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Jeff Parker

Jeff Parker (b. Bridgeport, Connecticut USA) is a guitarist, composer/arranger/producer and educator.

A longtime member of the influential indie-band Tortoise, Parker is recognized as one of contemporary music’s most versatile and innovative electric guitarists and composers. With a prolific output characterized by musical ideas of angularity and logic, he works in a wide variety of mediums - from pop, rock and jazz to new music—using ideas informed by innovations and trends in both popular and experimental forms. He creates works that explore and exploit the contrary relationships between tradition and technology, improvisation and composition, and the familiar and the abstract.

His sonic palette may employ techniques from sample-based technologies, analog and digital synthesis, and conventional and extended techniques from over 35 years of playing the guitar.

An integral part of what has become known as “The Modern Chicago Sound" he is also a founding member of the critically acclaimed and innovative groups Isotope 217˚ and Chicago Underground, and has been an associate member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1995. A look at his work as a sideman offers a glimpse into Mr. Parker’s diversity. This list includes: Andrew Bird, The Ex, Joshua Redman, Toumani Diabate, Nicole Mitchell, Yo La Tengo, Daniel Lanois, Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band, Jason Moran, Matana Roberts, Joey DeFrancesco, Nels Cline, Charles Earland, Ken Vandermark, Dave Douglas, Fred Anderson, Tom Zé, and Meshell Ndegeocello. Parker has released several albums as a leader, all to critical acclaim, including: Like-Coping (2001), The Relatives (2004) and Bright Light In Winter (2012). Currently, he has been focusing on music production, small ensembles and solo performance – to cultivate and establish an idiosyncratic relationship between electronic and acoustic compositional properties in music. The coming months will see new releases from Parker in the forms of an album of solo guitar, Eno-inspired ambient duo music with famed cornetist Rob Mazurek, an album that features his long-time (and mostly undocumented) interest in hip-hop production and sample-based music (blended with orchestration and improvisation), and a long-awaited new album from Tortoise.

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Radio & Podcasts

Jeff Parker, Pascal Le Boeuf, and Franz Koglmann

Read "Jeff Parker, Pascal Le Boeuf, and Franz Koglmann" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


This show features newer music from musicians such as Pascal Le Boeuf, Billy Mohler, and Gabriel Espinosa and older music from the likes of Jeff Parker, Andrew Hill and Franz Koglmann. Playlist The Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Nacka Forum “Brickjuice" from Nacka Forum (Moserobie) 00:54 Billy Mohler “Evolution" from Ultraviolet (Contagious Music) 8:57 Host Speaks 13:26 Pascal Le ...

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Album Review

Jeff Parker / Eric Revis / Nasheet Waits: Eastside Romp

Read "Eastside Romp" reviewed by John Sharpe


Though best known as an experimental guitarist in the likes of Tortoise, Isotope 217 and the Chicago Underground Trio, on Eastside Romp Jeff Parker hews closer to his jazz roots in a co-operative trio completed by bassist Eric Revis and drummer Nasheet Waits. Each a leader, Parker's bandmates possess similarly expansive resumés, making their somewhat introspective group focus here a surprise. On a program of five originals from across the band, one cover and one improv, they combine in the ...

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Album Review

Billy Valentine: Billy Valentine And The Universal Truth

Read "Billy Valentine And The Universal Truth" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Dopo quarant'anni d'assenza dal mercato, l'etichetta Flying Dutchman torna con una produzione intensa e avvincente, che ci riporta ai suoi anni migliori. Protagonista è Billy Valentine, soul singer degli anni settanta tornato alla ribalta cinque anni fa (col sorprendente quanto ignorato Brit Eyed Soul) e qui accompagnato da formazioni che includono Jeff Parker, Joel Ross, Immanuel Wilkins, Pino Palladino, Theo Croker, Larry Goldings, Linda May Han Oh, e altri nomi di primo piano. Bob ...

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Album Review

Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra: Lightning Dreamers

Read "Lightning Dreamers" reviewed by Mark Corroto


The similarities between Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra and Sun Ra's Arkestra are numerous. Both leaders travel the spaceways via the technologies available in their time, applied through dynamic rhythm and pulse. For Ra, his sound began when he was an apprentice in Fletcher Henderson's band in the 1940s, and Mazurek's 1990s work revolved around Isotope 217 and the various Chicago Underground (and later São Paulo Underground) ensembles. Both bandleaders were composers of their time, nonetheless they always create music ...

