Jeff Parker playing guitar during the “Good Days” session at BIG EGO. Photo by Devin O’Brien.

 

MUSICIAN | JEFF PARKER

Jeff Parker is recognized as one of contemporary music’s most versatile and innovative electric guitarists and composers. With a prolific output characterized by musical ideas of angularity and logic, he works in a wide variety of mediums - from pop, rock and jazz to new music - using ideas informed by innovations and trends in both popular and experimental forms. He creates works that explore and exploit the contrary relationships between tradition and technology, improvisation and composition, and the familiar and the abstract.

An integral part of what has become known as “The Modern Chicago Sound”, he is a longtime member of the influential indie band Tortoise, and is also a founding member of Isotope 217˚ and Chicago Underground. A look at his extensive work as a collaborator and session musician offers a glimpse into Mr. Parker’s diversity. This list includes: Andrew Bird, Meshell Ndegeocello, Joshua Redman, Toumani Diabate, George Lewis, Bennie Maupin, Nicole Mitchell, Peter Erskine, Carmen Lundy, Makaya McCraven, Vijay Iyer, Yo La Tengo, Daniel Lanois, Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band, Jason Moran, Joey DeFrancesco, Nels Cline, Charles Earland, Ken Vandermark, Dave Douglas, Fred Anderson, Tom Zé, Clipping, and hundreds more.

As a film composer, Parker has scored several documentaries and contributed music to feature films and video games.

Appears on:

BIG004 | Anthony Shadduck | Quartet & Double Quartet - electric guitar (Quartet)

LIL002 | Alex Sadnik | Londelius - guitar

BIG007 | Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon | Namesake - electric guitar (4,5,10)

BIG010 | David Lord | Forest Standards Vol. 2 - electric guitar (1,3,5,6,9,11,13,14)

LIL004 | Alex Sadnik | Self-Portrait Delay - electric guitar

BIG015 | Maria Elena Silva | Eros - electric guitar

BIG020 | Psychic Temple | Plays Planet Caravan - electric guitar

Learn more about Jeff Parker.