JEFF PARKER

Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy

Genre: JAZZ / FUSION

2LP (Black Vinyl)
2CD

Boomkat Product Review:

Chicago jazz don, guitarist Jeff Parker chases sides of Dilla-esque instrumental beats and lissom solo guitar for IARC with a round of deadly immersive live recordings made at a bar in L.A. during 2019-2021

Electrified with a cool, laser-focussed but languid energy, ‘Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy’ depicts Parker leading a quartet of drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson in subtly shifting, longform works that fluidly refract his definition of jazz thru a prism of kosmiche, dub, and psychedelic soul in shimmering, improvised patterns woven with standards. It’s the sort of recording that makes one want to buy a flight to L.A. for a solo Monday, imitating Eremite Records’ routine of leaving work, pulling up at ETA (named in reference to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest), and order a double tequila neat, before giving your attention to the crack players on stage, three feet away.

We’ll have to do with replacing the Hollywood hills for the Pennines, but we can manage the tequila and a zoot in the living room with this recording, letting Parker and co serenade with two parts from their ‘2019-07-08’ session slipping along a sort of kosmiche hip hop jazz slant, to the deepest in-the-pocket hustle of Parker and band’s dialogue twisting out into hard comic bop on the 2nd part, before the ‘2019-04-28’ part comes to feel like Tortoise jamming on a smudged BoC loop, and ‘2021-04-28’ quietly unfurls with a lush, seat edge tension that may see one happily slip off the stool into a puddle of mescal.

2LP (Black Vinyl) (8)