There’s something about Chicago that makes Evan Parker break out his tenor: this disc is a sequel of sorts to his 1995 Okkadisk recording Chicago Solo, his first all-tenor solo recital. It was in 1995, too, that McPhee recorded twice with Parker – on a trio album with Daunik Lazro, and in a brief cameo on Parker’s Redwood Session – but, as it happens, McPhee didn’t play tenor on either occasion. So these Chicago Tenor Duets, recorded three years later, have the air of having emerged from a long gestation – even, perhaps, of resolving some unfinished business.

The players’ decision to restrict themselves to tenor emphasizes the qualities of temperament and inflection they share in common – a gruff seriousness that can (from moment to moment) sound grey and sombre, or angry, or profoundly melancholy. (Which isn’t to say that it’s all like this: check out the falsetto toots that open the disc – as if they needed to work that out of their system before getting down to business – or what briefly sounds like a flatulent tango from Parker near the end of “Duet 8”.) The saxophonists’ unity of purpose and approach means that, rather than trying to keep out of each other’s way, they shadow each other closely and keep almost claustrophobically to the same range; their timbre is so similar that without stereo division it would become impossible to tell them apart. At the core of many of these improvisations is the tenors’ plangent but slightly baleful stepwise counterpoint, nearly languid in pace but instantly responsive. When the texture thickens and the tempo picks up, their exchanges of ideas take place with a stunning combination of rapidity and exactness. The results are sometimes so uncanny that one gets the illusion not of musical dialogue but of telepathic simultaneity. The most pertinent comparison would be with the instant signal-processing that Parker has explored with his Electronic Project, and actually there are moments on Chicago Tenor Duets where an unwary listener might be fooled into thinking this was one of Parker’s electronics-based recordings. There’s a startling point three minutes in on “Duet 5” where McPhee tosses his partner’s phrases right back at him, expertly reproducing Parker’s most characteristic fibrillations. A similarly disorienting moment occurs at the seven-and-a-half minute mark on “Duet 11”.

Not that such musical exchanges are one-way in this sonic gift economy. On “Duet 7” McPhee interpolates a weirdly drooping bass line that both players then seize on in turn: here Parker turns in some of his most jazz-based, downright swinging playing on record. “Duet 12” begins in echt Parker territory – the sound of escaping air gradually acceding to high flutters and yips – but this hardly prepares one for the passionate core of the track: over and over again McPhee asserts a tonic with unstoppable force and an enormous, Aylerish vibrato; Parker works over it assiduously, creating a simple but sternly powerful set of pentatonic variations. You can hear the ancestral ghosts of the 1960s New Wave gathering round. Halfway through the track they switch roles (and this is virtually the only track on the CD where they fulfill distinct roles of soloist and accompanist rather than working in close tandem) – Parker picks up the one-note mantra from McPhee, with a grainier sound but a harsher attack; over top of it McPhee scrawls a brief, dark solo.

The Evan Parker discography continues to grow at a near-geometric pace; its phenomenal size far outstrips McPhee’s comparatively modest discography. This can make the appearance of any one Parker disc seem like just another brick added to the edifice. But make no mistake: Chicago Tenor Duets is an essential disc, and top priority for fans of either artist.

Nate Dorward

Cadence, June 2003