A Letter For Parris Taylor
A genius freestyle DJ and my close friend
Last night I went out vibing. That’s right, 37yo dad got to go let loose on a school night (suck it middle age parenthood).
It wasn’t just any random club DJ set though, I got to experience my good friend, Parris, on stage do his thing. He was AWESOME.
His thing, that he does so effortlessly, isn’t just sitting behind a MacBook Pro and mixing tracks like some pedestrian wedding DJ. This dude stands on stage with a bunch of complicated synths, drum machines, keyboards, a million buttons, and who the heck knows what else, all connected together somehow with a birds nest of colorful wires and tubes.
And he LIVE mixes sounds. He improvises and often times creates music and sounds that have never been combined before, ever, not in this way. The first time I heard him do a set a couple years ago I was dumbfounded and a bit confused. It was such a strange experience, my brain couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was so new and unique that I don’t think my brain could process it.
To this day, including last night, I really am in awe at his ability to do this. It doesn’t seem possible that a human could play with technology this way or have control over it the way that he does. It seems too complex for a human brain to be able to do.
I think to myself - HOW does he does this? And I still don’t know.
And yet he’s a master at it. He’s so fucking good at it that he’s just up there calmly doing his thing and vibing and creating this experience of sound.
Every time I get to experience him do this it shakes me out of whatever headspace I’m in. It’s like shaking a magic 8-ball and the next morning I wake up and the floating triangle dice appears anew with something else profound peaking through the liquid indigo ink.
There’s something magical about people who can make art and create things that do this. Somehow they can create something that transports us and rewires our conscious.
Is it the frequencies? The vibrations? The over-saturation of signals and trying to process them? A breaking of our brains heuristics and neural pathways?
Whatever it is, it’s the best. He’s the best.
He’s a great Dad, Husband, friend, cook, fence builder, computational scientist, creator, and inspiration.
The type of guy that when it comes down to it, you know he’ll be there for you no matter what. You know you can tell him the hardest stuff and it won’t come with any consequence other than support and love.
The music piece actually shouldn’t come as a surprise, his dad, Ralph, was also a genius (he passed away not long ago from a battle with cancer). He was one of the worlds greatest drummers and teachers of drumming. He played the drums for artists like Frank Zappa and Don Ellis, and the list of drummers he taught and influenced is too long to even mention. Just go watch like 5 of these youtube videos:
When he shows some of these techniques it’s truly mind blowing.
Ralph is a legend. He and Parris are like aliens to me, their brains can think in sounds and frequencies and patterns that mine can’t. It’s humbling.
Anyways, my words can’t really pay enough homage to Ralph and I didn’t know him well enough to say anything more significant than these words, but I know he’s missed dearly and that his legend lives on through all the people his output of music and teaching resonated with.
I guess this is just a double-feature at this point - the Humphrey men are amazing and they deserve the gratitude.
With love and deep appreciation,
-Andrew
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