William Parker's Violin Trio band is one of the more surprising and delightful bands to come out of New York's modern free jazz scene. Parker and his truly singular tone and ingenious modes of attack, violinist Billy Bang, and drummer Hamid Drake conjure the notion of song as it processes itself not only through the simulation and presentation of improvisation but also through the process of memory -- allegorical, perceptual, cultural, and personal -- and they turn it back in itself in creating something brand new from the various shards that lay upon the pavement in the dark, highlighted only by an errant street lamp. The possibilities for music like this -- lyric, harmonic, and tonal -- is one of the great surprises this trio brings with them. The six selections here are not "compositions" in the formalist sense but are in fact songs. They are "tunes," with rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic bodies that are flexible and transparent enough to allow for each player to move about freely, carry with him something from the body of each piece, and wind it around the other two in a free manner without being held to the concept of breaking down barriers -- because they are artificial anyway. Bang's minor key solo on "Sunday Morning Church" against Parker's rhythmic, hypnotic bassline recalls a singer mournfully chronicling regret and then affirmation. The funky blues at the heart of "Singing Spirits," with Parker popping his bass under Bang's elongated line, and Drake's tom tom work that presents the appearance of shuffle while dancing all around it are stunning in their assuredness of musical purpose. When Bang takes it outside, Parker doesn't race to catch him but flows through a series of changes with ever more stress put upon tension as Drake dances him through. The final cut, "Holiday for Flowers," is a shimmering exercise in the dynamics of balladry and its various seams, where a free for all could develop at any time. Bang lies close to the melody and Parker goes walking, and walking through the blues, swing, soul, and always back to the original blues, those of New Orleans in 1929 and Kansas City in 1931. This is a restrained and lovely album that possesses real firepower in places, but it's almost never necessary because the level of communication runs so deep between these players that everything feels light as a breeze, poignant as a memory, and as fresh as a wound. - Thomas Jurek
For Scrapbook, bassist William Parker assembled an intimate trio that includes his frequent battery mate, drummer Hamid Drake, and violinist Billy Bang. This CD can easily sit alongside Parker’s recent and equally brilliant quartet recording, O’Neal’s Porch.
Perhaps the key element to this CD is Bang’s violin; it gives the music a deep, timeless, folk sound that goes from singing and ebullient to almost unbearably tense and naked. In Bang’s hands, Parker’s melodies come unvarnished and graceful at first. Soon enough, the violinist finds violent essays in them with a sound that somehow reaches back to the raw sound of pre-war Appalachian folk without abandoning the sounds of urban jazz. Around him, Parker and Drake turn out a wiry, vascular groove-can they do this in their sleep?-that gives the music its delicate power. Both the title track and “Sunday Morning Church” open with Parker and Drake locked up and jamming in a way that is so deeply satisfying that they could easily court your ears for hours.
“Dust on a White Shirt,” Parker’s stab at hoedown music, strikes a self-conscious note, but that is a small quibble for such a great album.
Parker joins fellow bassist Peter Kowald for The Victoriaville Tape, a live recording of the duo at the Victoriaville Festival. It’s another unintentional farewell for Kowald, who died less than a year after this recording was made.
There is a strain of melancholy running through this performance, though that might be a retroactive and clouded observation. But there is no doubt that Kowald and Parker generate an expansive sound together. For the 16-minute opener and the 41-minute main piece, the two men create a slowly shifting field of pure sound, sometimes out of which emerge small moments of furious walking bass or fragments of melody. - Aaron Steinberg
More and more these days it seems that William Parker has been drawing from the wellspring of African American roots music. That may sound like a strange idea, considering that the bassist has long been floating on the fringes outside mainstream jazz, hardly an icon of accessibility. Some of his best work has been in settings where the wildest ideas of collective improvisation fall together with pulse-raising intensity. Parker's respect for the groove may have dropped a couple layers below the crest on these occasions, but it rarely leaves the room. On recent recordings as a leader and with Matthew Shipp, that fact has been made abundantly clear.
That brings us to Scrapbook, which combines the raw sounds of the blues, spirituals, and funk with a keen sense of adventurous experimentation. Credit violinist Billy Bang for leading the charge on many of the fruitful excursions on this record. He represents the front line—such as it is among three players who trade roles like they change socks—and when the melody takes a turn to the left, Bang usually surfaces to ride the cusp.
