Jeff Parker

Guitarist and composer Jeff Parker has been active on the avant-garde scene in Chicago and Los Angeles, following a prolific career marked by collaborations with Tortoise, Isotope 217 and Ernest Dawkins. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on April 4, 1967, he grew up in Hampton, Indiana, and studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, before moving to Chicago in 1991. A guitarist drawn to technical innovations, particularly in electronic tools, he gravitated to the local rock and jazz avant-garde scene, collaborating with the groups Tortoise and Isotope 217, and for extended periods with saxophonist Ernest Dawkins' band, The Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble. A member of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) since 1995, Jeff Parker is renowned for his many collective projects with Brian Blade, The Chicago Underground Duo or Trio, John Tchicai, Robert Mazurek, Ted Sirota, Aesop Quartet, Scott Fields, Toe, Smog, The Aluminium Group and Jeb Bishop, among others. At the same time, the albums he records under his own name also benefit from the contributions of creative artists: Chris Lopes and Chad Taylor on Like-Coping (2003), Kevin Drumm and Michael Zerang on Out Trios Volume Two (2003) or Scott Fields on Song Songs Song (2004), followed by The Relatives (Thrill Jockey, 2004). Based in Los Angeles since 2013, he has set up his own label, International Anthem, and continues to play with a wide range of musicians from the jazz and avant-garde rock scenes. In 2016, he released the albums The New Breed with his new namesake band and Slight Freedom solo, followed by The Diagonal Filter (2018), Suite for Max Brown (2020), JP's MySpace Beats (2021) and Forfolks (2021), which reached No. 25 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart. In 2024, he joins forces with the ETA IVtet for the improvisational album The Way Out of Easy.