Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet – Happy Today

Jeff Parker is an interesting cat. He is:

• A successful jazz guitarist
• A member of the post-rock group Tortoise since 1996
• A founding member of Isotope 217°
• A side man on lots of funky projects
• A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM)
• A successful solo artist

Check out his Wikipedia page to see more details.

I was reminded of Parker recently due to the Flea jazz album – Parker was all over it and sounded great. I have listened to a few Tortoise albums and some of Jeff’s solo albums (especially Suite for Max Brown) over the years, but this is the first of his albums to truly move me. It is a live album and will be a concert film by Charlie Weinmann, to be released worldwide on May 29, 2026. 

Per Jeff’s label’s website:

Guitarist/bandleader Jeff Parker’s Happy Today, the third album from his long-running ETA IVtet, is out now via International Anthem / Nonesuch Records. Recorded and mixed at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on August 20, 2025, Happy Today is the sound of Parker and the rest of the IVtet—drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, and saxophonist Josh Johnson—engaged in their signature, minimalist, form-bending improvisational syntax across two sprawling, LP side-length pieces.

Regarding the recording:

Recorded and mixed in situ at Lodge Room by engineer Bryce Gonzales with a custom-made analog mixer and Nagra stereo tape recorder.

The background is that the album celebrates surviving tough times. As Parker shares:

“2025 was a very difficult year for me and my family. Dealing with being displaced from the Eaton fires for eight months, and the kind of toll that instability took on my family’s mental health and general outlook, coupled with Donald Trump being back in office and basically making life miserable for everyone… There was a lot of sadness and despair. But feeling the sense of community that we created with our concert, and later hearing the recording, seeing the beautiful footage that had been shot and the photographs of such joy to be back in that space and to be making music again: It was a very happy moment. So I called the record Happy Today. It’s meant to be a statement of joy.”

Sonically, this is a gorgeous recording – listening via a 24-bit/96 kHz Tidal stream. It sounds as good as a studio recording but has an intimate, live-show vibe.

The album is made up of two instrumental songs, each twenty-plus minutes: “Like Swimwear” and “Happy Today.” The genre is jazz, but that is a broad term and doesn’t describe anything. Where most jazz players tend towards historonics in their solos, Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet are more about setting a hypnotic vibe – it is closer to ambient or dub/reggae, but it is not sleepy. This is not musical wallpaper, but engaging music. It is the kind of music that can be enjoyed in the background, but active listening is rewarded with thoughtful arrangements and tasty solos. I think this album would appeal to jamband heads as well as jazz heads. I am intrigued enough to check out Jeff Parker & ETA’s other albums: Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy and The Way Out of Easy. This will easily make my 2026 year-end list.

I just got a new DAC, and Happy Today’s sonic textures have been the perfect road for me to test-drive it on.