An Interview with Jeff Parker

Speaking with Jeff Parker, one could easily forget that the guitarist has gone through so many different arcs and done so much to change music as we know it. Parker is eternally soft-spoken and unassuming, and speaks of his decades in music with a great deal of humility. With roots in the Chicago underground jazz scene and associations with members of the AACM, Parker replaced David Pajo as the primary guitarist in Tortoise, perhaps the defining Chicago band of the 90s. Around the same time, Parker also played in Isotope 217°, a Tortoise offshoot which took the jazz and dub influences that defined their sound into even headier places. In the 00s, Parker released one overlooked record as a bandleader - 2005’s The Relatives - but mostly kept a fairly low profile playing as a sideman. That changed in the mid-2010s, when a move to L.A. and a release on International Anthem - a then-brand new label that has now become a dominant force in underground music - reinvented his sound and introduced him to a new generation of fans, many of whom (myself included) weren’t even alive when TNT was released. In the past few years, Parker has reinvented himself yet again with his ETA IVtet, a group of musicians in the L.A. scene who have developed a completely unique style of contemplative, melancholic chamber jazz.

In the process, Parker has established himself as an almost universal figure in the contemporary music scene, one who can appear on records by Lonnie Holley, Yo La Tengo and clipping. as well as anything on Blue Note, and be able to appeal to all of their respective listeners. All of these different changes may suggest a degree of restless ambition, but Parker’s music has always retained a deeply patient, subtly idiosyncratic musical nature. His desire to keep trying different things is simply an extension of his personhood as a musician. Parker performed at the Big Ears Festival earlier this year as a member of Tortoise, and more recently the band released “Oganesson,” their first new track in nearly ten years - with a full-length seemingly imminent - and announced a run of shows in October and November. I had the pleasure of speaking with Parker at his hotel lobby in Knoxville on March 30, 2025, where we talked about how the city of Chicago shaped him, the intersection of hip-hop and minimalist music, collaborating with noise legend Kevin Drumm, and more.

Special thanks to The Wire for making it possible for me to go to Big Ears. You can read my coverage of the festival in the latest issue, 496.

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A question I like to ask musicians is, what are your earliest musical memories?

Singing in church, and listening to the radio. My father was in college with the church, he was kind of an amateur musician, and he sat in with an ensemble of some of the students. I remember hearing them play and being really moved by it, it was really nice. And that’s what made me really know I wanted to play music. I was probably about six years old, and I was starting to take student classes before and after that.

You said your dad was a professor? Didn’t he also run a clothing store?

Yeah.

Did he do both at the same time?

No, that was a little bit later that he started to teach. I mean, he did a lot of things. Maybe they were concurrent, but when he had his New Breed store, that was more like a side hustle. His job where he was making money and stuff was teaching. He started some businesses, and if it would have caught on maybe he would have stopped teaching and just ran the business, but it didn’t stay open long enough.

When did you first start getting into jazz?

Oh man, like, immediately. I mean, it was always the music that kind of resonated with me. I always loved the mystery and complexity of it, and it was always my favorite.

I can definitely relate to that. Who were the first jazz musicians you were playing with in Chicago?

One of the first musicians that I played with when I moved to Chicago was Ernest Dawkins. He was an alto player in the AACM.

Oh yeah, he's great. Were you born in Chicago?

No, I was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, but I grew up in Hampton, Virginia.

Oh, okay. I think I may have gotten it mixed up with the Bridgeport neighborhood in Chicago.

Oh, yeah [laughs].

Did you play with any notable musicians before you ended up in Chicago?

No. I mean, I went to Berklee in the mid-to-late 80s, and a lot of the musicians I went to school with are pretty well known now. I went to school with Mark Turner, I used to play with Steve Lehman, he was a classmate. Also Roy Hargrove, Danilo Pérez, Chris Speed… I mean, there’s tons of them, I just can’t remember.

