Evan Parker
Evan Parker
Evan Shaw Parkeris a British free-improvising saxophone player from the European free jazz scene...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionSaxophonist
Date of Birth5 April 1944
method improvisation
Improvisation is a compositional method.
four sound horns
Remarkable only the very best arrangers can get a sound like that from four horns
player roots records
My roots are in my record player.
philosophy weakness combination
You know, the whole philosophy of ad hoc combinations has its strengths and its weaknesses.
inspiration jazz study
We all listened to a lot of recorded music, especially American jazz, modern jazz, and that's where our studies were and our inspiration came from.
synthesis elements kind
A kind of synthesis, but with some elements that perhaps you wouldn't have expected in advance. I always like that when that happens, when something comes that is more than the sum of the parts.
thinking way performances
If I think about the way I was drawn into the music, it was much more by recordings than by live performances.
thinking voice lines
I've never been one that thinks that the function of an instrument is to approach the purity of voice or the structure of a beautifully sung line.
order long elements
In a certain sense, aspects of my solo playing were developed in order to test the theory about how long particular elements could be, as parts of so-called free improvisations.
people scene bigger
Of course when people are as talented as Jim O'Rourke or Gene Coleman, pretty soon you know that they're going to be part of the bigger scene anyway.
unique saxophone possibility
So I'm looking to the saxophone as a resource which has its own unique set of possibilities. I'm looking to exploit them and develop them and have the fullest range of possibilities of the saxophone be known.
summer firsts pivotal-moments
So in the sense that we were all dealing with that freer approach, yes, it was certainly one of the first contacts, perhaps the first contact, when Peter came that summer. So it's a very pivotal moment that is documented there.
men today young
I didn't get where I am today by being timid, young man.
music mean thinking
I think the whole question of meaning in music is difficult enough even if you hear me playing live right now in the same room! What I mean and what you take from it may be two quite different things anyway.