The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD once described the Bronx-born bassist and composer William Parker as “the most influential bassist/leader since Mingus”. It was a big shout, Parker being a more austere artist than Charles Mingus (a charismatic weaver of gospel, blues, and elegant Ellingtonian harmony) but he has been a three-decade inspiration to musical adventurers. Influenced by unique pianist Cecil Taylor (his former boss), Sun Ra and “conduction” innovator Butch Morris, Parker has drawn on deep resources from the jazz tradition, from the cultural roots of Africa and the Americas, and from European free-jazz.
Parker began his small-band project, In Order to Survive, in 1993 with postbop-to-free pianist Cooper-Moore, and this live set from Brooklyn’s ShapeShifter Lab in 2017 joins the pair with the Ornette Coleman-esque alto saxist Rob Brown and the rumblingly dynamic drummer Hamid Drake. A five-part suite, Eternal Is the Voice of Love, opens as a caustically toned free-jazz sway, but the group’s ruggedly intuitive harmoniousness is always present. A long-postponed Parker bass hook sets off a bumping groove, the leader plays a quavering flute passage that borders on a spiritual, Drum & Bass Interlude pitches and rattles like an old train, and the title track launches a tramping rock backbeat for Brown to wail and circle around Parker’s lurching, hoarsely hollering repetition of the title words. This is music straight out of the rebellious sensibility of the 60s African-American jazz avant garde – but it’s pithily inviting, contemporary and always welcome.
Also out this month
A 77-year-old Chick Corea reprises his 1976 My Spanish Heart album and more with Antidote (Verve), a horn-riffing, flamenco-stamping octet set, featuring the eloquent Panamanian singer Rubén Blades. The music occasionally sounds overly pleased with its own slick eclecticism, but the percussion is thrilling, the soloing inventive and there are some timeless Corea classics.
Brazilian harmonica master Gabriel Grossi’s #motion (Whirlwind) is a more natural-sounding live jam, mixing harmonica melancholy, rolling Brazilian anthems, and the legendary Hermeto Pascoal trading vocal gibberish with the crowd.
UK singer Brigitte Beraha’s quietly swoopy pitching and relaxed groove-stretching have never sounded better than on Babelfish’s Once Upon a Tide (Moletone Records), and the Trichotomy trio’s Sean Foran and Stuart McCallum, Australian pianist and Manchester guitarist respectively, join for the ambient-to-proggy, sometimes Pat Metheny-like melodies on Counterpart (Naim Records). It’s a little smooth-jazzy, but palpably the product of a real compatibility.
