Jeff Parker - Master Guitarist

Photo by Jeff Newberry

 

The last time I met up with Jeff Parker was 2017, when he came to town with Tortoise, the long-standing Chicago group that had the corner on the term "post-rock," due to their vast, swirling sound. After their soundcheck, Parker and I settled into the group's tour bus for a Before & After listening test and talk for JazzTimes magazine. 

Towards the end of meeting, he casually described himself as a "frustrated bebop guitar," which at the time seemed like a modest, somewhat self-deprecating comment that hinted that some deeper style lurked underneath his own work. The former quality comes to mind because Parker has chops to spare, straddling a strong melodic sense with a knack for effects that expand his sound. But a listen to his work with the New Breed (New Breed, Suite for Max Brown) travels to places far beyond the realm of bebop.

One interesting quality to both albums is the way Parker combines elements that shift around the beat but still work. In addition to jazz and modern rock, he also has an affinity for beat making and loops, as a fan of artists like the late J Dilla. The beat that opens "Executive Life" on The New Breed has a hiccup to it but it still keeps the flow going. "Build a Nest," which kicks of Max Brown, has vocals from his daughter Ruby, also feels a little off-center but in a way that adds to the music. 

Along with those album, the prolific guitarist also released For Folks in 2021, a solo recital that includes lyrical versions of the standard "My Ideal" and Thelonious Monk's deep cut waltz "Ugly Beauty" along with original works. The double LP Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy (Eremite, 2022) consists of four side long improvisations in a quartet with drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson. Sometimes spare, sometimes repetitive thanks to loops, the mood often creates a trance. 

In thinking about all of these releases and the variety between them, it becomes clear that Parker ought to bring an exciting element to Saturday's Pitt Jazz Concert, which is helmed by his longtime friend drummer Chad Taylor at the University of Pittsburgh (click here to read my talk with Taylor).

Parker and I caught up last week by phone. Still a resident of Los Angeles, he was working in New Orleans at the time.

What's happening in New Orleans?

There was a Tortoise show a couple days ago. I also had a trio gig with bassist James Singleton and Quin Kirchner, the drummer from Chicago. Then I'm playing a duo gig tonight. Kind of a duo show, with a singer named Gabrielle Cavassa. Joshua Redman is going to play a few tunes with us too.

Kind of all over the place!

The way I like it.

The last time you and I talked, about five years ago, when you were here with Tortoise. One of the things you said at the end was you described yourself as a "frustrated bebop guitar player." It's funny because I was listening to Suite for Max Brown and didn't get a sense of that. But I'm just wondering, with albums like that and all that you do, is there a string connecting it to bebop?

Yeah, of course. I mean, I find that whole era of music inspiring. The ideas that those guys were dealing with were so advanced. It was progressive. That's the thing that I really get from it. Not just tangibly what's happening in the music, but what's behind it, in terms of dealing with ideas. And they're advanced. And moving the music forward. I call myself a frustrated bebop player because that music is difficult to play. Well you know, man, what's the point of me presenting myself as an artist, as someone who is in this revisionist role? I'm trying to make my own music. I mean, I'm not like a bebop guitar player. I'm a musician. I'm a composer. I think compositionally. If you analyze some of my music, you can definitely hear that in the harmony and maybe in some of the counterpoint stuff. But I'm not trying to play music that somebody was making 80, 90 years ago at this point.

It's interesting when you think about that music too because back when Charlie Parker or Fats Navarro were playing, it was a risk to play that. But they were playing what they feel. Listening again to the Suite for Max Brown, how much of that was creating in the studio vs. live playing?

Most of it. Almost all of it. Part of it was by the time and also out of necessity. Because just scheduling couldn't work out. So I would have musicians come by my place here and there, and they recorded what they can. The way I even deal with the New Breed music, that's what it is: me, stitching together musical ideas to make it into a tapestry. Conceptually, that's what it is. It's me dealing with samples and beats. My interest is in production, using the studio to make this kind of work that's based more in sonics and how it captures and exploits that space. 

When you're putting stuff together do you have a pretty good idea of what you want, going in, or do you give yourself a clean slate and see where it goes?

Definitely the latter. It's very experimental. A lot of times I might just have an idea that's more of a blueprint and the music might come out of something I want to experiment with, in a general sense. Then the music comes out of that, as opposed to the other way around. 

That can keep it exciting too. It's a discovery for the listener, but you get to be the listener as it takes shape too. How much of a chance do you get to play that stuff live? When the albums came out, did you get to perform those tracks?

