Jeff Parker // Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy 2xLP / 2xCD

American jazz player Jeff Parker, who was also a Tortoise guitarist, released an album in October 2022 from the Belgian experimental label Aguirre.

Recorded live at a bar called ETA (named after David Foster Wallace) in LA's Highland Park, it features four long-form improvised jazz tracks performed with drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss and alto saxophonist Josh Johnson.It is out of print.

West Coast live double-disc records such as Lee Morgan's "Live at the Lighthouse," Miles Davis' "In Person Friday & Saturday Night at the Blackhawk, San Francisco & Black Beauty," and John Coltrane's "Live in Seattle." I feel homage.

Labels and other worksplease use this form. ///Click here to see more Aguirre releases available at Tobira.

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Aguirre:

" Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy, x2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv by acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet. Recorded live at ETA (referencing David Foster Wallace), a bar in LA's Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depth-full & exploratory music making. 

Gleaned for the stoniest side-length cuts from 10+ hours of vivid two-track recordings made between 2019 & 2021 by Bryce Gonzales, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy is a darkly glowing séance of an album, brimming over with the hypnotic, the melodic, & patience & grace in its own beautiful strangeness. Room-tone, electric fields, environment, ceiling echo, live recording, Mondays, Los Angeles. Jeff Parker's first double album & first live album, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy belongs in the lineage of such canonical live double albums recorded on the West Coast as Lee Morgan  Live at the Lighthouse, Miles Davis' In Person Friday & Saturday Night at the Blackhawk, San Francisco & Black Beauty, & John Coltrane's Live in Seattle. 

A fundamental of all great ensembles, whether basketball teams or bands, is the ability of each member to move fluidly & fluently in & out of lead & supportive roles. Building on the communicative pathways they've established in Parker's -The New Breed- project, Parker & Johnson maintain a constant dialogue of lead & support. Their sampled & looped phrases move continuously thru the music, layered & alive, adding depth & texture & pattern, evoking birds in formation, sea creatures drifting below the photic zone. , the two musicians simulate those processes by entwining their terse, clear-lined playing in real-time.

The stop/start flow of Bellerose, too, simulates the sampler, recalling drum parts in Parker's beat-driven projects. Mostly Bellerose's animated phraseologies deliver the inimitable instantaneous feel of live creative drumming. of drums & shakers —as distinctive a sonic signature as we have in contemporary acoustic drumming— bring almost folkloric qualities to the aesthetic currency of the IVtet's language. A wonderful revelation in this band is the playing of Anna Butterss. with which she navigates the bass position both ground & lift upward the egalitarian group sound. As the IVtet's grooves flow & clip, loop & repeat, the ensemble elements reconfigure, a terrarium of musical cultivation under controlled variables, a tight experiment of harmony & Intuition, deep focus & freedom.

Artist: Jeff Parker

Label: Aguirre