Evan Parker
Evan Parker, born in Bristol in 1944, is a British saxophonist and one of the founders of European free improvisation. He came through the Spontaneous Music Ensemble in the late 1960s and in 1970 started the Incus label with Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. His long partnerships with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens, with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton, and his own Electro-Acoustic Ensemble cover half a century of the music. On soprano saxophone he developed a way of playing that sounds like several musicians at once: circular breathing, multiphonics and streams of overtones that never seem to pause for air, first documented on Saxophone Solos (1975).
Evan Parker, born in Bristol in 1944, is a British saxophonist and one of the founders of European free improvisation. He came through the Spontaneous Music Ensemble in the late 1960s and in 1970 started the Incus label with Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. His long partnerships with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens, with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton, and his own Electro-Acoustic Ensemble cover half a century of the music. On soprano saxophone he developed a way of playing that sounds like several musicians at once: circular breathing, multiphonics and streams of overtones that never seem to pause for air, first documented on Saxophone Solos (1975).
The Music Improvisation Company (LP)
Original 1970 edition on ECM of the landmark first album by the improvisation supergroup with electronics composed of Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Jamier Muir and Hugh Davies, with Christine Jeffrey. Adventurous and essential.
1968-1971 (LP)
Rare original 1976 edition on Incus of the second and last album, with recordings from 1969/70, by the improvisation supergroup with electronics composed of Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Jamier Muir and Hugh Davies.
1968-1971 (LP)
Rare original 1976 edition on Incus of the second and last album, with recordings from 1969/70, by the improvisation supergroup with electronics composed of Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Jamier Muir and Hugh Davies.
Saxophone Solos (LP)
Original 1976 edition on Incus of Parker's essential first solo album.
Poor Isa + Evan Parker/Ingar Zach
Acclaimed Belgian duo Poor Isa (banjoists Ruben Machtelinckx and Frederik Leroux) present their third album, evolving their minimalist style by collaborating with saxophonist Evan Parker and percussionist Ingar Zach. The result is a rich blend of introspective textures and dynamic improvisation.
Insolence
Two masters of free improvisation—Evan Parker and Jean-Marc Foussat—meet live in Insolence. Soprano sax and electronics intertwine in deep, lyrical tension. A vital transgenerational document.
Branches (Live at Cafe OTO)
Tip on sleeves with matte varnish finish. Branches captures the electrifying first meeting of two uncompromising improvisers: Evan Parker, the legendary UK saxophonist and pioneer of multiphonic, trance-state improvisation, and Bill Nace, the American experimentalist known for his radical guitar and taishōgoto explorations. Recorded live at London’s Café OTO on May 25, 2024, this set documents the instant chemistry between two artists who had never played-or even met-before that night.
Nace, clo…
Innocence
1992 release ** "In 1984, Joe Gallivan settled in London and organized the avant-garde big band Soldiers of the Road, featuring Elton Dean, Evan Parker, Marcio Mattos, and, later, Ashley Slater, Paul Rutherford, Jim Dvorak, Claude Deppa, and Guy Barker. This ensemble recorded eight pieces for the BBC, performed often in London including at the London Jazz Festival, and, in 1992, made a critically acclaimed CD, Innocence."
True Live Walnuts
1990 release ** "A classic of '90s avant garde jazz, True Live Walnuts features Italian percussionist Mauro Orselli joined by British saxophonist Evan Parker and keyboardist Antonello Salis for some of the most fascinating free music of recent years. Performing just two pieces live at the Europa Jazz Festival in Noci, Italy, the three bring about an extraordinary union of disparate voices in a coherent whole. Orselli is stupendous on percussion, where he interacts with Parker as a second horn. T…
Improvvisazioni
1995 release ** "This engaging little slab reflects a 1995 recording date between Evan Parker's saxophones, Antonello Salis' piano and accordion, and Mauro Orselli's drums and cymbals. Featuring nine variously timed improvisations, this works simply because of the sheer delight and will of the performers. Here, texture means nothing, tonality means nothing, listening means nothing. The reason for being, the raison d'être, if you will, is simply action and reaction and more action. This is consci…
So It Goes...
