By Filipe Freitas

Name: William Parker
Instrument: bass
Style: free jazz, avant-garde jazz
Album Highlights: O’Neals Porch (AUM Fidelity, 2000), Sound Unity (AUM Fidelity, 2005), Double Sunrise Over Neptune (AUM Fidelity, 2008)

When did you decide to become a professional musician and what led you to that decision?
I was introduced to the music of Duke Ellington when I was seven years old through my father, who played the recording Ellington Live at Newport 1956. There was a track, “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” that was a favorite, the one where the tenor player Paul Gonsalves played chorus after chorus taking the music to a holy ghost feeling, like in the black church. Great music every night played in the house and every day and all day on Saturday - Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Willis Gator Tails Jackson, Don Byas, Gene Ammons. All of this music led me to the music of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Yusef Lateef, and just about everybody who was making music in the 50s and 60s. When I was about 9 years old, my father got me a trumpet and sent me for lessons. Later, I switched to trombone and cello. But through listening to bass players like Percy Heath, Jimmy Garrison, Charlie Haden, John Lamb and David Izenzon, I decided that the bass was for me. That coincided with me realizing the purpose of music was to heal people. When I was 17, I jumped into the arena and attempted to see if I could make a contribution to the world of music.

Your big band project Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield will be presented on March 4th at The Town Hall. What can people expect from this multimedia presentation?
I will present new arrangements and a new original piece. This is a different time and setting, and the work is even more relevant. This will be the first performance of the project since Amiri Bararka passed away in 2012. I have added three backup singers as well as Leena Conquest, plus a larger horn section. I have invited the poet Thomas Sayers Ellis to read some of Amiri’s text plus asked him to add his own words on the material. There will also be new interludes and extensions to the songs.

In addition to be a distinguished bassist/composer, you’re also a poet. In your opinion, which of these artistic forms more easily convey the ideas you want to express?
All forms of creativity are equal and they complement each other. It is the poetry in music that makes it work and the music inside poetry that makes it work. Music is not just sound, it is anything that is beautiful.

Your career spans 50 years. What are the aspects from the current free jazz scene that most upset you when compared to the old times? And what are the ones that you think are positive?
Music is Music. Many of the great progenitors from the 1960s are gone and the fire of the civil rights movement has burnt out so that today the kind of cathartic music and the aesthetic is different. But music is strong and it keeps revealing itself in new ways. So there are others who are coming or will come to be music, because the world needs music. But the situation around our lives are also making things harder. Musicians are spread out across the city, so gathering is much more of a conscious effort. The cost of living keeps going up and the pay for artists doesn’t come close to what is needed to survive.

Can you name two persons who influenced you the most as a musician?
Cecil Taylor, Milford Graves, Ornette Coleman, but there are many people who have inspired me.

Can you name two persons whom you’ve never collaborated with but you would like to?
There is no one I can think of. Maybe the Mexican singer Lila Downs.

Besides being a prolific bandleader you have always been an in-demand sideman. How do you manage your time? Did you ever decline to participate in a recording project that you were interested due to lack of time?
Right now I do the things that I am most interested in. Things known and many things unknown.

Can you tell me 3 jazz records that completely blew your mind?
Clark Terry - Electric Mumbles; Don Byas Meets Ben Webster; Bill Dixon - Intents and Purposes. But If you ask me tomorrow I will probably say three different records.

In which projects are you working at the moment?
The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield, Southern Satellites, String Quartet, Trail of Tears