william parker

"You inspire us to work hard to improve the service we do for the music community." 

In this episode of MFM Speaks Out, Dawoud Kringle offers a retrospective of the progress of the MFM Speaks Out podcast in 2022. The guests mentioned, and / or whose music was included, include Ken Butler, Ariel Hyatt, Neel Murgai, Banning Eyre, Baba Don Eaton Babatunde, William Parker, Bruce Lee Gallanter, Jeff Slatnick, Hubert Howe, and April Centrone.

The progress and accomplishments of MFM as a whole during the year 2022 were also briefly discussed. 

Topics discussed:

Our guest for episode 35 in January was musician, experimental musical instrument builder, and visual artist Ken Butler. He builds hybrid musical instruments and other artworks that explore the interaction and transformation of common and uncommon objects, altered images, sounds and silence.He is internationally recognized as an innovator of experimental musical instruments created from diverse materials including tools, sports equipment, and household objects.

February's episode 36 featured Ariel Hyatt. Ariel is a digital marketer, writer, and teacher who assists independent musicians in career development. She is the author of Music Success in 9 Weeks, Cyber PR For Musicians, Crowdstart, and other books. Hyatt worked at New York City's WNEW-FM, and the What Are Records? record label. She moved to Boulder CO, where she managed and handled publicity for the funk band, Lord of Word. She is also the founder and owner of the New York-based public relations firm Cyber PR. Her clients included the Toasters and George Clinton.

Neel Murgai was our 37th guest in March. Neel is a sitarist, overtone singer, percussionist, composer, teacher, and Co-Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Raga Massive, a raga inspired musician's collective.

Banning Eyre is a writer, guitarist and producer, and the senior editor and producer of the public radio program Afropop Worldwide.  He has traveled and done music research in over 20 African countries, as well as in the Caribbean, South America and Europe. His latest initiative is the launch of Lion Songs Records, an independent label dedicated to uplifting overlooked, mostly acoustic music from the African universe. He is the author of several books, and the co-author of AFROPOP! An Illustrated Guide to Contemporary African Music. Eyre is a contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and his writing has been published in Billboard, Guitar Player, Salon, the Boston Phoenix, College Music Journal, Option, The Beat, Folk Roots, Global Rhythm, and other publications. He also has a background in technology, and worked for 10 years as a software technical writer. Eyre is also on the Advisory Committee of Musicians for Musicians.  

Baba Don Eaton Babatunde. He is a percussionist and master of African Drumming and the rhythms of the African Diaspora in the Americas. Baba Don has performed and recorded with Abidun Oyewole and The Last Poets, Pattie Labelle, Joe Henderson, Donald Brown, Jason Linder, Tyrone Jefferson, Tevin Thomas, James Spaulding, Ron Carter, George Clinton, Pharaoh Sanders, the Metropolitan Orchestra, Bill Laswell, and Philycia Rashadto name a few. His work with dance companies and choreographers includes The Dance Theatre of Harlem, Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, Maurice Hines, Gregory Hines, Andy Williams, Chuck Davis Dance theatre, Frank Hatchet, Geoffrey Holder, Louis Johnson, and Pyramid Dance Company.

Episode 40 featured free jazz bass master William Parker. He has also performed and recorded with Cecil Taylor, Peter Brotzmann, Derek Bailey, John Zorn, Hamid Drake, Anthony Braxton, Milford Graves, Oliver Lake, Daniel Carter, Billy Bang, Andrew Cyrille, Matthew Shipp, Roy Campbell, Warren Smith, Joe McPhee, Roscoe Mitchell, Jemeel Moondoc, Joe Morris, Steve Swell, David S. Ware, Leena Conquest, and many others. He was the leader of the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra and In Order to Survive, a member of the Other Dimensions in Music cooperative, and co-founder of the musician's non-profit organization Arts For Art. 

