JEFF PARKER

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - JEFF PARKER AND THE NEW BREED AT ST. JAMES THE GREAT, CLAPTON – 24/1/20

There’s some jazz in a church tonight. It’s funny but jazz in a church is just exactly what I need this evening. I need solace. I’m just finding everything really hard work at the moment. 

  It's a bohemian affair, that’s for sure, full of in-the-know city types, of which I am one, I suppose. The type I am is the gauche bearded bespectacled music-loving socially-retarded loner type. And it’s become apparent to me lately, at all these gigs I’ve been going to, that there are quite a few of us. 

  The band is set up in the middle of the nave, and the city types are sat on pews all around, checking their Instagram accounts, chatting, looking around absently and stuff like that. Every so often a middle-aged man gets up and asks the DJ who the song he is playing is by. The DJ responds by happily showing the middle-aged man the cover of the record he is playing, and the middle-aged man asks if it is OK if he takes a picture. The DJ nods his acquiescence. The middle-aged man takes a picture with his phone, thanks the DJ, and sits back down. Then the middle-aged man’s middle-aged male companion asks the middle-aged man what the record was, and the middle-aged man shows his middle-aged male companion the picture that he took on his phone. I can’t figure out if the DJ is Giles Peterson, or if he just looks like Giles Peterson. I eventually settle on the latter, but I can’t be too sure. Some people calling themselves The People’s Kitchen are selling vegan sweet potato and chickpea curry, and the smell of it is thick in the air. I notice that there are quite a few people sporting moustaches, and I wonder if moustaches are making a comeback or if it’s just a jazz thing. There are also quite a few people wearing hats. At least, more than you would normally see wearing hats. 

  I find a space, leaning against a pillar by the sound desk, where I’m going to have a nice view. The guy next to me seems to be booking accommodation for a holiday or trip of some kind, and there’s a guy over there writing in a notebook, just like me. And like me, he is also bearded and bespectacled. 

JEFF PARKER is as unassuming and genial a bandleader as you could wish to see. He’s not the show-offy kind that you sometimes see, and is more often than not happy to let his younger bandmates enjoy the limelight, while he looks on with paternal pride. And although it’s, sort of, post-jazz, it’s still jazz, and so when one of them plays something particularly fast or particularly skilful everyone whoops and cheers and claps, signalling their appreciation. Parker, when he has his moment, gurns and grimaces like he’s pushing the notes out of his very soul, or dredging them up from some deep, hard-to-reach unconscious place.

  The band really get going when they play Go Away, one of the many highlights from their new LP, Suite for Max Brown. “This song’s called Go Away,” says Jeff Parker, urbanely, introducing the song. “It was written for Donald Trump. We really wish that he would ... go away.” And of course everyone whoops and cheers. I doubt there is even one person in here tonight who is even remotely supportive of Donald Trump.

  Things potter along very pleasantly, until something blows. There’s a little electrical pop and a little puff of smoke. We can still hear the band but it’s clear that something’s blown, and it seems to blow them off stride. An iPad-clutching soundman has a word in Parker’s ear, and Parker nods understandingly. “I think,” he says, “this would be a good time to take a break, but we’ll be back to play another set.” And off they go. And it’s funny to think of them sitting in the vicar’s dressing room surrounded by cassocks and crosses. 

  After what seems to me like an excessively long break the band return. “Welcome to our second set,” says Jeff Parker genially, making himself comfortable on his stool. There’s something somehow more expansive about the second set. The songs sway gently like a drunken man at a bus top. Laetitia Sadier joins them for a rendition of Cliché, sung on record by Parker’s daughter, who I guess didn’t want to come tonight, or maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she had school or something. 

  Not including the break the band have been playing for over two hours when they decide to take a bow. They receive a standing ovation and a nod from Parker signifies that they will play one more. 

  It’s a memorable evening. I’m really glad I came. It was a last minute thing, and wife wasn’t too happy because I’m going out tomorrow night too, and at one point I’d pretty much decided that I wasn’t going to come, but I’m glad I did in the end. It would have been my loss if I hadn’t.