Composer, multi-instrumentalist and Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker follows up his first New Breed recording, released back in 2016 and named best album of the year by London’s Observer, with a great new album on Chicago’s International Anthem, titled Suite for Max Brown.

This new 11-track recording, which is a living tribute to his mother Maxine Brown, picks up where the first New Breed album left off, blending together looping J-Dilla-like sampled beats, cinematic atmospheric tones, electronic effects, and Parker’s always on point guitar lines. There are moments that even feel in the same vein of Madlib’s electronic-meets-acoustic jazz projects like Yesterdays New Quintet, and The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble. The record also includes incredibly unique reinterpretations of both John Coltrane’s “After The Rain,” and Joe Henderson’s “Black Narcissus”. 

Even though a huge majority of the music was was recorded and produced by Parker himself (including electric guitar, bass guitar, samplers, percussion, vocals), the record does feature a number of guests, including pianist-saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Paul Bryan, piccolo trumpet player Rob Mazurek, trumpeter Nate Walcott, drummer Makaya McCraven, and his seventeen-year-old daughter Ruby Parker who sings on the album’s soulful opener “Build A Nest”. 

With Suite for Max Brown, Chicago-native and now Los Angeles-based Parker continues to expand and take his music into new territory, proving once again that he is one of today’s most creative and musically diverse artists that even goes beyond jazz.

Jeff Parker & The New Breed — ‘Suite for Max Brown’
(International Anthem)

1. Build a Nest (feat. Ruby Parker)
2. C’mon Now
3. Fusion Swirl
4. After the Rain
5. Metamorphoses
6. Gnarciss
7. Lydian
8. Del Rio
9. 3 for L
10. Go Away
11. Max Brown

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• Jazz
• Jazz Funk
• New Releases