Frontpage Mag
Evan Parker has committed wrong think.
The English saxophonist Evan Parker turns 78 on Tuesday, April 5, and if artistic exploration and innovation were rewarded, he would be feted worldwide. Like Anthony Braxton, Parker has taken the jazz tradition to the outer limits of what constitutes jazz and even what constitutes music. In his prolific fifty-plus years of recording, Parker has established himself as one of the most original, most challenging, and indeed, most rewarding musicians on the contemporary scene. His music is never background music, and he has hardly ever even worked with conventional forms, preferring the rewards of artistic integrity to those of widespread popular acclaim. But after a lifetime of being on the avant-garde of the avant-garde and winning respect for his unflinching commitment to his art, Parker is getting heat even from those who have celebrated his work in the past. Evan Parker has committed wrong think.
Even people who have never heard of Evan Parker and wouldnât care for his music should note the ominous precedent that was embedded within the Washington Postâs review of his latest album, Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) with the Natural Information Society, a group of far-out jazzmen from Chicago. The Postâs popular music (a category in which the master saxophonist defiantly does not belong) critic, Chris Richards, was full of praise for âthe tenacious British saxophonist Evan Parker,â and said that the album âfelt responsive, propulsive and alive.â However: âParker is 77, musically collegial, but a covid-19 denier.â
