Matt Parker - Worlds Put Together (2013) [Hi-Res]

“Parker succeeds admirably in demonstrating an abiding reverence for jazz’s heritage without being overly shackled by its conventions."
- Hot House

“Parker can’t be pigeonholed into just one tradition. … The saxophonist sounds comfortable promenading down multiple paths."
- All About Jazz

Matt Parker isn’t eccentric or reclusive—far from it, he’s super-friendly and down to earth—and his work isn’t primitive or obscure. But there’s still something of the outsider artist in the 34-year-old tenor saxophonist. A Fort Lauderdale native who is now part of Brooklyn’s inspired jazz scene, he is largely self-taught and self-directed. On his striking debut album, Worlds Put Together, he lives up to the title by connecting the stylistic dots between Lester Young and Rahsaan Roland Kirk—a magical feat considering he never listened to Kirk until people who heard the album brought up his name.

Parker didn’t set out to make an album that, quite simply, sounds like no other—stormy at one extreme, with agreeably disorienting sonic effects, and playful at the other, at one point floating a circus melody straight out of Kurt Weill. And how many jazz artists these days prize brevity? With the exception of one 10-minute adventure, the tunes on Worlds are all under five minutes, with three under four and one clocking in at 1:29.

In the best way, Worlds Put Together is the sum of its parts. Each of the songs is meant to evoke a scene from an imaginary movie—one with equal parts action and atmosphere and a cast including dancer Jimmy “Taps” Sutherland, Danish drummer Mikkel Hess (in whose pop band, Hess Is More, Parker plays), and a group of chattering children.