Theo Parrish
12 July | The Barbican
Before interviewing Theo Parrish about 18 months ago, we looked up some of his other interactions with ‘the music press’. One stuck out. In it, the BBC asked five questions that, in their vapid way, functioned like a taxonomising schema of musical pigeon-holing – ‘are you, Theo Parrish, “Jazz”? “Conceptual”? “Militant”? “Political”? Part of Detroit’s “third wave”?’
The whole thing was thick with lazy assumptions, galling tweeness and unthinking racism. Theo sent a fuckoffagram in response. The BBC, at Theo’s direction, reprinted it unedited, but bookended their part with emboldened, elliptical rubric, as if to say, ‘look how reasonable our questions were; look how militantly political and conceptual Theo Parrish is!’ The ignorant questioning was perhaps forgivable; this framing of Theo’s responses, not.
It’s clear Parrish rejects the labels often attached to his name, and perhaps his recent live show at The Barbican was an attempt to show another dimension to “Theo Parrish”: bandleader. Over 90 minutes, Parrish led a highly-accomplished troupe – collectively, The Unit – through covers of sampled material (like Brass Construction – Top of the World) and the Sound Signature back catalogue (such as Soul Control) with charm, virtuosity, honesty and inclusivity.
Far from being the mean castigator The BBC implied him to be, Parrish spent most of the night smiling broadly, talking with the audience, even derp-facing during one of Myele Manzanza’s epic drum solos. As Manzana snapped into the familiar rimshot attack of Solitary Flight, Theo looked at the rest of the band, smiled, looked at the audience, and out flowed the opening chords. Stuff like this made it clear that this was not just “Teddy’s Get Down” – it was ours, and we, the audience, were made part of the experience. We were literally dancing in the aisles.
The Barbican hosted this event as part of their Digital Revolution exhibition, and while everyone is understandably bored of the digital vs analogue ‘debate’, this seemed to be perfect amalgam of the two: live vocals, digital and analogue synths, live bass, guitar and drums, digital FX. But isn’t Theo Parrish meant to be some kind of vinyl purist? How on earth did he expect journalists to review the night if he continued to not be “Theo Parrish”?
There was little to criticise. We could tell one of Amp Fiddler’s keyboard solos was lost on some – blistering chromatic scales and forays into free jazz sometimes are – but the performance felt like the culmination of a life spent making art, making people dance, and forcing people to challenge their assumptions. Maybe “bandleader” is just another label now attaching to Parrish – maybe we shouldn’t have mentioned it – but if he doesn’t like it, we reckon he’ll do what he’s always done: wrest control of the Theo Parrish narrative away from music journalists, and back into his own hands. We’ll keep an eye on our inbox.
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Words: Robert Bates
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