Guitarist Jeff Parker, 57 years old and with a few dozen albums out in the world, is having a moment. Some of that energy comes from his association with the International Anthem label, both as a leader and a sideman. As was true with his work with Tortoise, Isotope 217, and other groups on Thrill Jockey in his early days, it’s a hometown imprint that specializes in a style of experimental music that reaches new audiences. And Parker’s playing style—probing and melodic, exploratory yet always coherent—endears him to the jazz-curious and old heads alike.After the ambitious cross-genre set Suite for Max Brown, Parker moved to another extreme with the lyrical solo offering Forfolks before settling into yet another mode with the 2022 live set Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy. The latter was cut with his quartet—or IVtet, if you like—comprising Parker, alto saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose during three evenings in 2019, as part of the group’s extended residency at the Los Angeles club ETA Highland Park. In one sense it found Parker in the most traditional of settings, playing small-group improvised jazz in an instrumental configuration that goes back to the form’s earliest days. But this group has an uncanniness born of its patient and process-oriented sound.The Way out of Easy, cut with the same band at the same club in 2023, is certainly a sequel—it’s another double album, with four side-long pieces—but its differences suggest how much flexibility and surprise are possible within these parameters. The music seems slightly more emotionally open-ended, less likely to guide you to specific references or modes of feeling.The opening “Freakadelic,” a Parker tune that dates back more than a decade, is taken at half the tempo of that earlier recording, and the slower speed allows for more air between the notes. The rhythm section carries a whiff of funk, hinting at the Art Blakey groove on “A Chant for Bu” that later formed the basis for A Tribe Called Quest’s “Excursions,” and Parker plays wry, Monk-like phrases, like he’s posing a series of riddles to the band that they try to answer.These are mellow improvisations, easy to zone out to, but they’re also playful and surprising. Not quite halfway through “Freakadelic,” electronic processing is added to Johnson’s horn, and suddenly it’s as if it’s been beamed in from one of Jon Hassell’s imaginary worlds; then Bellerose doubles the tempo, adding a flurry of tumbling tom rolls. Toward the end of the piece it starts to break down, dissolving into a soup of hissy feedback and piled-up drums, but Parker’s harmonic taps continue ahead.
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