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"It is
through poetry and vision that life is discovered; discovered, and then altered. The
premise was to start a human revolution...to bring dreams closer to present day reality.
The music called 'jazz' is less than 100 years old; to young to repeat
itself." William Parker, January 1996 Having performed on more than 100 recordings over the past three decades, William Parker has been a driving force in keeping the mislabeled and misunderstood notion of free jazz alive and in the front of many listener's consciousness. Considered by many to be the greatest bassist ever to have played avant garde jazz, today his name is mentioned with equal frequency with the likes of Dave Holland, Charlie Hayden, Barre Philips, and Barry Guy. As a mainstay of New York City's progressive jazz scene since the 70's and a core member of the Cecil Taylor Unit in the 80's, it is hard to name an artist that Parker hasn't performed with. But that was yesterday and today he remains as socially active and musically prolific as ever serving as the invisible hand behind the groups of David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, Assif Tsahar; leading one the premier new music festivals in the world, Vision Fest in New York City; leading his own quartet, In Order To Survive, with Cooper-Moore, Rob Brown, and Susie Ibarra; and all while composing and performing in such other realizations as his recent collaboration with poet and playwright, David Budbill, in their performance tour of Budbill's work, Moment to Moment. "Just the idea that the layman has about the music is wrong. There's nothing 'out' about this music. If you analyze it, you find that it has rhythm, harmony, melody. It has extended techniques. It's influenced by music from all over the world, you know? The cell of sound is smaller. The rhythm isn't constant, it's more like the idea of a pulse, where you take a longer rhythm and break it up, varying smaller and longer cells. Sometimes you're playing a chant that builds to a fever pitch. You deal with dances, the feeling of the blues. But it's not about playing anything you want to play. It's not even about wanting to play. It's about having to do it, and training yourself how to go along with sound and a flow of ideas." William Parker from his interview in Soundboard magazine (now Signal to Noise) with Pete Gershon |
