Evan Parker - Two nights @ The Stone

[Steve Reynolds]

very fortunate that I was able to attend Wed & Friday night - and very happy that my wife joined me for BOTH nights which was unexpected.

Soem of this has been posted elsewhere but I wanted to add a few thoughts for this board if there is anyone interested.

Wed night:

Evan Parker, John Escreet, John Hebert and Tyshawn Sorey

Duets first set ending with a appetite enducing short quartet piece. Since they knew this quartet peice would be short - maybe it ended up being around 7 to 8 minutes, the *band* hit their stride very quickly for this sort of music and was very intense and inspired for such a short piece played by a quartet that had never played together before.

Evan stuck to tenor saxophone for the first set.

Highlights of the duets was Hebert with Sorey - which followed the opening Escreet Parker duet. Then the duet was Parker with Hebert and then a stunning duet with Escreet and Sorey followed by a very intense drum-tenor improvisation which featured Evan really starting to warm up.

Second set a mind blowing awe inducing 50 minute performance by the quartet ranging from very quiet passages to intensity unseen in other musical worlds.

Very very glad I overcame my little cold and irritation to experience brilliance from all four musicians with the giant of the saxophone in absolute prime life changing wall melting form.

Biggest surprise was how great the drummer was. With just a snare and the bass drum with cymbals. Like he had played with Evan for years. Also glad that my wife at the last minute decided to go so she could experience seeing the legendary saxophonist for the first time

After the show Evan thanked the group for allowing him to join them.

Will not forget this show ever.

Friday night:

the second set Evan with Sylvie Courvoisier - was one of the singular nights of improvisation in the history of such things.

Half way through the second set Evan picks up the straight horn and it goes - thin to the thickest rich circular breathing excursion that exists in this world. Sylvie gets in through the inside of the piano and by the time the 20 minute piece ends, Evan pinched, finessed the tiniest and most direct and precise sounds out if that horn.

Best I've ever heard him. And that pianist.....Lordy Lordy

And my wife loved it so for those not ready, give yourself a break and listen


My wife asks me. Do they prepare? How do they know what to play?

Well we all will never know.

Evan was almost Ben Webster at the end if the first set and then he is beyond Evan or Trane on the tenor during other portions effortlessly going from circular to that shit he plays that is unplayable by all other tenor players and its all of a piece. And the second set he plays 50 minutes straight except for a two minute coda by the pianist half way through the four piece set. And yet none of it is for show. Extreme intensity and energy levels beyond fucking realistic.

How do they prepare?

Music played like this is prepared through a lifetime. Life lived. Wisdom through dedication and love.

Btw Mat was gorgeous with no pick up and just enough of his sound came through. No ego yet no deference to great man - just respect and beauty.

[Tom Storer]

Love your reviews, Steve. I would have liked to have seen this. Tyshawn Sorey is quite a phenomenon--the first time I saw him was with Steve Coleman and a rapper, and I was underwhelmed by the project. The second was Sorey's own group, including Escreet, Taylor Ho Bynum, a young tenor player whose name I don't recall... and I think a fifth player. Anyway, it was something. I have a couple of his CDs, including his first, "That/Not," that includes a long, solo piano composition performed by one Corey Smythe that is in the Morton Feldman ballpark and is a favorite of mine.

[Steve Reynolds]

I had seen Sorey with a very stale Michelle Rosewoman band a few years back, I think and he was playing in a kinda funkish straightish way that was doing nothing for me.

So I kinda crossed him off my list as far as drummers to look to see that are in interesting bands.

So I go there on Wed wondering what the hell I'm gonna hear and see.

So it starts out with him and Hebert in duo setting and he starts by blowing air through red plastic tubes towards the snare drum and it was cooll - and then he starts swinging without even hitting anything and when he does, he's singing, grunting and within 5 minutes I'm ALL in...and all he had was a snare, a bass drums and cymbals -and he did play his wallet on the snare for a bit!!

[bluenoter]

Amen, Preacher! But "Mat"? Edit: Oh, in the first set at the Stone on Friday---Mat, Lucian Ban, and Evan Parker. But of course!

Btw Mat was gorgeous with no pick up and just enough of his sound came through. No ego yet no deference to great man - just respect and beauty.

[Mike Schwartz]

Saw Hebert at Monterey Friday with Uri Caine

two words....bad_ass!!

[Steve Reynolds]

Saw Hebert at Monterey Friday with Uri Caine

two words....bad_ass!!

First time I saw Hebert a few years ago was with a group playing Mingus music with Tim Berne, Taylor Ho Bynum, Fred Hersch and Ches Smith. And for me he selected mostly later, slower pieces (like Duke Ellington's Sound of Love) and it was nice and he played nice, so like Sorey, I thought maybe that was all there was. A few higs that I had seen him inlcuding his own band @ William Paterson in Wayne near where I live, again it was good but he was somewhat restrained for my tastes - as was the band that day.

but last week in a free improvisational context, he really showed another side of himself to me - although by now I had already heard more on a few recordings and also in a couple of other more intense bands. I imagine that Uri Caine trio had some very high energy passages and Hebert can swing and groove with the best of them - in fact it almost seemed like a groove last week even when it really wasn't - and he played so intensley towards the end with the bow that the bow strings tore right off!

Plus he is the nicest guy anyone would want to meet - I told both him and Gerald Cleaver (a week or so ago) that Searching for Adam (with Rodrigo Amado, Bynum, Hebert and Cleaver) is one of the best recordings I've heard over the past couple of years - they BOTH agreed it was a great session.

[7/4]

Thanks for the reviews, too bad I can't make any shows these days. Short on funds, short on time. I would have been grateful to make any of the Evan Parker concerts.

[Tom Storer]

I've seen Hebert a few times and always loved him. Especially in Andrew Hill's last band.

[Tom Storer]

Hey, Steve--Tyshawn Sorey just posted this an hour ago on Facebook:

"w/ Evan Parker, John Escreet, and John Hebert. We're making a record today. Thrilled, to say the least!"