StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Evan Parker and Peter Evans

Today, let's spend a few minutes with saxophonist Evan Parker and trumpeter Peter Evans, who will give a duo performance to kick off New Music Circle's 2015-16 season next Friday, October 2 at Joe's Cafe. (Both men also will take part in a free workshop/Q&A at 11 a.m. the next day (Saturday, October 3) at Foam.)

Parker is a 71-year-old Englishman who began his career in the 1960s, at first briefly emulating the cool stylings of Paul Desmond and Lee Konitz, then totally revamping his sound to reflect the influence of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, and other practitioners of "the new thing." He has collaborated with many well-known British and European improvising musicians, including saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, drummers Tony Oxley and John Stevens, guitarist Derek Bailey, and pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, as well with Americans such as bassist William Parker, pianist Cecil Taylor, and saxophonist Anthony Braxton, and many more.

Evans, who's in his mid-30s, graduated from Oberlin Consevatory of Music and has been based in NYC since 2003. He leads his own quartet and also is a member of bands including Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Carnival Skin, and Pulverize the Sound. As a soloist, Evans has worked in various other contexts with free-improvising musicians such as Mary Halvorson, Perry Robinson, Fred Frith, Ned Rothenberg, Okkyung Lee, Chris Speed, Weasel Walter, and numerous others.

While Parker and Evans have a long-standing musical relationship - Parker's label even released a solo recording from Evans back in 2006 - there doesn't seem to be any video of them online playing as a duo. So instead, today we've got clips of a couple of performances featuring both men in a group setting, and a couple of solo performances from each.

In the first clip up above, you can see Parker, Evans, and baritone saxophonist Charles Evans in an excerpt from a show last September at the Stone in NYC. After the jump, there's another clip from a couple of nights later at the Stone, featuring Parker, Evans, keyboardist Craig Taborn, and electronic musician Sam Pluta, performing as the collective Rocket Science.

Below that, there are two clips from 2012 featuring Evans playing solo, at the Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale in Hampshire, and at the Invisible Dog Gallery in Brooklyn, NYC.

After that, you can see two solo performances from Parker. The first was recorded in April, 2001 at the First Existentialist Congregation in Atlanta, GA, while the second is from 2012 at the Unlimited 26 music festival in Wels, Austria.

Last but not least, there's a brief interview that Parker did in 2014 with Subradar, a website that covers improvisation and experimental music.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...