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William Parker/In Order to Survive: Live/Shapeshifter

by Don Phipps
Another stellar effort from the genius known as William Parker, Live/Shapeshifter uses the immense talents of his In Order To Survive" group -which consists of long time collaborators Cooper-Moore on piano, Hamid Drake on drums, and Rob Brown on alto sax--to craft a statement of free-wheeling dynamism at play. One of the top composers and bass players to ever take up the art form known as jazz, Parker offers up a double album's worth of material, all of it recorded ...
Continue ReadingWilliam Parker, Stefano Scodanibbio: Bass Duo

by Francesca Odilia Bellino
Ci sono CD che sono storici perché contengono un unicum musicale. Bass Duo rientra nella tipologia dal momento che documenta l'unico incontro musicale mai avvenuto tra i contrabbassisti William Parker e Stefano Scodanibbio realizzato nell'ambito dell'Udin&Jazz Festival del 2008. Due giganti del contrabbasso moderno, molto diversi per modo di suonare e per formazione, nonché per concezione del suono, dello spazio, della melodia, della pulsazione, dell'armonia, che in questa registrazione di cinque tracce riescono a dipanare, prima timidamente, ...
Continue ReadingWilliam Parker: Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics

by Hrayr Attarian
Bassist and composer William Parker is a tireless innovator whose entire oeuvre is filled with singular moments of brilliance and artistic exploration. However, Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics is his boldest and most unique work to date. A variation on Richard Waters' waterphone, the aquasonic consists of tone rods and contains a small amount of water. When the rods are percussed or bowed, it produces an eerie, haunting sound. Drummer Jackson Krall custom-built Parker's own version of ...
Continue ReadingWilliam Parker: Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics

by Dan McClenaghan
William Parker, who plays multiple instruments, is best known for his work as a jazz bassist, leaning to the avant-garde side of the spectrum, with albums including Stan's Hat Flapping in the Wind (Century, 2016) and the marvelous 2016 offering Meditation/Resurrection (AUM Fidelity). Always an adventurous soul--he began early in his career playing with pianist Cecil Taylor--Parker puts his bass down and flies further out with Lake of Light: Compositions for Aquasonics. Aquasonics" are sounds created by the ...
Continue ReadingWilliam Parker: Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics

by Jakob Baekgaard
William Parker is known as a bassist, composer, poet, writer, educator and philosopher, but all these words just cover one term: musician. This is important to understand one of the latest releases from the prolific Parker: the alluringly titled Lake of Light, with the subtitle Compositions for AquaSonics. A musician in Parker's sense is not just someone who plays an instrument, but it is a way of being in touch with life itself: the tone world. This tone world takes ...
Continue ReadingA Musical Portrait Of William Parker

by Centro d'Arte Padova
This new installment of our 50/50" series--a collection of mixtapes made in collaboration with the artists hosted at Centro d'Arte--is dedicated to bassist and composer William Parker, a driving force of New York's free jazz scene since the 1970s, and one of the most brilliant musical minds of today's creative music. The selection features five tracks taken from the composer's vast discography; the other five are picked by William Parker himself from some of his favorite records.
Continue ReadingVision Festival 2018

by John Sharpe
23rd Annual Vision Festival Roulette New York, NY May 23-28, 2018 Introduction The Vision Festival somewhat surprisingly but reassuringly stands proud as the longest-lived annually produced jazz festival in New York. While the central plank remains what the Festival terms avant jazz, it's interspersed with poetry, dance, art, and film in a way which matches rather than detracts from the music. For its 23rd edition the Festival returned to Brooklyn's Roulette after three ...
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