''Toward the Margins'' is an album by the

Evan Parker Evan Shaw Parker (born 5 April 1944) is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation. Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free ja ...

Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, recorded in 1996 and released on the

ECM New Series ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's a ...

the following year.ECM discography
accessed October 20, 2011

Reception

The

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

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."Loewy, S.
Review
accessed October 20, 2011 The authors of the ''

Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

'' 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." 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." 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."

Track listing

:''All compositions by Evan Parker except as indicated'' # "Toward the Margins" (Barry Guy, Evan Parker, Philipp Wachsmann) – 4:34 # "Turbulent Mirror" – 5:54 # "Field and Figure" (Guy, Parker) – 7:06 # "The Regenerative Landscape (For AMM)" – 3:36 # "Chain of Chance" (Marco Vecchi, Paul Lytton, Walter Prati) – 4:19 # "Trahütten" (Parker, Wachsmann) – 6:20 # "Shadow Without an Object: Engagement/Reversal/Displacement" (Guy, Parker, Vecchi, Lytton, Wachsmann, Prati) – 6:02 # "Epanados" (Guy, Parker, Vecchi, Lytton, Wachsmann, Prati) – 4:29 # "Born Cross-Eyed (Remembering Fuller)" (Lytton) – 2:52 # "Philipp's Pavilion" (Parker, Wachsmann) – 7:33 # "The Hundred Books (For Idries Shah)" – 4:09 # "Contra-Dance" (Guy, Parker) – 3:38

Personnel

Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble

– soprano saxophone *

Barry Guy Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) 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 ...

– double bass *

Paul Lytton Paul Lytton (born 8 March 1947, London) is an English free jazz and free improvising percussionist. Lytton began on drums at age 16. He played jazz in London in the late 1960s while taking lessons on the tabla from P.R. Desai. In 1969 he began ...

– percussion, live-electronics *

Philipp Wachsmann Philipp John Paul Wachsmann (born 5 August 1944) 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 id ...

– violin, viola, live electronics,

sound processing Audio signal processing is a subfield of signal processing that is concerned with the electronic manipulation of audio signals. Audio signals are electronic representations of sound waves—longitudinal waves which travel through air, consisti ...

* Walter Prati – live electronics, sound processing * Marco Vecchi – live electronics, sound processing

References

{{Authority control ECM New Series albums Evan Parker albums 1997 albums