Wednesday, June 20th
sounds of New York
This drummer can play.
Dave Sewelson (baritone saxophone), William Parker (bass), Marvin Bugalu Smith (drums), live, New York, 2017
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lagniappe
art beat
other day, Oak Park, Ill. (bird unknown)
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Tag: William Parker
2017
Tuesday, April 25th
Is any alto player more eloquent?
Joe McPhee (alto saxophone), William Parker (bass), Gerald Cleaver (drums), live, New York, 2014
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lagniappe
art beat
Paul Strand (1890-1976), Abandoned Window, 1944
2017
Saturday, March 11th
more
William Parker’s In Order To Survive (WP, bass; Hamid Drake, drums, MCOTD Hall of Fame; Cooper-Moore, piano, vocals; Lewis Barnes, trumpet; Rob Brown, alto saxophone), “Hymn,” live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
He isn’t doing that right—that was a very important one. It was what Astaire claimed he was thinking whenever he watched himself onscreen, and I noted that third-person pronoun. This is what I understood by it: that for Astaire the person in the film was not especially connected with him. And I took this to heart, or rather, it echoed a feeling I already had, mainly that it was important to treat oneself as a kind of stranger, to remain unattached and unprejudiced in your own case. I thought you needed to think like that to achieve anything in this world. Yes, I thought that was a very elegant attitude.
—Zadie Smith, Swing Time
2017
Thursday, March 9th
MCOTD Hall of Fame
William Parker’s In Order To Survive (WP, bass, composition; Hamid Drake, drums, MCOTD Hall of Fame;* Lewis Barnes, trumpet; Rob Brown, alto saxophone; Cooper-Moore, piano), “Criminals in the White House,” live, New York, 2013
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lagniappe
radio
Today—his birthday—it’s all Ornette Coleman all day on WKCR-FM (Columbia University).
*****
*With saxophonists Von Freeman and Henry Threadgill; trumpeter Lester Bowie; gospel singer Dorothy Love Coates; composer Morton Feldman; poets John Berryman, William Bronk, and Wislawa Szymborska; and photographer Helen Levitt.
2016
Thursday, September 22nd
sounds of New York
As funky as it is abstract, as abstract as it is funky—like life itself.
Farmers by Nature (Craig Taborn, piano; William Parker, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums), live, Paris, 2011
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)
Stuart Davis (1892-1964), Landscape with Garage Lights, 1931-32 (Stuart Davis: In Full Swing, through 9/25/16)
2016
Thursday, September 1st
more
Hamiet Bluiett (baritone saxophone, clarinet, flute, voice), William Parker (bass, doson gouni, shakuhachi), Hamid Drake (drums, voice), live, New York, 2016
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lagniappe
reading table
Three bowls of stew
and you feel
rich after all—Yosa Buson (1716-1783), translated from Japanese by W.S. Merwin and Takako Lento
2016
Friday, April 8th
sounds of New York
Some of the most kinetic, exciting, enlivening sounds I’ve heard in a while.
Farmers by Nature (Craig Taborn, piano; William Parker, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums), live, New York, 4/4/16
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Martin Puryear, Maquette for Bearing Witness (1994) (Multiple Dimensions, through May 1st)
2016
Saturday, March 19th
like nobody else
Cecil Taylor Unit (CT, piano, vocal, percussion; Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone, percussion; William Parker, bass, percussion; Rashid Bakr, percussion; Andre Martinez, percussion; Brenda Bakr, vocal) with dancers (Doretha Davidson, Leon Brown, Ron McKay, Pauline Zaguhei), live, Germany (Berlin), 1983
2015
Tuesday, November 17th
Where would we be without the tenor saxophone?
David S. Ware Quartet (DSW [1949-2012], tenor saxophone; Matthew Shipp, piano; William Parker, bass; Guillermo Brown, drums), live
