# CD review: Joe McPhee and Evan Parker – Sweet Nothings For Milford Graves – 2023: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2023/02/11/cd-review-joe-mcphee-and-evan-parker-sweet-nothings-for-milford-graves-2023-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2023-02-11T00:04:41+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Two masters of wind instruments blowing in from the Windy City. In 2003, as part
of the seventh annual Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music, Joe McPhee
and Evan Parker squared off for a round of intimate dialogues. The resulting recording
is just the second time they had played as a duet, the previous also being in Chicago,
at a studio in 1998, where the limited their instrumentarium to tenor saxophones,
resulting in the Okka Disc classic Chicago Tenor Duets (2002). **

In this case, they expanded their arsenal to include tenor and soprano saxophones,
as well as McPhee’s trusty pocket cornet. Held in a beautiful hall at the Chicago
Cultural Center, the concert was unforgettable. Fortunately, it was documented by
the legendary mobile recordist Malachi Ritscher, who recorded most of the Bottle
Fests with his usual rough-and-ready style. From the opening notes, Sweet Nothings
was notable for the musicians’ intuitive connection. Freely improvised in seven 
parts, these are duets of the highest caliber performed by two musicians who are
constantly seeking common ground — what you might call “agree-to-agree” improvisors.
But there’s no lack of tension or productive dissonance; on the contrary, that’s
part of their unity of vision, the shared ability to diverge and reconnect.

You might call _Sweet Nothings For Milford Graves_ a chronology complicator. It 
is the third recording by Joe McPhee and Evan Parker, a pair of highly esteemed 
improvisers from either side of the Atlantic. But it was recorded in 2003, so it
actually falls in between _Chicago Tenor Duets _(recorded in 1998, released by Okka
Disk in 2002) and  _What / If / They Both Could Fly?_ (recorded in 2012, released
the next year by Rune Grammofon). Discographers, revise your spreadsheets.

When an album comes out 19 years after it was recorded, questions arise. Why did
it take so long? Why now? In the case of _Sweet Nothings For Milford Graves_, some
delay is understandable. It was not recorded with the intent of making a record.
Rather, it was snatched from the air by Malachi Ritscher, who was an extremely diligent
documenter of Chicago’s improvisational musical scene for many years prior to his
passing in 2006. It was de rigueur for him to record every set at events like the
second Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, which included this concert,
which was an off-site event held at the Chicago Cultural Center. While it was Ritscher’s
habit to hand musicians a recording of a concert the next time they came to town,
it’s quite possible that neither McPhee nor Parker, both inveterate travelers, dug
their copies out off their respective shelves until COVID took them off the road.
Or maybe it wasn’t unearthed until Ritscher’s recordings were archived by the Experimental
Sound Studio after his death.

The second question is answered in part by playing the album. The rapport between
the two musicians is manifest from its first seconds, as they initiate twin lines
on soprano saxophones. First, one musician’s sound-stream writhes like a serpent
around the other’s long-toned staff. Then they swap places, and carry on an exquisitely
evolving discourse of complementary co-creation that feels too short at a bit over
seven minute. Next, they bring out the tenors, matching ascending flutters to descending
barks, wrapping precisely articulated notes around deftly turned slurs, and sliding
into a moment of abstracted, blue balladry. You can hear both men’s deep engagement
with the history of their instruments applied to the moment’s jointly imagined sound
picture. The third sweet nothing (there are seven in total) begins in a realm of
purer abstraction, with McPhee’s pocket trumpet issuing striated, breathy smears
while Parker’s straight horn shoots pitches towards the stars. Yeah, you could say
they were having a good day.

The literally mind might be wondering by now, what does any of this music have to
do with Milford Graves? The late, august percussionist and scholar wasn’t directly
involved in its making, since he was not at the festival that yielded this recording.
The time of his passing corresponds more to the time when the album might have been
entering pre-production than the time when the music was originally played. Perhaps
it’s best to take the title as simply one more expression of appreciation among 
many that both Parker and McPhee have made towards their peers, comrades and inspirations.

So, back to that question — why issue another duo recording when two have already
been made? Beyond the simple fact that the music is good, it’s likely that the label
involved has a personal investment in this one. Half of Corbett Vs. Dempsey co-curated
that festival in 2003 and you can bet that this recording stirs up some good memories.
Or maybe I’m just projecting; after all, I was there too, and I can assure you that
it has that effect on me.

![Sweet Nothings for Milford Graves w/Evan Parker - Jazz Messengers](https://i0.
wp.com/www.jazzmessengers.com/63210/sweet-nothings-for-milford-graves-w-evan-parker.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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