Description

Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy, x2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv by acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker s ETA IVtet, is at last here. Recorded live at ETA (referencing David Foster Wallace), a bar in LA s Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depthful & exploratory music making. Gleaned for the stoniest side-length cuts from 10+ hours of vivid two-track recordings made between 2019 & 2021 by Bryce Gonzales, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy is a darkly glowing séance of an album, brimming over with the hypnotic, the melodic, & patience & grace in its own beautiful strangeness. While the IVtet sometimes plays standards &, including on this recording, original compositions, it is as previously stated largely a free improv group — just not in the genre meaning of the term. The music is more free composition than free improvisation, more blending than discordant. It s tensile, yet spacious & relaxed. Clearly all four musicians have spent significant time in the planetary system known as jazz, but relationships to other musics, across many scenes & eras — dub & Dilla, primary source psychedelia, ambient & drone — suffuse the proceedings. – Eremite

• live recordings from guitarist multi-instrumentalist Jeff Parker, Jay Bellerose, Anna Butterss + Josh Johnson
• black double vinyl pressing
• music label: Eremite 2022