Charmed

BURIDAN’S ASS
Evan Parker
The Snake Decides
Incus : 1988 /Â Psi : 2003 [ buy ]

EP, soprano sax.

The title of this song refers to a philosophical paradox, roughly akin to Schrodinger’s cat. Imagine, if you will, a perfectly rational, though hungry, ass, named Ratso, positioned exactly between two equally delicious bales of hay. Since each bale is the same distance from the ass, and since they’re more or less identical, what decision can a rational ass make? Does the rational ass starve to death due to indecision? Ask Aristotle. Moreover, does the rational man, positioned between two decisions of equal banality, make music to massage the listener’s pineal gland? More on this below.

Evan Parker has written eloquently on free improvisation in general, and on his contributions to the genre in particular. He appears equally at home discussing tongue technique as the theoretical underpinnings behind a term like “free improvisation.” So there is little surprise in finding a song title that references a paradox concerning fatal indecision. It’s possible to imagine the poor ass’s head swaying from one bale to the other, hoping against hope that one will inch slightly closer. To link this back to the music in potentially ludicrous fashion, Parker has talked about improvising as involving an automatic shift from conscious technique to unconscious motive, the brain waves swaying from known regions to unknown, and back again. The title also suggests a nod in the direction of the improvisation/composition divide. Which is the more accurate description of a piece of spontaneously created music? Only an ass knows for sure.

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As fun as it is to play in the fields of the philosophers, it’s probably more fruitful to link Parker’s solo performances, a key aspect of his rather large oeuvre, to specific, real-world details of time and place and people, as he himself does. The ass is an imagined creature in a thought experiment; all the philosophy in the world can’t explain what music “means,” or why some people simply can’t dance. (I’m looking at you, Professor.)

We’ve chosen only one track to give newcomers to Parker’s music a chance to digest his unique and sometimes daunting approach. We’ve selected this particular six-and-a-half minute piece partly because it’s one of the shorter offerings on the album, and partly because there’s enough air in the track so that listeners can get their bearings and follow as Parker beautifully ratchets up the intensity. It’s a music that tests limits. Limits of the horn, perhaps of the virgin listener’s patience, limits of the room, of our earsâ??how much sound can these things hold?

Parker sounds like he’s reinventing the vocabulary of the saxophone. It’s not a horn he’s playing, but rather a swarm of wasps, or a series of creaky doors that he’s opening and shutting at rapid and precise intervals. Or if it is a horn, one wonders how the horn feels about all this.

Note how at the halfway point the barking, halting jumps of the first part join up with longer, almost continuous streams of sound. Left brain, meet right brain. Listen twice and you’ll start to notice the lyrcism in Parker’s playing, the hypnotic feints and swirling cadences of his phrasing. Listen three times and expect the way you hear jazz to be alterered, however slightly. Â

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For more on Parker, see the thrillingly complete assemblage of links, discographies, and general information at the internet home of Euro Free Improv. See in particular the in-depth and clarifying program notes by Parker hosted at that site, written on the occasion of a 1992 concert in the Netherlands, and alluded to above. Also, we sincerely thank Mr. Parker and his label for permission to post this song.

For more on Buridan’s ass, go nuts. Naturally, you’ll want to stop by Buridansass.com.

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Lastly: Calling all Evan Parker fans. We’d like to know: What’s your favorite Parker album and/or performance? And what recordings would you recommend for newcomers to his work?