Boustrophedon presents Evan Parker as composer and conductor, a role found nowhere else in his discography. He leads the fourteen-piece Transatlantic Art Ensemble through an eight-part suite that moves into chamber orchestral territory, which Parker placed "somewhere between Gil Evans and Luigi Nono". It is the companion to the ensemble's recording of Roscoe Mitchell's Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3, issued by ECM in 2007.
The ensemble began with a symposium on improvisation in composition. In 2003 the Kulturreferat in Munich asked ECM about suitable musicians, and Parker and Mitchell were commissioned to write for a group they chose together. They drew on Mitchell's Note Factory and Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Alongside the two saxophonists are pianist Craig Taborn, bassist Barry Guy, drummer Paul Lytton. The rest of the ensemble adds a third saxophone, a second bass and drums, flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, viola and cello. The concert was recorded in September 2004 at the Muffathalle in Munich and mixed in September 2007 in Udine. Steve Lake produced it and wrote the liner notes.
The title refers to ancient writing in which lines ran left to right and then right to left, as a plough turns at the end of each furrow. The suite runs from an Overture through six Furrows to a Finale, with nods to Samuel Beckett and Nicolas Slonimsky. Taborn opens in a delicate atmosphere, and long passages of string improvising give way to propulsive rhythms and coloured brass and woodwind writing. Near the end Parker and Mitchell follow each other in the climactic solos, with improvisers chasing each other through cadenzas.
In DownBeat, Bill Meyer wrote that the record goes "a long way toward reconciling contemporary jazz and classical music without selling either short". Reviewing it for The Guardian in April 2008, John Fordham called it "a triumph for Parker, who's known a few in his revolutionary career". Mike Hobart of the Financial Times heard jazz and folk elements to the fore, with bucolic flute and Taborn's spindly piano set against orchestral slabs. The companion Mitchell disc had been named an album of the year by the French magazine Jazzman.
CD, ECM 1873, first released on 12 February 2008.
