Parker, Jeff – The New Breed - New LP
2026 issue of 2016 album.
Jeff Parker’s The New Breed was a turning point for both Parker and International Anthem, changing the trajectory of his solo career as well as drawing an abundance of attention to our fresh imprint despite our then very limited catalog. Most importantly though, the album is the first to give voice to Parker’s wholly unique take on sample-based beat construction augmented by improvisation and live instrumentation (performed in this case by the high-level crew of Paul Bryan on bass, Josh Johnson on alto saxophone and keys, Jamire Williams and Jay Bellerose on drums, Parker's daughter Ruby on vocals, and Parker himself on guitar, synths, and other instruments). What began as Jeff’s interest in understanding his own idea of hip-hop processes (and how they related to his work in jazz) expanded into a blueprint for much of his work since then. (Hear also: The New Breed’s expansive followup Suite For Max Brown, the gentle deconstructionist solo guitar of Forfolks, and the long-form slow bloom improvisation of The Way Out of Easy.) The IA11 Edition LP features our IARC 2025 obi strip, plus a new 16-page 11x11" insert booklet with unpublished session photos, new liner notes by album co-producer Paul Bryan, and an in-depth conversation between Jeff Parker and IARC co-founder Scott McNiece.
Over the course of the In The Moment sessions in 2013 and 2014, Parker was slowly transitioning his personal belongings from Chicago to a new home in Los Angeles. It was when finally settled that he found opportunity to re-open some home recordings and beat projects that had been dormant on his hard drive for years (early versions of some could have been heard in the late ‘00s on his Myspace page). Parker had long been in silent study of vinyl sampling and beat conduction, but perhaps it’s no coincidence that new residence in a city aflame with experimental R&B, jazz and electronic fusers (i.e. L.A., e.g. Brainfeeder, Leaving Records, Low End Theory) spurred him to dig back in to the practice and produce with more purpose.
By early 2015 Parker had refined several compositional ideas around his samples, and enlisted local friend Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann, Meshell Ndegeocello) to engineer and play bass guitar in sessions with Chicago ex-pat saxophonist, Thelonious Monk Institute protégé Josh Johnson (Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Esperanza Spaulding)and drummer Jamire Williams (Robert Glasper, Carlos Niño. The recordings were conducted to capture composed passages as well as free playing that used Parker’s beats and sample suites as improvisational criterion. After completing 7 songs with the band, the last of which with vocals from his daughter Ruby Parker recorded in Chicago by John McEntire, Parker named the project The New Breed (after a clothing store his late father Ernie owned and operated in the ‘70s)and finished the album by stitching the band tracks together with intermittent pieces of beat memories from his archive.
The final presentation is a retrospective tapestry that explores Parker’s past both musically – as a potent compositional tribute to his influences (J Dilla, Thelonious Monk, Charles Stepney)held together by literal fragments of his life’s work – and patrilineally – as a collaboration with his kin held together by clippings from the family photo album. The New Breed is Jeff Parker’s most vibrant and comprehensively personal work yet, appropriately the first in 11 years with only his name in the “lead artist” column.
Produced by Paul Bryan and Jeff Parker
Jeff Parker - electric guitar, Korg MS20, Wurlitzer electric piano, Mellotron, loops and samplers, MIDI and drum programming
Josh Johnson - alto saxophone, flute, clarinet, Wurlitzer electric piano, Mellotron
Paul Bryan - electric bass guitar
Jamire Williams - drums
Jay Bellerose - drums and percussion (“Visions” only)
Ruby Parker - vocals
Engineered, edited and mixed by Paul Bryan intermittently from February to December, 2015 in Santa Monica CA. Vocals recorded by John McEntire at SOMA E.M.S., Chicago. Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters, Los Angeles.
All songs and lyrics composed and arranged by Jeff Parker (umjabuglafeesh music, BMI), except “Visions” by Bobby Hutcherson
