Tag: AUM Fidelity

Brooklyn, Concerts, Events, Experimental Music, Festivals, File Under?, jazz

William Parker Celebrated at Vision Fest

Vision Fest 2024 – William Parker Receives a Lifetime of Achievement Award

On June 18th, luminary bassist, bandleader, poet, and composer William Parker will receive a Lifetime of Achievement Award at Vision Fest 2024. The Brooklyn series for ecstatic jazz and improvised music has often featured Parker in a variety of ensemble configurations and in memorable solo performances. 

He will be celebrated on Tuesday, June 18th, with a plethora of events (below)  and performances that will also be livestreamed (tickets).

There is more to celebrate. On Friday, June 21st, AUM Fidelity is releasing two recordings featuring Parker. 

William Parker and Ellen Christi – Cereal Music (AUM Fidelity)

 

This is William Parker’s first spoken word album. Themes that he has long addressed in writing  –  racial justice, spirituality, peace, and healing – are explored in the eloquent selections shared here. Parker also plays flutes and bass. His collaborator, vocalist and sound artist Ellen Christi creates an elegant sound design for the recording and contributes her rich, sonorous voice as well. Birdsong features alongside conventional instruments and subtle electronic drones. Parker’s word-play contains fantastical imagery grounded in gritty experiences from the urban landscape. His declamation drifts easily, occasionally punctuating a particular concept like an arrival point in an improvisation.

Heart Trio – William Parker, Cooper-Moore, Hamid Drake – Heart Music (AUM Fidelity)

 

William Parker is joined by two long-time collaborators – Cooper-Moore and Hamid Drake –  in a new ensemble called Heart Trio. On their debut recording Heart Music, the musicians play a number of instruments, many Non-Western in background. Parker plays doson ngoni, shakuhachi, bass dudek, Serbian flute in F#, and Ney flute; Cooper-Moore plays ashimba and hoe-handle harp; Hamid Drake performs on frame drum and drum kit. The music they create simultaneously celebrates and transcends the traditions from which these instruments emanate. It combines polyrhythms identified with various cultures as well as passages, especially those featuring drum kit, that are palpably influenced by jazz. In spite of all of these elements, the trio’s interactions are seamless. 

 

The theme of Heart Music is sound healing. Theraputic use of music is a practice that has its own academic discipline. One can also look to Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening practice for another way to approach healing with sound. Heart Trio’s mission to heal takes on a different guise. Their music accesses the shamanic, the power of dance as ritual, and the jubilation of three lifelong companions finding a new way to interrelate. 

 

JUNE 18, 2024 WILLIAM PARKER LIFETIME OF ACHIEVEMENT 

ROULETTE INTERMEDIUM 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn NY

6:00 PM Invocation Lisa Sokolov

6:30 PM  ROOTS AND RITUALS
William Parker / Josh Abrams  / Joe Morris  / Mixashawn Rozie / Hamid Drake  / Jackson Krall /Juma Sultan / Michael Wimberly 

7:15 PM  Trail Of Tears Excerpts, The Blue Sky” Vanished Horizon”
Annemarie Sandy, Andrea Wolper, Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez / Mara Rosenbloom / James Brandon Lewis / Mixashawn Rozie / Isaiah Parker / Hamid Drake 

8:30 PM  Raining On The Moon
William Parker / Rob Brown / Steve Swell / Eri Yamamoto / Leena Conquest / Hamid Drake

9:15 PM The Ancients
Isaiah Collier / Dave Burrell / William Hooker / Miriam Parker / William Parker

10:00 PM William Parker & Huey’s Pocket Watch

Rob Brown, Aakash Mittal /Isaiah barr / Alfredo Colon / Dave Sewelson / Steve Swel / Colin Babcock / Taylor Ho Bynum / Diego Hernandez / Colson Jimenez / Hans Young Binter / Juan Pablo Carletti / Ellen Christi / Kyoko Kitamura / Patricia Nicholson / Art by William Parker

 

by Christian Carey
Bass, Birthdays, CD Review, Experimental Music, File Under?, Improv, jazz

Happy 70th Birthday William Parker

The masterful bassist William Parker turns seventy today. Tonight (January 10th) through the 17th, Arts for Art, the foundation with which Parker is associated, is making available a livestream of Parker playing his hour long solo composition “Black Reflection and Meditation.” (Tickets here: Donation of at least $5 requested).

The number of labels and recordings on which Parker has appeared is formidable, but AUM Fidelity has been a mainstay in his career for some time (they are co-organizers of the online salon). Any deep dive into the bassist’s recorded output should include AUM CDs. One might start with some of his large ensemble works with Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra or opt for The Peach Orchard with the 1990s quartet In Order to Survive, which included pianist Cooper-Moore, saxophonist Rob Brown, and percussionist Susie Ibarra.

Parker has had a long musical relationship with pianist Matthew Shipp. A recent outing that displays their extraordinary interplay with the drummer Whit Dickey is 2021’s Village Mothership, released on the recent AUM offshoot Tao Forms. Parker has also recorded for 577 Records. Last September saw the release of Music Frees Our Souls, Vol. 1, on which Parker and Shipp joined drummer Francisco Mela for another rousing trio set. Comparing the two CDs, it is noteworthy how much a different drummer inspires Parker and Shipp to take a fresh approach to linear dialogue, harmonic choices, and use of space.

2021 also saw the release of the 10-CD boxed set (of all new music) Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World. The set is a truly rewarding deep dive into Parker’s work. Another immersive experience is Universal Tonality (Duke University Press, 2021), the first full length book devoted to Parker’s life and music, written by the critic and historian Cisco Bradley.

So many ways to celebrate. Happy Birthday William Parker!

by Christian Carey