Our guest for episode 41 was Bruce Lee Gallanter, the owner and proprietor of Downtown Music Gallery (DMG), a Manhattan based music store that specializes in new, used, hard to find, and out of print CDs, Vinyl, DVDs, and books. DMG was started in 1991 by David Yamner & Steve Popkin, with Gallanter working for the store. They remained in their first location on east 4th street in Manhattan for 12 years until 2003, and started having weekly free concerts, an idea that Gallanter had started with Manny Maris when they worked at Lunch For Your Ears. Gallanter became the owner in 1997. Around the time. he and Emperor Mike started the DMG newsletter, In 2003, they moved into a new store on the Bowery, not far from St. Marks Place, Tower Records, and Other Music.

Jeff Slatnick was our 42nd guest. Jeff has been an employee and later the owner of Music Inn for over 54 years. Music Inn is one of the oldest music stores in New York City (second in longevity only to Sam Ash). It is a landmark music store in the West Village of NYC specializing in imported world and western instruments, rare and exotic music items, and records. Music Inn has been described as “a museum, rich with music history from around the world.” Music Inn is also the headquarters of Limulus, a company that designs and manufactures unique solid body string instruments. 

Hubert Howe graced the annals of our podcast as our 43rd guest. Hubert was one of the first researchers in computer music, and became Professor of Music and Director of the Electronic Music studios at Queens College in New York, where he was also Director of the Aaron Copland School of Music from 1989 to 1998, 2001 to 2002, and Autumn 2007. He taught at the Juilliard School from 1974 through 1994. In 1988-89 he held the Endowed Chair in Music at the University of Alabama. He has been a member of the Society of Composers, Inc. , President of the US section of the League of Composers / International Society of Contemporary Music, a member of the International Computer Music Association, and directed the International Computer Music Conference at Queens College, a member of Society for Electro-Acoustic Music, a member of BMI, and the American Composers Alliance since 1974 and served as their President from 2002 to 2011. He is a member of the New York Composer's Circle and has served as Executive Director since 2013. In 2009, he founded the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, and he continues as Director.

Our final guest for for 2022 was April Centrone. April Centrone is a multi-instrumentalist (specialising in the riqq, darbuka, frame drum, trap drum, and oud), co-founder of the New York Arabic Orchestra, teacher, composer, film producer and director, and music therapist. She is a Carnegie Hall World Explorer musician and educator, business owner and founder of 10PRL, arts/film/event space on the Jersey Shore. Shehas performed in venues such as the United Nations, NYC Opera House, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and has toured throughout Europe, the Americas, Middle East and Far East.

Music on this episode:

"Aurora" by Adam Reifsteck / Sonic Fear

"Building a Desert Blizzard" by Ken Butler

"Bagheshri Unbound" by Neel Murgai

"Today is a New Day" by Voyagers

"25 Years" by Abiodun Oyewole, featurning Baba Don Eaton

"Give Me Back My Drum" by William Parker

"Warm Arms to Hold You" by Dawoud the Renegade Sufi (a.k.a. Dawoud Kringle)

"Inharmonic Fantasy No. 7" by Hubert Howe

"New Moon" by April Centrone

"Welcome New Iran" by SoSaLa (a.k.a. Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi)

(All music used by permission)

Credits
Producer and host: Dawoud Kringle
Publisher: Musicians For Musicians (MFM), Inc. and Sohrab Saadat Ladjvardi
Technical support: Adam Reifsteck
Links
Be sure to follow and tag MFM on Facebook ([https://www.facebook.com/M4M.org/] and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mfm\_association/).

"Music is Defined as Anything that is Beautiful, and What Makes Something Beautiful is Music"

Our guest for this episode of MFM Speaks Out is free jazz bass master William Parker. Parker was born in the Bronx, New York City, and grew up in the Melrose housing project. His first instruments were the trumpet, trombone and cello. Parker had no formal training as a classical player, but in his youth studied with Jimmy Garrison, Richard Davis and Wilbur Ware.

In the 1980s, he first came to public attention playing with Cecil Taylor. He has also performed and recorded with Peter Brotzmann, Derek Bailey, John Zorn, Hamid Drake, Anthony Braxton, Milford Graves, Oliver Lake, Daniel Carter, Billy Bang, Andrew Cyrille, Matthew Shipp, Roy Campbell, Warren Smith, Joe McPhee, Roscoe Mitchell, Jemeel Moondoc, Joe Morris, Steve Swell, David S. Ware, Leena Conquest, and many others. He also led several groups, such as the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra and In Order to Survive.

