Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William Parker was born January 10, 1952 in the Bronx, New York. He was not formally trained as a classical player, though he did study with Jimmy Garrison, Richard Davis, and Wilbur Ware and learned the tradition and is one of few jazz bassists who frequently plays arco.

Active on the free jazz scene since the early Seventies, Parker first came to public attention with pianist Cecil Taylor. The 1990s saw Parker’s prominence and public profile grow as an influential bassist in the New York City experimental jazz scene.

He has long been a member of saxophonist David S. Ware’s quartet, in Peter Brötzmann’s groups and has also played with various other groups that included Paul Murphy. He is a member of the cooperative Other Dimensions In Music and together with his wife, Patricia Nicholson Parker, organizes the annual Vision Festival in New York City.

His Sound Unity album has been listed in the Top 10o and his Double Sunrise over Neptune made the Top 10 album pick list by Amazon, and his Petit Oiseau has been chosen as one of the best jazz disks of 2008 by The Wall Street Journal, the BBC’s Radio Three, The Village Voice and PopMatters.

In 2006, Parker was awarded the Resounding Vision Award from Nameless Sound. His first book, Who Owns Music?, assembles his political thoughts, poems, and musicological essays  In June 2011, while his second book, Conversations, is a collection of interviews with notable free jazz musicians and forward thinkers, mainly from the African-American community.

Free jazz bassist William Parker continues to record and perform regularly at music festivals around the world.

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