That’s a lot already. Roy Hargrove alone is such a legend.

Yeah, and Jay [Bellerose], the drummer in the ETA IVtet, he was there too.

Oh, so you two go way back.

Yeah, like 40 years. Let’s see, who else… Jim Black, Lalah Hathaway, Joshua Redman…

Wow, that’s a solid chunk of the post-90s jazz world right there.

Kurt Rosenwinkel and I were roommates.

Really? That’s fascinating to me, because you’re totally different as guitar players.

Yeah!

Did you ever work with each other?

We were actually really close when we were in college. Then I moved to Chicago, and my experiences there really evolved my sonic approach.

How so?

I mean, there’s kind of a Boston way of guitar playing that you can hear. Like, if you listen to people like Kurt, or just players nowadays… When I was in college in Boston, my playing was very influenced by Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie, Bill Frisell, etc. Then, when I moved to Chicago, I started to appreciate players who I didn’t really check out when I was in college, like Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, even Derek Bailey. And that more ECM approach to playing the guitar sort of weeded its way out of my playing, and it became more naked, and bare. I don’t really know another way to put it.

Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.

I turned the reverb off, I wanted it to be dry and more rhythmic and more present, really, instead of this washed out, floating style.

It’s interesting you mentioned those three artists, because obviously they’re all related in certain ways, but I always thought of Derek Bailey as being kind of opposed to that hard bop, bluesier style of music.

Sure, but sonically, his sound is way closer to Kenny Burrell and Grant Green, where you just plug straight into the amp, or don’t even have an amp. You’re just playing acoustically, and you’re dealing more with the natural sound of it, rather than it being processed.

So, coming from that jazz background, how did you get involved with Tortoise?

I met those guys because some of the members of Tortoise were fans of the AACM, and they knew me from hearing me playing with Ernest Dawkins. And I was playing with Famadou Don Moye.

Oh, wow.

And that's how we all came together at the time. I was kind of searching for something away from jazz, and most of those guys were playing in, like, punk rock bands, and they were looking to do something different too. We kind of met on this plane of wanting to do something different from what everybody was getting involved in. We started with just making music together, we just tried to make some shit that was reflective of all the stuff we were interested in

One of the things I’ve always liked about the Chicago music scene is that, to me, it feels like all of the musicians have always been working with each other and no one’s really beholden to any one thing. I was thinking about how Hamid Drake was such a presence in the jazz scene, and then he also played regularly in a reggae band.

Yeah!

Do you think that the city and its musical history bled into what you were doing with Tortoise?

Oh, totally, absolutely. Tortoise definitely would not exist without the landscape of the Chicago music scene being so diverse and innovative.

You mentioned that some of the guys in Tortoise were coming from more of a punk rock background. Was that something you interacted with at all growing up?

Uh, not really. I mean, I played for a short time in a punk band when I was in high school, but I always related to the ethos and the anti-establishment attitudes way more than I related to the music. More specifically talking about hardcore, I always thought the music was kind of primitive. I mean, that was the point of it, in a sense, but it never appealed to me much on a musical level, at least not until I heard Bad Brains. I’d go to some shows here and there, but not that much.

One of my favorite albums you’ve done is the Slight Freedom album from 2016. How long had you been playing solo before that album came out?

Oh, not long. That came out of when I first moved to L.A., where I didn’t know anybody and it was just where my partner was working. I gave this guy a few bucks every month, and he’d let me use his rehearsal space during the day, and I’d go there in practice. It was just things I was working on, using my loop pedal to put things in and practice. Then Meshell Ndegeocello called me up and asked me to open for her for three nights at the Hotel School in Chicago, and I was just like “okay, well, I’ve been working on this stuff, so I guess I can try it out then.” And a lot of that ended up as the music on Slight Freedom.

I really love your cover of Frank Ocean’s “Super Rich Kids.”

Oh, thanks.

What made you want to cover that?

