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