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Lars Gotrich | May 7, 2025
Music can transport you, even or especially when the destination's unknown. For 22 minutes, this is what Jeff Parker's Tiny Desk with the ETA IVtet can offer: a space for your mind to meditate on what the music speaks, set to a gossamer groove.
Even though Parker is in the group's name, equality runs the show: a quiet drone sets the tone, then the music is completely improvised. Stillness, followed by reflection and response. Josh Johnson, an alto saxophonist with a quiet-yet-commanding sense of effects, builds little worlds out of loops and fluttering melody. Jay Bellerose, a drummer who's worked with the likes of Allen Toussaint and Suzanne Vega, is painterly in his brush and stick work, but bursts with a sun-beamed drum fill when the moment calls. Anna Butterss performed next to Jenny Lewis for her Tiny Desk in early 2020; here, the bassist both provides a grounding presence and the basis for liftoff. Parker — an immediately recognizable, yet malleable guitarist known for his time in Tortoise, the Chicago Underground and a CV far too long to list here — plays with repetition until melodic figures reveal themselves. Informed by the members' backgrounds in jazz, ambient, funk, rock, electronic and minimalist music, the band's mystical approach to improvisation never bends to one sound at a time.
Andie Huether, our audio technical director for this concert, dug into NPR's equipment archives and set out a Nagra IV tape recorder on the Desk as a nod to engineer Bryce Gonzales, who developed a live mixing and recording rig with a similar unit for the band's sets at the now-closed ETA club in Los Angeles. "In the days before portable digital recorders," Huether explains, "NPR reporters and engineers would take machines like this one into the field to capture reporting and bring (or ship) the resultant tapes back to HQ to be edited and incorporated into our broadcasts." We didn't record this Tiny Desk analog, but the spirit remains: a conversation captured in small space, one worth watching — and hearing — over and over again.
SET LIST
"Hearing 3.26.25"
MUSICIANS
Jeff Parker: guitar
Josh Johnson: alto saxophone
Anna Butterss: bass
Jay Bellerose: drums
TINY DESK TEAM
Producer: Lars Gotrich
Director/Editor: Maia Stern
Audio Technical Director: Andie Huether
Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
Videographers: Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Kara Frame
Audio Engineer: Josh Newell
Production Assistants: Ashley Pointer, Dora Levite
Photographer: Grace Raver
Tiny Desk Copy Editor: Hazel Cills
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
#jeffparker #nprmusic #tinydesk
Support for NPR Music comes from Capital One. Presenting sponsor of the 2025 Tiny Desk Contest. What's in your wallet? Learn more at CapitalOne.com.
BigXthaPlug - All The Way feat. Bailey Zimmerman (Official Music Video)
Stream All The Way: https://symphony.to/bigxthaplug-2/all-the-way
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Lyrics:
Don’t let me down easy
If you’re gonna leave me
Baby go and leave me all the way
Don’t ask for all your things back
Cussin’ out my name yeah
Just to go and take back what you say
Burn all the bridges
Don’t ask forgiveness
Walk away like I’m someone you hate
Don’t let me down easy
If you’re gonna leave me
Baby go and leave me all the way
Aye, if it's over it's over so f*ck it
Just don't act like my love wasn't nothing
Like I wasn't the one you was holding at night telling all your secrets and hugging
Cause you right, it's too good to be true
Was a point all I needed was you
But sh*t time after time all this fussing and fighting it's time you do what you do
And it's cool, mama said there was fish in the sea
I got lost in the pool
Knew it was coming, I watched how you move,
how you turned your back on me and leave Me to lose
Remember the text how you said that you do
Said that you'd never leave we would fight til it’s due
But as it went on I was fighting for you
Sent a text it turned green why the f*ck it ain't blue
Guess you gone and I get it
Said you stay and you wanted my name but you left so I'm guessing that you never meant it
Said you’d try and hold on cause the love was so strong now I'm standing alone in this kitchen
Singing sad songs but I'm knowing that this sh*t don't last long
If you're leaving then leave cause your bags gone
But just know that you can never come back home
Don’t let me down easy
If you’re gonna leave me
baby go and leave me all the way
Don’t ask for all your things back
Cussin’ out my name yeah
Just to go and take back what you say
Burn all the bridges
Don’t ask forgiveness
Walk away like I’m someone you hate
Don’t let me down easy
if you’re gonna leave me
baby go and leave me All the way
Aye, if you say that you done then no takes backs
Said you fell outta love and I hate that
But see me I was stuck like a drug really fiening for love and somehow I can't shake back
When you walked out that door I was hurting
All the dreams in my head you was perfect
You remember the very first time that we chilled and I reached for your hand where the nerves at
Time will pass cause sh*t that’s what it do it be time I be sick sitting thinking about you
It was death do us apart till you gave me the blues
Really played with my heart had me lost in the view
Thought this sh*t was fair game but you made up the rules
On my hear left a scar and a bruise
Hope that you can stand on all the sh*t that you did cause I’m done
Yeah I’m finally through
Don’t let me down easy
If you’re gonna leave me
Baby go and leave me all the way
Don’t ask for all your things back
Cussin’ out my name yeah
Just to go and take back what you say
Burn all the bridges
Don’t ask forgiveness
Walk away like I’m someone you hate
Don’t let me down easy
If you’re gonna leave me
Baby go and leave me all the way
#BigXthaPlug #baileyzimmerman #newmusic