Yeah. We toured. That album came out right before lockdown. Luckily we were able to get in about a week or 10 days worth of touring. And when we were touring, the country was closing up behind us. That tour was the last thing a lot of people saw before we were locked down for a year and a half.

We played it some, and still do. The New Breed band played at the Chicago Jazz Festival in late August. And we've been doing sporadic things. We played the Wexler Center in Columbus. We played a show at the University of Iowa.

When we play it live, it's different. That's one of the things I deal with. I'll have us improvising to music that I've recorded, that's on a grid. The improvising makes it sound more organic. When we perform it live, rather than play to a grid, I'll have whoever is in the drum chair triggering drum samples, so they can improvise with the samples material. Whereas in the studio, it's opposite way.

That's what I was wondering: how do you approach it live - recreating it vs. expanding on it.

At the end of the day. it is improvised music. It's an improvised process. that's what I'm doing. You know, most composition - I probably speak for most musicians in all kinds of music - comes from improvising. Wherever musical ideas come from. The composer sits down at their chosen instrument and they start to experiment with ideas until they come up with something that's tangible enough to work its way into being documented. New Breed records are for sure, that's what's behind them. When we play it live, I try to keep that spirit - that, as musicians, we can express ourselves within this constructed framework. 

Another thing I just listened to was the Monday Nights at the Enfield Tennis Academy. How does that group compare to the New Breed?

It's pretty different. But similar, you know? Because I had a residency with that group on most Mondays for a few years, until people got crazy busy. Now we hardly play at all. But for a while we started out just playing standards. Then we settled into this way of improvising. After we'd been playing almost every week for a few years, the improvising was very deliberate. It involved us introducing new ideas and sticking with them. Over a long period of time, these improvisations would develop. 

I was just talking to someone about this yesterday. It's not random. We're improvising but it's very deliberate in what we're doing. I can tie it directly with my other work. It's based in stagnant movement like looped drums and stagnant activity. Then, kind of using that concept to improvise with. And it's deliberate. It took us [time in] developing this musical relationship. We never talk about it. But it's an area that everyone in the band was interested in exploring.  

You mean, the loops are steady and you use that as a foundation to improvise off of that?

Yeah. Off of the idea. It doesn't have to be like that. We don't talk about it. But you can tell by what everybody is, how we're communicating with one another, that's the thing that everyone is thinking about. 

A couple things stuck out to me. It shows that you don't have to play a lot to be effective. Sometimes the bass and the drums might be kind of spare but it works. It's what the situation calls for. 

Yeah. Exactly.

The other thing is, with the loops going, it creates kind of a trance that carries it too. Personally, sometimes the loops can be a bit too much, but after awhile when you get used to  them, you realize it's not about what you think. Just let it take you somewhere.

That's what it's like to make beats. That's where a lot of the concept came from. I don't know if you heard the first New Breed album. That one came more directly out of my making beats - me being inspired by [J] Dilla and DJ Premiere, Pete Rock and my heroes [like] Mad Lib. My heroes in hip hop, producers and experimenting in that medium. And adding that to whatever musical ideas I was having. 

When you're making beats - dealing with samples and then the production mode - you just listen to a loop. Man, you can listen to it for hours. You're tweaking it and making little changes. You get into this zone. It's very solitary and it's very much about the way music sounds. You get into this repetition thing. It's a unique way to compose music. A lot of the New Breed music, and you know, the way we do the improvising with the ETA quartet ... and my solo guitar stuff. It's all very much based in, I don't know. trying to invite people into my world. And have them feel what that feels like. Get into the space of this music, which puts you in this meditative space. 

Any thing you wanted to talk about? New releases?

I have a new album coming out on International Anthem/Nonesuch of the ETA quartet. They just announced it. The release date is November 22. It's called The Way Out of Easy. It's that ETA quartet, another live recording. I think it was January 2, 2023. It's a double album, four long tunes. There's one composition that I wrote, the rest are improvisations. 

In addition to the concert on Saturday, Nov. 2 at Bellefield Hall, the afternoon will feature three free seminars. 1 p.m. - trumpeter Ingrid Jensen; 2 pm. - bassist Reggie Workman; 3 p.m. - Chad Taylor. These seminars take place in the Frick Fine Arts Building, 650 Schenley Drive.
At 3 p.m. tenor saxophonist Brian Settles and vocalist Jessica Boykin-Settles will be at the Afro-American Music Institute, 7131 Hamilton Ave., Homewood.

The concert takes place at 8 p.m. $20.