| Toward the Margins | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble | ||||
| Released | 1997 | |||
| Recorded | May 1996 | |||
| Studio | Gateway Studios London, England | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Length | 60:40 | |||
| Label | ECM New Series ECM 1612 | |||
| Producer | Steve Lake | |||
| Evan Parker chronology | ||||
| ||||
Toward the Margins is an album by the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, recorded in 1996 and released on the ECM New Series the following year. [1]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [2] |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | [3] |
The AllMusic review by Steve Loewy stated: "Founded in 1992, Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble is a highly sophisticated grouping, which for this recording conceptually pairs three acoustic musicians with electronic tone manipulators... It is all fascinating stuff, and if it does not swing or fit into any easy definitions of 'jazz,' it takes the concept of improvisation to a new level. There is sometimes an aimlessness to it all that can be off-putting, but concentrated listening can produce wonderful rewards for the patient consumer." [2]
The authors of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings awarded the album 4 stars, and wrote: "This was an exciting step in Parker's progress, magnificently recorded and mastered, and compelling from start to finish." [3]
A reviewer for Gramophone commented: "there's a paradox inherent in the high levels of control traditionally associated with electro-acoustic music being imposed upon a genre having an aesthetic tradition which tends to emphasize moment-by-moment interaction and instant composition, but the music which results is proud of its mixed parentage... this disc represents an interesting area of progress for the European avant-garde." [4]
Peter Margasak, writing for the Chicago Reader, stated: "On... Toward the Margins... Parker, Guy, Lytton, and violinist Phil Wachsmann improvise cumulous swirls of sound that get processed by electronicists... Walter Prati and Marco Vecchi and then folded back into the din–yet the saxist's grainy, concentrated melodic tendrils and patiently etched arcs are immediately recognizable." [5]
Evan Shaw Parker is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation.
Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC was a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. from the 1950s onwards.
Barry John Guy is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in the UK and Europe. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music under Buxton Orr, and later taught there.
Musics was a music-related magazine that was published from 1975 to 1979.
Peter Evans is an improvising trumpeter who specializes in free improvisation and avant-garde music.
Philipp John Paul Wachsmann is an African avant-garde jazz/jazz fusion violinist born in Kampala, Uganda, probably better known for having founded his own group Chamberpot. He has worked with many musicians in the free jazz idiom, including Tony Oxley, Fred van Hove, Barry Guy, Derek Bailey and Paul Rutherford, among many others. Wachsmann is especially known for playing within the electronica idiom.
Paul Lytton is an English free jazz and free improvising percussionist.
Lawrence Casserley is a composer, conductor and performer, to real time electro-acoustic music. Lawrence Casserley was professor of electro-acoustic music at the Royal College of Music in London
Drawn Inward is an album by the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble recorded in December 1998 and released on ECM the following year.
Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 is a live album by jazz saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell recorded in Germany in September 2004 and released on ECM in 2007.
Boustrophedon is a live album by free jazz saxophonist and composer Evan Parker and the Transatlantic Art Ensemble, featuring Roscoe Mitchell, recorded in Germany in September 2004 and released on ECM in 2008.
Memory/Vision is a live album by the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble recorded at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo in October 2002 and released on ECM the following year.
The Eleventh Hour is an album by British saxophonist and improvisor Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble recorded in November 2004 and released on ECM the following year.
The Moment's Energy is an live album by the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble recorded at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in November 2007 and released on ECM in 2009.
Rocket Science is the eponymous debut album by the collaborative quartet assembled by trumpeter Peter Evans and featuring British saxophonist Evan Parker, pianist Craig Taborn and computer musician Sam Pluta. It was recorded live at the Vortex in London, at the start of the quartet's first tour which then visited the Bimhuis in Amsterdam and the Moers Festival in Germany. Evans recorded Scenes in the House of Music with the Parker-Guy-Lytton trio, and is a member of Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Taborn played piano in Parker's Transatlantic Art Ensemble which recorded Boustrophedon. Pluta is a member of the Peter Evans Quintet that recorded Ghosts.
50th Birthday Concert is a double CD live album by British saxophonist and improviser Evan Parker recorded at Dingwalls in 1993 and released on the English Leo label.
Inscape–Tableaux is an album by bassist Barry Guy. It was recorded on May 18 and 19, 2000, at Rote Fabrik in Zürich, Switzerland, and was released in 2001 by Intakt Records. On the album, which features a seven-part composition by Guy, he plays bass and directs members of his New Orchestra: Evan Parker and Mats Gustafsson on saxophone, Hans Koch on saxophone and clarinet, Herb Robertson on trumpet, Johannes Bauer on trombone, Per Åke Holmlander on tuba, Marilyn Crispell on piano, and Paul Lytton and Raymond Strid on percussion.
After Appleby is a double-CD album by the members of the Evan Parker Trio, with guest pianist Marilyn Crispell. One CD was recorded on June 28, 1999, at Gateway Studio in London, while the other was recorded live the following day at the Vortex Jazz Club in London. The recordings took place immediately after the Appleby Jazz Festival, where the musicians performed in a variety of combinations. The album was released in 2000 by Leo Records.
Harmos is an album by Barry Guy and the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra that features a recording of a large-scale, 44-minute composition by Guy. It was recorded in April 1989, just before the LJCO's 20th anniversary, in Zürich, Switzerland, and was released later that year by Intakt Records. Guy interpreted the Greek title in its original meaning of "coming together," and the work attempts to find solutions to the challenges surrounding the coexistence of improvisation and composition.
Double Trouble Two is an album by Barry Guy and the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra with guest artists Irène Schweizer (piano), Marilyn Crispell (piano), and Pierre Favre (drums). Documenting a large-scale, 47-minute composition by Guy, it was recorded in December 1995 in Zürich, Switzerland, and was released in 1998 by Intakt Records.
