William Parker
Sessionography excerpt
by Rick Lopez
(October 2014)
Fifteen years might seem like a long time to work on a book but when it’s bassist/composer/bandleader/impresario William Parker, it’s understandable. Wynton Marsalis has Lincoln Center but Parker has been one of the scions of the New York downtown jazz scene for several decades now. As such, writer Rick Lopez put a lot of time and care into crafting The William Parker Sessionography, a tome that documents the jazz legend’s extensive, restless career, going back to his early ‘70’s sessions with Frank Lowe and Cecil Taylor and continuing through his work with Billy Bang, Raphe Malik, Peter Brötzmann, Charles Gayle, Roy Campbell, Butch Morris, Derek Bailey, John Zorn, Matthew Shipp, Milford Graves and Evan Parker, not to mention his own large and small ensembles and years as part of the classic David S. Ware quartet (not to mention ongoing work with Mr. Taylor too). Amazing how one guy can maintain such a hefty schedule for about 40 years now.
But Lopez’s book, as you’ll see, is more than just dates and listings that chronicle an incredibly diverse and productive career. Also included there are numerous details, stories and anecdotes pulled from interviews, articles and Lopez’s own notes plus plenty of archive photos, posters and gig flyers, detailing not just jazz history but a portrait of Parker himself.
From the thousands of entries in the book, this particular excerpt comes from a millennium show done in the Midwest as told by Lazaro Vega, the jazz director of Blue Lake Public Radio, who helped to organize the show itself and originally shared his Parker tale on the Chi-Improv newsgroup.
If this whets your appetite (as it should), you can get the whole labor of love that Lopez put together about Parker at his Facebook Page or through Aum Fidelity Records.
00.10.07 * The Quagmire Trio [BROADCAST (recording) / BROADCAST VIDEO]
October 7, 2000 / The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts Theatre, Grand Rapids, MI
1. On the Way to Midwest [9:58]
2. untitled [9:46] - Parker solo
3. Stepping Stones--Kut (with channgo) [11:18] - Lake and Kim duo
intermission
5. Separation [8:52] - Lake solo
6. Calling For Sunrise [12:30]
7. SSareng (sic) [8:05] - Kim solo
8. Quagmire [10:51]
9. Puri (encore) [7:02]
Track 7: "...that's what Jin Hi Kim sent me, as with the two 'SS'." —Lazaro Vega
Oliver Lake (alto saxophone, curved soprano, flute on 6, voc), Jin Hi Kim (leader, komungo, channgo on 3), William Parker (bass, bombar, bamboo-flute on 6)
A Story:
William was in such a rush to make his plane Saturday, he left his CD’s at home in New York... And then his flight was cancelled outright. I'm at the Gerald Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids at 4:11 Saturday with two recent émigrés from Macedonia from London who are now on the music programming committee at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts. They're with me to give Oliver Lake a ride as my wife's Volvo will only accommodate William, his bass, and myself.
So there's Oliver, right on time, very easy going. I catch his eye, tell him, "I've been singing 'When I Do the Blues" (from The Matador of First and First, Passin' Thru Records).
He's even happier.
"So was William on the plane with you?"
"No, he's supposed to be on one right around this one, I came from Newark, so..."
William arrived two hours later, at 6:20. Everything was fine, I got him to the UICA at 7:15 for the 8:00 PM hit. I had made dinner for the band (white chili set up with salad, fresh bread, cheeses, nuts, fruit, beer, water, cookies—we call it the Steve Lacy rider) and it was waiting (for them) in the green room.
As we're loading the car, William is like, "Where's Kalamazoo from here?" It's an hour south. A few minutes later, as we're pulling up the UICA he's like, "We're here?" Yeah man, you're playing in Grand Rapids. "So when I asked you where's Kalamazoo, you gave me a good answer. I thought we'd be getting there at 8:15. What am I going to tell the people in New York about Kalamazoo, I told them all I was playing there?" Laughing, unloading.
