An actually enjoyable surprise in fall 2024: “The Way Out of Easy,” a follow-up album from Jeff Parker and his ETA IVtet—Anna Butterss, Jay Bellerose, and Josh Johnson—who in 2022 released “Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy.” One of the best albums of that year, “Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy” was a little unbelievable, a combo of four inventive players creating improvised magic. And now: more magic. “The Way Out of Easy” is more of this band doing what it does best, setting rules and then breaking them, creating selflessly, tirelessly, making songs that both entertain and bewilder (in a good way). “The Way Out of Easy” feels different from its predecessor in one (possibly imaginary) aspect—this album feels more tune-centric than “Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy,” and not just because the tracks are titled this time instead of marked with dates. There are parts of these tracks, all throughout the album, where it seems like there’s more of a concerted move toward something more lyrical or structured, something that’s more expressly crowd-pleasing (you can hear, at multiple points in the album, the crowd’s pleasure at what they’re hearing).
“Freakadelic,” the opener, is a behemoth: Bellerose and Butterss open it up with a big rhythm that they keep up for the first quarter of the song’s 24-ish minutes. Johnson and Parker enter, mirroring each other for a few moments. Johnson—who along with Butterss has been a part of some of the best and most prominent jazz records of the last couple years—weaves together a beautiful passage on sax, paragraphs of notes, lined up so nicely with Bellerose and Butterss’s groove. A drone—from Parker or Johnson, it’s unclear—and Parker takes over. There’s no mistaking his playing, his tone. Like Johnson, an architect of at once dizzying but approachable solos, the kind of artist whose technical mastery is put in service of seemingly effortless creation and invention. Parker plays or sets a loop around 7:20 and lets it loose into the world, and Johnson plays little tidbits over that until, at 8:52, Bellerose switches up the beat (a move greeted by an audience member with an enthusiastic “yeah!”) and Butterss follows suit. Johnson uses his full arsenal for a few minutes of exploration, and the band shifts again into a different phase. Harmonics from Parker, a slower rhythm from Butterss and Bellerose, a background hum of drone from Johnson (I think), and then what seems like a full stop around 12:30, out of which emerges the back half of the song, a new beat, and some truly insane playing from Johnson (who’s given a lot of space by Parker’s beautiful and complementary background playing).
I want to write about the last song on the album too, “Chrome Dome,” since I think it shows that these four are capable of basically anything. The track starts with Johnson’s sax and some soft effects. Parker comes in very slowly around the 2 minute mark, plucking notes to punctuate and emphasize some of Johnson’s phrases. Butterss then Bellerose, with some intermittent additions, which become more pronounced around the 4 minute mark. Johnson and Parker really keep this one moving, with Johnson playing sax that sounds like it’s gulping back notes at some points, and Parker adding his propulsive licks. Near the middle of this track, Johnson gets a sort of animal squawk noise going on his sax—imagine like the Black Dice version of a sax sound—and Parker pulls out some wild dub-style delay chords, and the whole band falls into one of the most thrilling passages of music you’ll hear all year, the kind of music that makes you thankful that music exists. I cannot imagine getting to see this happen in person like the folks on the recording did. Magic and more magic.