New in PJ Media:
The English saxophonist Evan Parker turns 78 on Tuesday, April 5, and if artistic exploration and innovation were rewarded, he would be feted worldwide. Like Anthony Braxton, Parker has taken the jazz tradition to the outer limits of what constitutes jazz and even what constitutes music. In his prolific fifty-plus years of recording, Parker has established himself as one of the most original, most challenging, and indeed, most rewarding musicians on the contemporary scene. His music is never background music, and he has hardly ever even worked with conventional forms, preferring the rewards of artistic integrity to those of widespread popular acclaim. But after a lifetime of being on the avant-garde of the avant-garde and winning respect for his unflinching commitment to his art, Parker is getting heat even from those who have celebrated his work in the past. Evan Parker has committed wrongthink.
Even people who have never heard of Evan Parker and wouldn’t care for his music should note the ominous precedent that was embedded within the Washington Post’s review of his latest album, Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) with the Natural Information Society, a group of far-out jazzmen from Chicago. The Post’s popular music (a category in which the master saxophonist defiantly does not belong) critic, Chris Richards, was full of praise for “the tenacious British saxophonist Evan Parker,” and said that the album “felt responsive, propulsive and alive.” However: “Parker is 77, musically collegial, but a covid-19 denier.”
Richards went on to note with unconcealed lemming outrage that “in an interview published in April,” Parker “described the pandemic as ‘a sham’ designed to ‘harvest DNA and sell vaccines.’ Just like that, his remarks threatened to make his deeply empathetic new music make no sense at all.”
Wait a minute here. This is not vocal music. Neither Evan Parker nor anyone else says a word on the album, either about the COVID hysteria or anything else. Yet the Washington Post would have us believe that Parker’s COVID and vaccine skepticism “threatened” — threatened! — to render his new music meaningless.
This is pure Maoism: if your political views are not aligned with those of the elites, then everything you do is tainted and worthless. Like virtually all avant-garde artists, Parker has been reliably socialist up to now, but the Left doesn’t give out lifetime achievement awards. Chris Richards loves the music and waxes poetic about it: “this new album that Parker has made with Natural Information Society sounds like life, as if the band’s signature groove might be a growing, changing, living, breathing thing.” Parker’s astonishing technique is “inherently dazzling.” But Richards can’t let go of the fact that Parker is also a dissenter from everything he thinks is good and true: “So how could someone this attentive on the bandstand, this empathetic in song, this worldly in his playing come to the conclusion that a decimating global pandemic isn’t real? It baffles and burns.”
There is more. Read the rest here.
mike says
if these not Parker was to tell the world that the planet is flat the Oligarchs of the internet will push the flat earth until there death. The brain washing will continue until the Oligarchs of the internet rule and you do what they tell you to think and do
Rarely says
Some of history’s greatest musicians and composers were idiots (and worse). He’s in very good company and should take it as a compliment that he’s an idiot too. Must be careful though not to fall off the edge of the world.
gravenimage says
Rarely, this is not really about whether Parker’s views here are correct or not (I don’t happen to agree with them, either), but whether his work should be “cancelled” because he is not deemed “politically correct” enough.
Rarely says
Agreed. Of course his work shouldn’t be “cancelled”.
gravenimage says
Thank you, Rarely.
somehistory says
I had never heard of Parker. I’m not much of a jazz fan.
However, I agree with his statement quoted here, about the “pandemic” and the jab. It has been admitted that the chinese now have the DNA of all who went someplace and had the fake test for covid.
fauci and bright, two *scientists* in a meeting back before the ‘pandemic’ began in china, were talking about how to get an “international vaccine” program because people were refusing to get every flu shot and bright said, ‘maybe a virus, out of wuhan’ could come along and they could use it to get everyone to take a jab.
Lo and behold! A virus out of wuhan came along and suddenly, there was a (non-vaccine )”vaccine ”
that could be given to every person on the planet…an “international vaccine” that is not a vaccine at all.
And believing the lies and fear-mongering, nearly everyone lined up to take the *experimental* shot and many became enraged that some refused, even threatening….with loss of jobs…and as in this case, loss of ?? (not sure what he will lose unless fans refuse to buy or listen to his album and maybe respect)…and even threats of loss of life.
Threats from fauci, biden, osha, businesses, and others, just ordinary people who don’t like the idea that some of us refuse to be jabbed…for whatever reason, be it religious (due to the cells from a murdered baby) or because of some health issue, or we just don’t want to get it. and these “ordinary” people have come to believe that we are a danger to them.
I might just have to find some of his music that has been posted online and see how well he can play.
gravenimage says
Washington Post Hits Avant-Garde Artist for Vaccine Dissent
The English saxophonist Evan Parker turns 78 on Tuesday, April 5, and if artistic exploration and innovation were rewarded, he would be feted worldwide. Like Anthony Braxton, Parker has taken the jazz tradition to the outer limits of what constitutes jazz and even what constitutes music. In his prolific fifty-plus years of recording, Parker has established himself as one of the most original, most challenging, and indeed, most rewarding musicians on the contemporary scene. His music is never background music, and he has hardly ever even worked with conventional forms, preferring the rewards of artistic integrity to those of widespread popular acclaim. But after a lifetime of being on the avant-garde of the avant-garde and winning respect for his unflinching commitment to his art, Parker is getting heat even from those who have celebrated his work in the past. Evan Parker has committed wrongthink.
Even people who have never heard of Evan Parker and wouldn’t care for his music should note the ominous precedent that was embedded within the Washington Post’s review of his latest album, Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) with the Natural Information Society, a group of far-out jazzmen from Chicago. The Post’s popular music (a category in which the master saxophonist defiantly does not belong) critic, Chris Richards, was full of praise for “the tenacious British saxophonist Evan Parker,” and said that the album “felt responsive, propulsive and alive.” However: “Parker is 77, musically collegial, but a covid-19 denier.”
Richards went on to note with unconcealed lemming outrage that “in an interview published in April,” Parker “described the pandemic as ‘a sham’ designed to ‘harvest DNA and sell vaccines.’ Just like that, his remarks threatened to make his deeply empathetic new music make no sense at all.”
Wait a minute here. This is not vocal music. Neither Evan Parker nor anyone else says a word on the album, either about the COVID hysteria or anything else. Yet the Washington Post would have us believe that Parker’s COVID and vaccine skepticism “threatened” — threatened! — to render his new music meaningless.
This is pure Maoism: if your political views are not aligned with those of the elites, then everything you do is tainted and worthless. Like virtually all avant-garde artists, Parker has been reliably socialist up to now, but the Left doesn’t give out lifetime achievement awards.
…………….
Parker’s views on the pandemic are immaterial in a review of his music.
I don’t happen to agree with him here either–but the idea that he or his music should be “cancelled” because of his completely unrelated views on current events is quite grotesque–but all too common these days.
This *is* Maoism–but it has become almost the norm at this point.
Here’s some of Parker’s actual music. This, from the Talos Festival, 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cjd-H7V2bI&ab_channel=BlogfoolkMagazine