*2025 stock* "Barry Guy and I first met and played together in a version of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble in the days of the legendary Little Theatre Club. The late John Stevens, visionary prophet of the coming music was the key figure at the centre of things who brought us together. “So it goes“ – John often used this figure of speech.
I was reminded of this when I was looking through Samuel Beckett’s Collected Letters, hoping to glean some titles, knowing that Barry would be happy with a Beck…
Double Mirror
1996 release ** "Recorded live in 1995, Italian woodwind specialist Stefano Maltese along with fellow countryman, percussionist Antonio Moncada garner the services of modern jazz/improvising superstars pianist Keith Tippett and saxophonist Evan Parker for this engaging affair. Here, some of Italy's finest team with two musicians who respectively helped shape the oft-fabled British free jazz movement for two lengthy improvisational pieces consisting of spurious dialogue, turbulent reinvention, an…
Topos
*2025 stock* When Evan Parker, Barry Guy and percussionist Paul Lytton renewed their association at l’Auditori in Barcelona in March 2006, they chose to call the resulting CD ZAFIRO, or “Sapphire”. The following day, the trio was joined by Catalan pianist Agustí Fernández at the same venue to record the Topos album. The chemistry changes to an almost microscopic world of shifting colours and densities prompted by Fernández’s mercurial articulations of the piano keys and the strings inside the in…
Zafiro
*2025 stock* One live improvisation of over an hour that zips by with the velocity of a three-minute single, Zafiro confirms that one of improvising music’s most enduring partnerships – 25 years and counting – is still a potent and electrifying force. Refining their interaction every time they play together – saxophonist Evan Parker, bassist Barry Guy and percussionist Paul Lytton don’t lack for other gigs, but express instinctive rapport here. Veteran British improvisers, the three use a variet…
Real Time I, II, Bullfighting on Ice
Launching into the new year with some serious heat, the seminal Italian free jazz imprint ICTUS Records returns with their Reissue Series dedicated to archival unreleased gems and back catalogue releases, with three of their most exciting and exhilarating reissues to date: Evan Parker & Andrea Centazzo's "Bullfighting On Ice", and Alvin Curran, Evan Parker, & Andrea Centazzo's “Real Time” and “Real Time Two”. Capturing three of avant-garde music's most visionary voices in rare collaborations at …
Bullfighting on Ice
** Edition of 250 copies, remastered from the original master tapes ** This album is a historical document in several respects: echo of a creative season in its early, vigorous blossoming, it presents groundbreaking music as it was performed and listened to in a moment that now seems very distant, not just chronologically but also in terms of its cultural context. Furthermore, it serves as a testament to the initial opening of the emerging Italian free music scene to Northern European experience…
Real Time Two
** Edition of 250 copies, remastered from the original master tapes ** Recorded live in concert. Rome, Italy December 12-13, 1977 by Nicola Bernardini and at Teatro Comunale, Pistoia, Italy December 14, 1977 by Carla Lugli. "It was a magic evening. Not only did the trio burst with a creative energy that was homogeneous and interactive, but the acoustics, usually inadequate, of the half-empty sports pavilion with a capacity of 10,000 people, gave the music an ethereal transparency and crystalline…
Real Time One
** Edition of 250 copies, remastered from the original master tapes ** Real Time is an extraordinary example of interaction between musicians coming from different worlds of new music. I had the chance to perform with those two great musicians on other occasions: in duo with Alvin Curran and in duo, trio and sextet with Evan Parker. Alvin came from the American school, full of minimalist references, melodic structures and open to all kinds of contamination. Evan had left jazz to accomplish his o…
Mars Song
Evan Parker's soprano and tenor saxophones with the voice of Sainkho Namtchylak, live at the Music Gallery in Toronto on 15 May 1996. Circular-breathed lines against throat singing, overtones and wordless cries.
The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc.
4CDs box set with 120 page book. A monumental box set marking the 80th birthday of one of the most singular voices in improvised music. The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc. collects four CDs of solo soprano and tenor saxophone recordings spanning three decades - from a 1994 session at the Unitarian Chapel in Warwick to performances captured between 2018 and 2024 at Arco Barco in Ramsgate by Filipe Gomes. This is Parker at his most focused and uncompromising, working that extraordinary circular breathi…