Uhhh… it’s just a cool song, you know.

That’s a fair answer.

That’s really all it is. I just like the changes.

The work you’re doing now with the ETA IVtet sounds to me like sort of a group evolution of some of the ideas you were working with on the solo stuff, is that fair to say?

Oh, totally, yeah. I mean, even with The New Breed stuff, all of it came out of me making beats. I was doing things with production and getting into the zone where the music became more static and drone-based.

I was listening to “Late Autumn” from The Way Out of Easy and it reminded me of Joshua Abrams’ work with the Natural Information Society, who I know you’ve played with. It’s interesting, because you’re both making this drawn out, deconstructed version of jazz, but Joshua is informed by Gnawa music and your work is more informed by hip-hop. But both of you are looking at it through this shared minimalist perspective.

Me and Josh, I don’t know if you know, but we’re really close. And we were both making these albums at around the same time, coming at it in a way where we were both improvisers who were used to playing a lot of jazz and free improv gigs around Chicago, but we’re also DJing a lot around Chicago, and making sample-based music kind of coming out of hip-hop. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Josh made a couple of records on Prefuse 73’s label under the name Reminder.

I actually don’t think I’ve heard those!

Yeah! He was making sample-based beat music. And you know, we had a lot of conversations around how we could apply these things that we were interested in, and conceptually make it reflective of, like, making beats, and the music that explores more of a static approach, and a flatter landscape, where the music’s not like climatic but it’s more settled.

It’s interesting, because I know Josh played with The Roots at one point but I don’t really hear as much of a hip-hop influence in his music. Maybe I’m not listening close enough.

I mean, it’s not in terms of it sounding like hip hop, but more coming from the technical approach of making beats, where your music stays more in a zone. Dynamically, the thing is staying the same. That very much comes from the space that, as a composer, you occupy when you’re making music in that way.

You mentioned you’ve been friends with Jay for a really long time, and I know he has more of a session musician background than anything specifically jazz-oriented. Did you intentionally seek him out for that different sort of perspective on the music?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we started playing at ETA really to keep busy. I know Jay is a big jazz fan, more in early jazz, like bebop. And I know he listens to it a lot, but he never really had any way to play it. And I always liked to play jazz with drummers who have a different angle on it. It makes it more interesting because it makes me be more creative, because they’re not playing what you would expect, you know. So I did seek him out for sure.

Living in L.A. now, do you ever miss being in Chicago?

I miss friends, I don’t really miss living there. I feel like, honestly, when I was in Chicago, I was in a very different place then than I am now. Just in terms of my work, my art, my practice. I miss the community and friends, not so much what I was doing then.

You covered Marvin Gaye’s “When Did You Stop Loving Me? When Did I Stop Loving You?” on The Relatives album.

[laughs] yeah!

Was the Here, My Dear album a big deal for you?

Oh yeah, yeah. I love that album. I always loved the song “When Did You Stop Loving Me?” It was a similar thing with “Super Rich Kids,” where I really liked the changes, and I thought that it would be kind of fun to just do a slowed-down version of that song. It was an experiment. I didn't even know if it would work, but I ended up liking it and putting it on the record.

While I’m talking about covers, I also really liked your version of “Ugly Beauty” by Thelonious Monk.

Oh, thanks!

It’s such a poignant, lovely tune, it really captures his personality. Was it difficult translating that to guitar?

Some of his harmony is pretty chordal, and that’s something that played easy on the guitar. Yeah, I wouldn’t say difficult, at least not for me, but not easy either [laughs].

There’s a couple of random albums that you played on that I wanted to ask you about, because they seem like they were a bit out of your comfort zone. I know you played on an album of Corenlius Cardew pieces.

Oh yeah!

What was that experience like?

