The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc
Evan Parker
At 80 years old he still envisages a lifetime of continuing technical development, pondering whether his last year of playing should only be practicing: a monastic commitment to exceptional...
The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc
Evan Parker
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At 80 years old he still envisages a lifetime of continuing technical development, pondering whether his last year of playing should only be practicing: a monastic commitment to exceptional...
About
The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc. is a 4 CD set of solo, improvised recordings by Evan Parker, along with a 120 page book, including writing by John Corbett, Filipe Gomes, Richard Leigh, Stephen C. Middleton and Robert Stillman; an extended interview with Evan Parker by Martin Davidson; an email exchange between Evan Parker and Hans Falb; along with writing and visual artwork by Evan Parker.
The boxset helps to mark Evan Parker’s 80th birthday in 2024, and is the third Evan Parker release on False Walls, following THEN THROUGH NOW by Evan and Henry Dagg (2022) and Marconi’s Drift by Transatlantic Trance Map (2024).
“The UK’s greatest exponent of free jazz.”
— Mike Hobart, Financial Times
Though he has worked extensively in both large and small ensembles, Evan Parker is perhaps best known for his solo soprano saxophone music, a singular body of work that in recent years has centred around his continuing exploration of techniques such as circular breathing, split tonguing, overblowing, multiphonics and cross-pattern fingering. These are technical devices, yet Parker’s use of them is, he says, less analytical than intuitive; he has likened performing his solo work to entering a kind of trance-state. The resulting music is certainly hypnotic, an uninterrupted flow of snaky, densely-textured sound that Parker has described as “the illusion of polyphony”. Many listeners have indeed found it hard to credit that one man can create such intricate, complex music in real time.
— from Evan Parker’s website
Contents and tracklist
- The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc
Spotlight on this release
Awards and reviews
March 2025
At 80 years old he still envisages a lifetime of continuing technical development, pondering whether his last year of playing should only be practicing: a monastic commitment to exceptional musicianship, for which The Heraclitean Two Step etc will be an enduring legacy document.