Jazz Articles about William Parker

About William Parker

Album Review

William Parker, Stefano Scodanibbio: Bass Duo

Read "Bass Duo" reviewed by Francesca Odilia Bellino

by Francesca Odilia Bellino
July 15, 2018

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, ...

Album Review

William Parker: Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics

Read "Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
July 5, 2018

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 ...

Album Review

William Parker: Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics

Read "Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
July 2, 2018

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 ...

Album Review

William Parker: Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics

Read "Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
June 24, 2018

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 ...

Radio & Podcasts

A Musical Portrait Of William Parker

by Centro d'Arte Padova
June 15, 2018

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.

Live Review

Vision Festival 2018

by John Sharpe
June 5, 2018

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 ...

Interview

William Parker: Embracing The Unknown

by Luke Seabright
February 14, 2018

His is one of the most distinctive and respected voices on double bass today. William Parker, the tireless composer, multi-instrumentalist, educator and poet, is still today omnipresent on the contemporary free jazz scene. What's more, he has been consistently for the last four decades. The William Parker Sessionography: A Work in Progress by Rick Lopez clocks in at just below 500 pages, and, as the title suggests, it hasn't finished growing. In it are of course referenced his many acclaimed ...