Oh man, that was so long ago [laughs]. I remembered that Art Lange was assembling these ensembles, I guess in a production role, for the label HatArt, 'cause I remember I played on another album by [Argentinian composer/improviser] Guillermo Gregorio called Faktura. It was pretty open. It wasn’t even a graphic score, it was more he’d give you a graph, and it wouldn’t have any direction and you would just improvise based on what you were looking at, and then use your musical sensibility to create space. You know it’s funny, I was teaching last summer and one of the students brought up that he had heard those records. And I had forgotten all about them, so I was like “how did you hear it?” and they told me they were streaming, so I listened to it. And I was thinking “wow, this stuff is really interesting.” When I listen to it, I feel like I sound young, to myself. But it was cool.

Had you been exposed to Cardew’s music before working on that?

Oh, no.

They just reached out to you and asked if you were interested, and you said yes?

Yeah, totally. At the time I was pretty deeply involved with the improvised music community in Chicago. People like Peter Kowald would come through town, and John Corbett or whoever would call me up to improvise. I was playing with Fred Anderson a lot. Ken Vandermark and John Corbett curated jazz and improvised music at the Empty Bottle on Wednesdays for years, and they did a festival there for probably ten years. I mean, it was amazing. They’d get David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp one week, and then Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd, their group would play the next week. Milford Graves…

That’s insane.

It was crazy, it was a really special time.

Another album I wanted to ask about was the Out Trios record with Kevin Drumm and Michael Zerang. How did that come together?

Well, I’d been doing some playing with Michael, and Kevin did a tour opening for Tortoise.

Really?

Yeah, in 2001. He did almost our whole tour, in Europe and the States, opening for us. And you know, I got to know him. He and I talked to Kurt at Atavistic Records. And I knew he had the theory of doing the Out Trios records, maybe he approached me about doing something for it, I don’t know if I asked him or not. But either way, he and I booked a day in the studio with Kevin and Michael, and we just improvised, you know. And it was awkward at first, I didn’t really know what the fuck I was trying to do. But we just kind of went for it, and some of it was good. The interesting thing about it is that it was right after my daughter was born, and pretty much I was just with her during the day, she would sleep at night, and we had a small apartment. I pretty much just mixed the whole thing on headphones while she was asleep. So when I hear that, that’s the thing I remember most about that record. Even though it’s loud and aggressive at times, it was kind of based around me trying to be really quiet so I wouldn’t wake my infant daughter up while we were putting it together [laughs].

That’s amazing. Was Kevin Drumm doing the tabletop guitar thing when he was on tour with you?

No, I think he just had a modular synth and he was just making noise. I don’t mean that in a negative way.

I mean, it’s what he does. How did the audiences react to him?

Some people dug it, some didn’t. I think that was sort of the point, we were trying to throw a curveball at people.

I could be totally mistaken about this, but I feel like Tortoise was one of the first “post-rock” bands to be really vocal about how post-rock is a stupid name for that genre.

Of course. We’ve been battling that for years.

When I first moved to Chicago, I very briefly worked at Thrill Jockey doing social media and radio promo stuff. I don’t remember what the context was, but it had something to do with marketing, and Bettina said something like “the guys from Tortoise, people associate them with post-rock but they don’t really like that term.” And I was thinking “yeah, I figured.”

[laughs] Yeah.

It’s also a thing where, whenever anyone uses that term, they’re referring to the stuff you guys and bands like Gastr Del Sol and The For Carnation were doing, but also bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky, which have nothing to do with that. I don’t there’s a clear idea of what it actually means.

There never was. The thing I always had problems with is that, by definition, it reduced rock music to cliches, and it was never really about that. It would be the same with jazz - or with any music! - where you could be like “oh, if you listen to that, this is what it is.” And it’s not that. It usually never is, at least coming from the perspective of the way that musicians think about music. Things are a blank slate for us. At least in the creative music, musicians aren’t really thinking about trying to make anything what it’s supposed to be. We’re trying to make something new, something different, something that even challenges you, or moves you forward.