Jazz Articles about William Hooker

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William Hooker: Earth's Orbit

by John Sharpe
July 30, 2010

William Hooker Earth's Orbit No Business Records 2010 If East Coast is hot and West Coast cool in classic jazz parlance, then composer and drummer William Hooker subverts that tenet with East hot, West hotter in this limited edition, double vinyl set featuring separate bands captured live on each coast. Hooker has a fascination for incorporating other art forms into his performance, be it his own poetry or films, often transcending his ...

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William Hooker: The Symbol of the Unconquered

by Ivana Ng
November 13, 2009

William Hooker The Symbol of the Unconquered Media Sanctuary 2009

It must be challenging to play the drums solo, but it must be even more so to improvise an hour-long soundtrack to a silent movie. Percussionist William Hooker took on this daunting task with the 1920 silent film, The Symbol of the Unconquered. Presented by the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY, this film screening and live performance was one of ...

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William Hooker: The Seasons Fire

by Laurel Gross
March 13, 2008

There's that iconic story about Elvin Jones, the man who altered the course of jazz drumming by seeking new sounds. Once at a gig in a bar as a young man, a customer came up to him and said, “Hey, make some noise." Relating the incident to Lewis Nash in a 1977 interview, Jones added: “People never understood that the drum is a musical instrument." Anyone with open ears listening to drummer William Hooker's The Seasons Fire, ...

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William Hooker: Live At Sangha

by Ernest Barteldes
November 15, 2005

Full-fledged improvisational music can be hard on the ear, but it can also be amazing if you're openminded enough to listen carefully. In that state of mind, I paid a visit to The Kitchen on October 6 to catch drummer William Hooker performing with Text of Light, an ensemble that included Ulrigh Krieger, Alan Licht, Christian Marclay, and Lee Ranaldo. With two guitars, one turntable, saxophone, and drums, the continuous set was a cacophony of feedback and ...

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William Hooker/Roger Miller/Lee Ranaldo: Monsoon

by John Kelman
January 17, 2004

You know that you are listening to something very different when the instrument that best creates a harmonic centre is the drum kit. Atavistic inaugurates its Out Trios series with a live recording by guitarist Lee Ranaldo, bassist Roger Miller, and drummer William Hooker that explores the many facets of texture, rhythm and timbre. Monsoon is a take-no-prisoners album of experimental music that will appeal to fans of avant jazz and out rock.

Recorded live at the Knitting Factory in ...

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A Conversation Between William Hooker & Ras Moshe

by A. Henkin
March 11, 2003

William Hooker is a spirit drummer who has shared his energy with musicians from Billy Bang, David Murray and David S. Ware to DJ Spooky and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo. He has been given the opportunity to hone the minds and souls of children by teaching social studies and literacy with components of choral and vocal music at the Walt Whitman Middle School in Brooklyn. A component of his curriculum is inviting speakers to his classes including ...

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William Hooker: The Distance Between Us

by Glenn Astarita
April 1, 1999

Synonymous with New York City’s Downtown Scene while frequently touring the college circuit and performing at New York’s famed Knitting Factory, drummer/composer William Hooker is at the forefront of the Avante-Garde. Whether jamming out improvised rock with Sonic Youth’s Lee Renaldo or touring with jazz violinist Billy Bang, Hooker’s ceaseless creative energies are admirable and prove to be quite diverse as illustrated in “The Distance Between Us”, his third studio album among his seventeen recorded releases.

Hooker opens with his ...