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Album Review

Henry Franklin: Jazz Is Dead 14

Read "Jazz Is Dead 14" reviewed by Chris May


Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad's Jazz Is Dead label is a moveable feast when it comes to consistency. In its fourteen albums date, there have been some great ones, some not so great ones and a couple of duds. With bassist Henry Franklin, however, the label has come up with a blinder, its most satisfying disc to date. Los Angeles-based Franklin is not well known beyond musician circles, but his track record is distinguished. He has released ...

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Album Review

Jeff Parker / Eric Revis / Nasheet Waits: Eastside Romp

Read "Eastside Romp" reviewed by Mark Corroto


If the answer on the television quiz show Jeopardy is: “Have not ever recorded together as a trio," you most probably would have never guessed the question, “What have Jeff Parker, Eric Revis, and Nasheet Waits never done?" Well, that is until now. Each musician has an impressive discography, with nearly 500 sessions in total between them. Just not together. Waits' drums and Revis' bass have graced the music of Orrin Evans and Armen Nalbandian's ensembles and also ...

Album Review

JoVia Armstrong: The Antidote Suite

Read "The Antidote Suite" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


La scena musicale di Chicago regala continue sorprese. Protagoniste di questo lavoro sono la percussionista e compositrice JoVia Armstrong e la violinista Leslie DeShazor, riunite nell'Eunoia Society. Accanto a loro un nutrito gruppo di ospiti, tra cui i celebri Jeff Parker e Nicole Mitchell. The Antidote Suite è pubblicato dalla nuova etichetta della flautista e non è casuale: la Armstrong è infatti un nuovo membro dell'AACM ed è fortemente impegnata nella valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale afroamericano. JoVia è ...

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Recording

Delmark New Jazz and Blues Releases for Spring!

Delmark New Jazz and Blues Releases for Spring!

Source: Kevin Johnson

New Delmark Jazz Releases: March 2012 Jeff Parker Bright Light In Winter Delmark DE 2015 BRIGHT LIGHT IN WINTER is the long-awaited third album by Chicago guitarist Jeff Parker. With his associates Chris Lopes (bass) and Chad Taylor (drums), this trio continues their examination of our post-modern musical universe via tuneful compositions by all three members, and an elastic, dynamic approach to improvisation and group interplay—rooted in our familiar musical traditions, but also searching for the ...

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Recording

Mike Reed Duos With Jim Baker, Nicole Mitchell and Jeff Parker on 482 Music

Mike Reed Duos With Jim Baker, Nicole Mitchell and Jeff Parker on 482 Music

Source: All About Jazz

AVON, CT -- Drummer Mike Reed joins forces with three fellow mainstays of the Chicago improvised music scene, Jim Baker (ARP synthesizer), Nicole Mitchell (flute) and Jeff Parker (guitar), for his first release under his own name, In The Context Of (482-1047), coming March 14th on 482 Music. This collection of eight improvised duets finds Reed performing with Parker on two tracks and Baker and Mitchell on three tracks each. Reed has worked extensively with all three players around Chicago ...

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Recording

Delmark Announces New Jazz Releases: Anthony Braxton, Jeff Parker, Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble and Bay City Jazz Band

Delmark Announces New Jazz Releases: Anthony Braxton, Jeff Parker, Ernest  Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble and Bay City Jazz Band

Source: All About Jazz

Here are Delmark's first batch of releases set for 2003...

ANTHONY BRAXTON -- “Four Compositions 2000" (Delmark 544) To paraphrase the old stock brokerage commercial: “When Anthony Braxton plays, people listen." And they have been doing so for decades, through dozens of recordings spanning an evolution that is remarkable for its independence and virtuosity. Braxton's first two albums, “Three Compositions Of New Jazz" (Delmark 415, 1968) and “For Alto" (Delmark 420, 1969) were released on Delmark and it ...

"Parker, probably best known as a member of the post-rock band Tortoise, has absorbed so many styles and worked in so many situations that he really comes across as an individual with vast roots." -Jazz Times Magazine

“His sound is unmistakable, spastic and unpredictable, yet at the same time precise and refined…history will certainly reflect that he is one of the more noteworthy guitarists of his generation." -Dusted Magazine

“The most humble guitar-god…whether digging into instrumental rock, groove-heavy organ jazz, or post-freedom space music, Parker chooses to highlight the more eccentric elements of his personal style

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Mighty Vertebrate

International Anthem Recording Company
2025

buy

Lightning Dreamers

International Anthem Recording Company
2023

buy

Billy Valentine And...

Flying Dutchman
2023

buy

Forfolks

International Anthem Recording Company
2022

buy

Eastside Romp

Rogue Art
2022

buy

Jazz Is Dead 14

Jazz Is Dead
2022

buy

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