Articles
Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.
Universal Tonality: The Life and Music of William Parker

Universal Tonality: The Life And Music Of William Parker Cisco Bradley 384 Pages ISBN: # 978147801014 Duke University Press 2021 Who is William Parker? He is a jazz bassist, yes. But he is also a band leader, composer, writer & poet, community organizer, peace activist, and cultural anthropologist. Cisco Bradley endeavors to pull the diverse parts of the artist's life together in this first ever biography of Parker. It is a monumental task, ...
read moreJim Black, Mario Santos, William Parker, Dave Sewelson and More

Is it too early to choose a best-of" for 2020. I know it's only January, but drummer Jim Black has released an absolute killer of an album with pianist Elias Stemeseder and bassist Thomas Morgan that is an outstanding piece of work. Reckon came out on the Intakt label from Switzerland in January, so be on the lookout for it. Black is as unpredictable and unique as ever, Stemeseder shows why he's one of the most interesting younger pianists, and ...
read moreWorks For Me, Tower Jazz Composers Orchestra, Eunhye Jeong and William Parker

Their are four featured albums on this show Works for Me --a new group of musicians put together by Marc Free at Posi-tone records kicks off that labels output for the new year/decade in fine form. The Tower Jazz Composers Orchestra, The TJCO has been the natural evolution of two previous didactic music projects: The Unreal Book" and The Tower Jazz Workshop." Throughout the years, these experiments have reached a more synthetized dimension and contributed to ...
read moreNew Music from William Parker and Whit Dickey

Great music from the Aum Fidelity label with new albums from William Parker and Whit Dickey together with a selection of other recent releases and some classic Bird." Playlist William Parker in Order to Survive Eternal Is the Voice of Love II" from Live/Shapeshifter (Aum Fidelity) 00:00 Whit Dickey Tao Quartets Peace Planet" from Peace Planet & Box of Light (Aum Fidelity) 08:56 Warren Galea Chrysanthemums" from The Odyssey (Vento Azul) 19:30 Stephan Crump, Ingrid Laubrock, Cory Smythe ...
read moreWilliam Parker/In Order to Survive: Live/Shapeshifter

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 ...
read moreWilliam Parker: Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics

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 ...
read moreWilliam Parker: Lake of Light: Compositions for AquaSonics

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 ...
read more