Before all that, back at the airport, we went to wait for his bass. On the far end of all those luggage conveyors is a segmented metal door with a sign over it: "for oversized baggage." So we sit in Grand Rapids manufactured modern seating and start talking about the people who originally taught him bass. What the scene was like for him then. I didn't tape this, we were just sitting in the airport talking, but it was during the heyday of Club We and Sam Rivers' Studio RivBea, and William woke up playing and went to sleep playing. His daily itinerary was amazing.
And it wasn't only Wilbur Ware, Richard Davis and Jimmy Garrison, but also Milt Hinton and several others whose names escape me (William said we'll do an interview in late November and maybe we can revisit some of these things for the record). We talked about his composition "Anast In Crisis Mouthful of Fresh Cut Flowers." We discuss the music of Sunny Murray, Rashied Ali, Reggie Workman, and his relationships with many other musicians. When I mentioned using Roy Campbell's Delmark CD New Kingdom to help promote his appearance, he says, “Cool, because I'm going into the studio this week (October 11) in Chicago to record a new one with Roy."
After a while there's a crowd, a planeful, at the opposite end of the terminal from where we're sitting very much by ourselves and William gets up, walks about 15 feet towards them and says, "There's the bass!" They're half a football field away. So I get up and walk to where he's standing and can't see anything but dark coats and dark luggage. He relaxes, says "No, never mind: I just see basses everywhere." We sit and talk a while longer and pretty soon it's like, shit, a quarter to 7. A guy is going around to the luggage conveyors pulling out what look like plastic recycling bins and piling them up. We ask him about the bass. He suggests Northwest Airline's desk. The bass is there, exactly where William "felt" it was 15 minutes ago. I'm like, ‘coooooolllll, super-natural vibration empathy going down at Gerald Ford Airport.’ This is going to be a good concert.
On the way, in the car, he spoke highly of Branford Marsalis' open mind and how Branford used his influence to get David S. Ware on Sony/Columbia records but was hands off as a producer. Then we start talking about "the avant-garde." And William says, “There's an album by Albert Ayler called My Name is Albert Ayler and there's a song on there where Albert plays the soprano saxophone and he goes (shakes out a shamanistic-like high register nasal sound). And if you listen to music of China, there's an instrument there called (don't recall) that sounds like this (makes the same sound). Now how can something that's 4,000 years old be avant-garde? (Laughs) It's all relative to perspective."
The concert was wonderful - Blue Lake Public Radio taped it and two video artists recorded it with digital cameras. We also had a fashion photographer shooting stills. Hopefully this will result in a CD and video-documentary on this wonderful band, the Quagmire Trio featuring Jin Hi Kim, Oliver Lake, and William Parker. All improvised all the time. High hopes.
They sat in the Green Room for an hour or more after the concert, talking, eating, enjoying each other's company and the people Jin had been staying with. This band doesn't play together that often.
Driving William to his hotel after the concert, I mention the way he'll put his whole hand between the strings up on the neck and by turning his wrist, bend the strings apart. Then when he pulls his fist out, the strings just explode. He relayed that while recently discussing extended techniques with a master class, he told them he won't use anything that he didn't think of. He won't go and "borrow" something from Malachi Favors, for instance, but, he said, Peter Kowald does. Kowald, he said, has "borrowed" some of Parker's things, including this technique I noticed. Parker wasn't mad or even miffed, but was more the broccoli point: that your sound is your identity so it should be original to you. He seemed very proud of this point of integrity.
So, anyway, I'm trying to write this as I produce a live five-hour program in tribute to Billy Higgins, as well as an hour tonight on the music of Sun Ra recently re-issued by Evidence.
In any case, I hope this was worth your time. You know Jin Hi Kim was put with William Parker at the suggestion of a European jazz concert promoter, who's very proud of bringing them together. Though nothing of that magnitude happened last Saturday, at least something happened, and it was documented, and Grand Rapids was able to give the band the money they asked for. Incrementally, in micro-tones, we turn from pre-packaged corporate entertainment and discover our own musical soul.