Jeff Parker - The New Breed

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Best known as a multi-instrumental member of Tortoise and a pillar of the Chicago jazz and experimental music scene, Jeff Parker has been incomparably prolific over the last 20+ years while merely producing 5 albums as a lead artist; (just 2 since 2005).

"Lead artist" is in quotes here, because though his name is seldom seen in marquees, his distinctive guitar sound has been essential to every project he's been part of. It was in that sense that we at International Anthem came to work with Parker during the production of Makaya McCraven's "In The Moment", an album which ultimately showcased said essentialness (of Parker's side man sound) on 9 of its 19 tracks.

Parker had long been in silent study of vinyl sampling and beat conduction, but perhaps it's no coincidence that new L.A. residence in a city a-flame with experimental R&B, jazz and electronic fusers ( e.g. Brainfeeder, Leaving Records, Low End Theory) spurred him to dig back in to the practice and produce with more purpose. By early 2015 Parker had refined several compositional ideas around his samples, and enlisted local friend Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann, Meshell Ndegeocello) to engineer and play bass guitar in sessions with Chicago ex-pat saxophonist, Thelonious Monk Institute prot̩g̩ Josh Johnson (Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Esperanza Spaulding) and drummer Jamire Williams (Robert Glasper, Carlos Ni̱o).

The recordings were conducted to capture composed passages as well as free playing that used Parker's beats and sample suites as improvisational criterion. After completing 7 songs with the band, the last of which with vocals from his daughter Ruby Parker recorded in Chicago by John McEntire, Parker named the project The New Breed (after a clothing store his late father Ernie owned and operated in the 70's) and finished the album by stitching the band tracks together with intermittent pieces of beat memories from his archive.

The final presentation is a retrospective tapestry that explores Parker's past both musically as a potent compositional tribute to his influences (J Dilla, Thelonious Monk, Charles Stepney) held together by literal fragments of his life's work and patrilineally as a collaboration with his kin held together by clippings from the family photo album.