A concert by Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet from August 2025, a few months after the start of Trump’s second term, and the guitarist’s first performance with his colleagues – drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson – outside the club that gave the group its name, ETA, the now-closed Enfield Tennis Academy. Hardly sounds like much of a reason to call the thing Happy Today. But that is exactly what is meant. What matters here is the time index, the »today«. Because around it, things may have looked rather different for Jeff Parker.
What one hears across these 45 minutes, however, does not speak of grief, hardship or anger, but of quiet joy. A joy that can only be had together. From the first notes, the musicians set a gently rolling motion in train, possible only through perfectly interlocked interplay. The circling tones of the guitar, into which the other instruments fit themselves, while each also sets its own accents, varies and slowly takes another direction, produce a polyrhythmic whole. Above all, Butterss builds complex figures within it, with long pauses and heavily displaced accents, around which the drums construct supporting structures with more regular strokes.
The title piece then begins like a hymn, without pathos, composed, before Bellerose’s entrance on drums in the second half prompts an ecstatic outburst from the audience. Parker sees the recording as being under the sign of community. Its happiness can be heard.
