MR. MOJO RISES William Parker
Nov 18, 2008
On his latest album, the virtuoso jazz bassist brings canny craft and otherworldly inspiration to the fore.
BY JIM ALLEN
While William Parker's been making a name for himself since the '70s as one of the finest bassists in free/avant-jazz, laying down the bottom line for everyone from Cecil Taylor to David S. Ware, in more recent years it's become clear that the occupation closest to his heart of hearts is that of bandleader. Much in the manner of his forebear Alan Silva (who played bass with Taylor in the '60s, and with whom Parker has also worked), the Bronx-born bass man eventually expanded beyond the role of workmanlike instrumentalist to become a conceptual-minded leader of ensembles where the open systems of free jazz are adapted to more organized sonic scenarios for a happy meeting of exploration and articulation.
That's exactly what he achieves on Double Sunrise Over Neptune, issued recently by the esteemed Aum Fidelity label (www.aumfidelity.com).
In fact, Parker doesn't even play bass on the album (that task falls to the talented young Shayna Dulberger), instead playing double reeds and doson'ngoni (a West African lute), in addition to his primary role of conductor. A piece created to realize Parker's theory of "universal tonality," which holds that all sounds predate the sound-makers and come from the same spiritual source, Double Sunrise was debuted in 2007 in New York City, at the 12th annual Vision Festival (which Parker helps organize). Owing to technical problems with the live recording, only the second half of that 40 minutes-plus performance made it to the album; the musicians gathered again the next day to record it again, and the second performance is also featured here, in its entirety.
A freewheeling, mood-shifting piece that nevertheless moves with an insistent sense of momentum, Double Sunrise mixes African, Eastern, and American flavors in a musical river that is constantly moving, never allowing the listener to step into the same place twice. Vamps that stir Afro-funk with blues and jazz undulate beneath a whirring hornet's nest of reeds and strings, and Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay's keening vocals inject a transcendent spiritual feeling. Joe Morris's guitar and banjo add angular, almost percussive motifs, while the drums of Hamid Drake and Gerald Cleaver seem to work inside and outside the time simultaneously, driving the whole thing with a winning blend of color and propulsion.
While Parker takes a relatively low-profile instrumental role, not a note played by the 16-strong ensemble would have the same meaning - much less exist in the first place - without the canny craft and otherworldly inspiration created by his carefully wrought context.
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