Slight Freedom (Eremite Records)
Jeff Parker
Released October 25, 2016
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
New York Times Best Albums 2016
NPR Top Ten Solo Guitar Records of 2016
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About:
Slight Freedom, Jeff Parker’s first ever solo record, presents the first opportunity to hear the guitarist in fully self-revealed circumstances. recorded 2013 & ’14 in the Hollywood hills as he relocated from Chicago to Los Angeles, Parker combines the dark tonal palette & percussive attack he’s long been known for with real-time processing elements & field recordings, deftly crafting a unique world of solo guitar music –multilingual, mysterious, alive with extraordinary sonic events, with a sturdy intelligence in charge & a raw homestyle vibe. The record is yet another defining moment for Parker in 2016, a year that already includes a brilliant ensemble album (The New Breed) & Tortoise’s 25th anniversary tour & record (The Catastrophist).
Parker’s title composition sets the album’s cavernous mood. Terse lines & ricocheting loops morph into a gnarly ambient section that resembles Neil Young droning out over a vg+ copy of discreet music. Parker creates a different sort of ambient space in his take on Frank Ocean’s ‘super rich kids,’ bending the melody around a bossa nova rhythm into a moodsville tone poem. Parker makes an extraordinary long-form statement out of Chad Taylor’s ‘Mainz,’ a piece he first recorded with Taylor & Chris Lopes on the album Bright Light in Winter. Twice the length of the trio recording, the multi-layered soliloquy finds Parker leaping from the high rung to damn near orchestral heights, pushing his techniques & concepts to their breaking points. It’s one of the great solo performances you’ll hear from a musician this year. To say “Lush Life” comes with formidable baggage is an understatement. Parker achieves instant classic status with a rendition that sounds beamed-in from a decommissioned satellite – burned out, covered in space grit, yet still formally nuanced & beautifully reflective of strayhorn’s world-weary lyrics.
Twenty years into the game it’s a joy for Eremite to present work by an artist who’s clearly taking his music to the next level.
Track Listing:
1. Slight Freedom 11:34
2. Super Rich Kids 05:08
3. Mainz 12:19
4. Lush Life 08:18
Personnel:
Jeff Parker: electric guitar, effects, samplers
Recorded 2013 & 2014, Hollywood
Producers: Parker & Michael Ehlers
Engineers: Ehlers, Emmett Kelly, Griffin Rodriguez
Mastering: Helge Sten
Photography: Mikel Avery
Screenprinting: Alan Sherry
Review:
Jeff Parker is an inveterate collaborator who seems to relish opportunities to realize other musicians’ ideas. Consider the guitarist’s work with Rob Mazurek, Makaya McCraven, Fred Anderson, and the instrumental quintet Tortoise; in all of these settings he has found ways to make the ensemble sound bigger and more eventful without demanding the spotlight. So 2016 is a remarkable time for him, since it’s the year that he released two solo albums. The first, The New Breed, was named after a clothing shop that his dad ran, which says a lot about the priorities and experiences that informed that album. Not only did it feature hip-hop-influenced grooves and compact melodies that Parker could play for the whole family; his daughter Ruby closed the record with a vocal turn. Slight Freedom presents the more adventurous side of Parker’s playing, but it is rooted in the same African-American pop lineage. The title track starts with an echoing figure that is close kin to the O’Jays’ “For The Love Of Money,” only to patiently morph into a liquid ambient reverie; on “Super Rich Kids,” he re-contextualizes a Frank Ocean theme by subverting the original’s airtight production. On the other side of the LP, Parker uses delays to fashion an elaborate yet uncluttered interpretation of “Mainz,” which was written by former Chicagoan Chad Taylor. The LP closes with a return to aquatic motion in the form of a drifting yet exquisitely constructed rendition of “Lush Life.” Parker dials back both bitterness and sweetness in order to isolate the composition’s implications of memory.
Bill Meyer (DownBeat)
