In 2024 Evan Parker celebrated his 80th birthday after some six decades of performance as an improvising saxophonist. To mark the occasion False Walls have produced The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc, a beautifully presented package comprising four CDs of Parker’s solo soprano saxophone and a 120-page book that includes in-depth interviews, writing by and about the man and illustrations of his visual artwork. The title references Roman philosopher Heraclitus’ famous observation – surely an improv maxim – that you cannot step into the same river twice. In 2023 Parker had returned to Warwick’s Unitarian Chapel where, in 1994, he had recorded a favourite solo. That 22-minute recording features on the first CD as 'Avon', followed by six tracks, also named for rivers, from the return visit.

The 12 tracks on the other three CDs were recorded across the last six years at the Ramsgate’s Arco Barco studio. Alongside nearly four hours of improvised music to listen to, the book delivers considerable depth of discussion of his musical and technical development, mostly in Parker’s own words, as well as a kaleidoscopic scrapbook of his arcane inspirations and ideas. What emerges is a powerful picture of a rigorously disciplined virtuoso’s lifetime quest to extend his playing, deploying circular breathing, split tonguing and other techniques to deliver those distinctive multiphonic cascades.

It is, of course, arguable that the music lacks variety – Parker himself admits to having confused recordings made some 40 years apart and says his early recordings have the germ of ‘more or less everything that came later’ – and one track title even references Paul Rutherford’s wryly asking whether Parker would be playing ‘the solo’ at their gig. But the point for Parker is more immersive, both for him as a player and the attentive listener. At 80 years old he still envisages a lifetime of continuing technical development, pondering whether his last year of playing should only be practicing: a monastic commitment to exceptional musicianship, for which The Heraclitean Two-Step etc will be an enduring legacy document.