His discography is extensive, with dozens of albums as a leader and co-leader, and with the aforementioned artists. They received very favorable reviews from publications such as Downbeat, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, Parker is a prominent musician in the New York City experimental jazz scene, where he leads a number of groups and is associated with the Vision Festival, organized by his wife, dancer / choreographer Patricia Nicholson. He is also a member of the Other Dimensions in Music cooperative, and co-founder of the musician's non-profit organization Arts For Art. He has performed at many prestigious venues and music festivals around the world. In addition to double bass, Parker also plays trumpet, tuba, bamboo flutes, shakuhachi, flute, double reeds, Kora, gembri, and donso ngoni.

In 2006, Parker was awarded the Resounding Vision Award from Nameless Sound. In March 2007, his book of political thoughts, poems, and musicological essays, Who Owns Music?, was published by Buddy’s Knife Jazzedition in Cologne, Germany.  In June 2011, Parker's second book, Conversations, a collection of interviews with notable free jazz musicians and forward thinkers, mainly from the African-American community, was published by RogueArt. 

Parker is frequently noted for his community dedication, mentorship, and status as "unofficial mayor of the New York improvisational scene." The Village Voice named him "the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time" and Downbeat has called him "one of the most adventurous and prolific bandleaders in jazz."

Topics discussed:

His beginnings as a musician and what led him to free jazz, his work with Cecil Taylor, Roy Campbell, Hamid Drake, Jimmy Garrison, and many others, his work and long association with Arts for Art (AFA), the Vision Festival, the Other Dimensions in Music Cooperative, AFA's kinship with other musician's organizations, his thoughts on hip hop, social media, and modern music technology, racism in America, the spiritual essence of music (especially free / improvised music), the future of free jazz, and his experience, thoughts, and advice about the political and economic climate of the the music business.

Music on this episode:

"Give Me Back My Drum"
"It's A Great Day to Be Dead"
"Canyons of Light"

All Music by William Parker

Credits
Producer and host: Dawoud Kringle
Publisher: Musicians For Musicians (MFM), Inc. and Sohrab Saadat Ladjvardi
Technical support: Adam Reifsteck
Links
Be sure to follow and tag MFM on Facebook ([https://www.facebook.com/M4M.org/] and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mfm\_association/).

Episode 17 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with bassist William Parker, whose latest album, the 3CD set Voices Fall from the Sky, is out now, and his wife Patricia Nicholson, who runs Arts For Art, the organization that has put on the Vision Festival every year since 1996 and has recently expanded to running additional concert series during the fall and winter.

William Parker has been a crucial figure on the international avant-garde jazz scene since the 1970s. His first recorded appearance was in 1973, backing saxophonist Frank Lowe on the album Black Beings, and he’s made literally hundreds of records since then. He was the bassist in the David S. Ware Quartet for something like 20 years, and continued working with Ware until the saxophonist's death in 2012. He played with Cecil Taylor in the 1980s and 1990s, he was the bassist in Matthew Shipp’s trio for decades, and has played with almost everyone else you’ve ever heard of in this genre of music. As a leader, he’s done everything from solo bass albums to massive orchestral projects. Voices Fall from the Sky showcases his work with vocalists.

Patricia Nicholson is also a hugely important figure to the New York avant-garde jazz scene, because she runs the annual Vision Festival, a massive, weeklong event that gathers amazing musicians from all across the spectrum, from players who’ve been around since the 1960s to people who’ve just made their debut in the last few years and are keeping the spirit of free music alive. She’s also a dancer and choreographer who performs at the festival every year, and she’s just made her debut as a spoken word performer on the album Hope Cries for Justice, a duo performance with Parker.

In this interview, I’m talking to William about what he’s doing musically, and I’m talking to Patricia about her thoughts on dance, and what it takes to run the Vision Festival and all the other programs that the nonprofit Arts For Art, which she leads, put on every year. They’re an extremely ambitious organization working in a city and a cultural environment that offers equal parts apathy and hostility, but what they do is pretty amazing, so I hope you’ll find this conversation as interesting and inspiring as I did.