most striking thing about an album is the packaging, you know you're in trouble. Music, at its best, should draw on a broad palette of colours, rather than being something that is starkly black and white, with nary the slightest shading of grey. Guitarists Jeff Parker and Kevin Drumm team up with percussionist Michael Zerang for Out Trios Volume Two , an album where the greatest variation in colour, for the most part, is found on the cover ...

A Fireside Chat with Jeff Parker

By AAJ Staff

It is not always necessary to classify things. Sure, it makes it easy for the consumer in all of us to be able to find or relate to something if it is referred to as a four letter word, “jazz," “blues," or “rock," but does that mean Elvis, the proposed “king" of rock, has anything remotely to do with the Velvet Underground, also found under the “rock" section? And following such logic, does 'The Godfather' (found under dramas) have anything ...

Jeff Parker: Like-Coping

By Mark Corroto

Guitarist Jeff Parker presents what, for lack of a better term, is the new ‘Midwest cool.’ On his first release as a leader (besides the hard to find Vega on the French label Marge), he plays with an authenticity that could be mistaken for intellectualism.

His brand of enlightened swing has strengthened the recordings of bands such as Tortoise, Isotope 217, Tricolor, Aesop Quartet, and the various incarnations of the Chicago Underground. Cognizant of the jazz guitar ...