The tone of the record emerges seconds after it starts. "Scrapbook" launches with an infectious funk groove, laid out with abandon by drummer Hamid Drake while Parker riffs away. Bang immediately settles into a six-note rising melody, restating it with due simplicity and restraint before the group drifts out of orbit. This theme will recur throughout the piece at irregular intervals as a reference point.
Plenty of double-stopped shuffling and scratching announces a change in tone, along with a shift in rhythm to a fast-paced, off-kilter out swing. Soon we're into the zone between a running bass line and the sort of root-centered enunciation that Parker employs to emphasize the ground—before jumping back into high-energy abandon. No matter where the group stands with respect to a relative order or disorder, the groove essence never falls out of arm's reach.
Later points along the journey include soulful blues; deep reverent soul; a brief touchdown into rural hillbilly territory; some swinging balladeering; and plenty of just plain unclassifiable energy music scattered everywhere in between. A Scrapbook indeed. To his credit, Parker ably recognizes the connections between these styles, which represent the musical diaspora he's always claimed as a (usually) abiding citizen of American music.
Listeners who have had a chance to appreciate the incredibly intuitive connections between William Parker and Hamid Drake will find absolutely no disappointment here. If anything, Scrapbook offers a welcome glimpse into their relationship under conditions of flux. Flexibility is the operative word. And Billy Bang's playing here, more than on any record in recent memory, maintains an articulate, soulful, and coherent mometum. - AAJ Staff
Under pianist/composer Matthew Shipp’s stewardship Thirsty Ear’s Blue Series has become one of the leading proponents of genre-bridging jazz. Recent releases in the catalog have strayed far from line’s initial offerings, mixing free jazz/improv, hip hop, dub and electronica into an omnivorous pastiche that has won its share of supporters, along with a contingent of detractors. Those listeners who harbor nostalgia for the Series’ nascency will likely greeet William Parker’s Scrapbook as a welcome return to roots.
Together, Parker and drummer Hamid Drake comprise one of the tightest, most micro-reactive rhythm teams in improvised music. In fact, the ‘rhythm section’ tagline only touches on a fraction of what these two are capable of in collusion. Violinist Billy Bang, a colleague of Parker’s since the early 70s, is a master of on-the-fly change ups and can turn from demulcent to stringent in the single flutter of an eyelash. His bow is a precision extension of his brain, acutely calibrated to the tension and temperament of his amplified strings. Coupled with the folk-based intensity that often informs his style the result is one of the most viscerally affecting sounds in improvised music.
On the disc’s title track broad scribbling swatches of sound laced by dovetailing staccato stabs trace the flow of Bang’s action. Parker is unnecessarily plugged into an amp, but on the bright side he eschews the usual murkiness that plagues him under such circumstances and articulates his corpulent lines cleanly. But just as he and Drake lock into one of their mountain-moving grooves the piece fades frustratingly.
“Sunday Morning Church” starts service on a dark bass ostinato and Bang’s somber lyrical lead. Shaving off cerulean melodic ribbons the violinist twists and spindles the mournful theme into a patchwork of permutations as his partners erect a stalwart lock-step rhythm around him. Rising and receding in sawing arcs Bang’s bow cleaves a course for the heavens in a solo that threatens to split his strings asunder with straining force. It’s a performance that shoots straight for the emotional core and pierces the target with a virtuosic bull’s-eye. Drake and Parker keep pace, but it’s purely the violinist’s show, begging the question as to why the bassist’s surname is on the marquee. The answer of course lies in Parker’s follow-up, a statement imbued with measured restraint and space that contrasts beautifully with Bang’s florid fireworks. He lets the cavernous cracks of silence between notes work for him, weaving a spell saturated in nakedly affecting soul. Bang’s reentry reflects a lesson learned as he shapes a coda from a newfound reservoir of reserve.
On other pieces like the strangely dour “Singing Spirits” Bang torques his strings with sharp-edged arco tugs spreading a falling dust of wafer-thin overtones over the undulating harmonic terrain of Parker’s deep strums and Drake’s choppy beats. “Dust on a White Shirt” paints a different picture, in tonal colors bright and festive, as a bobbing rustic rhythm of slap bass and cymbals supports Bang’s skipping arco strokes and delicate pizzicato accents. “Urban” erupts in a stuttering tidal rush and violinist’s bow etches blurred streaks atop a crowded backdrop conjured by his partners. Together the three sculpt and dizzying aural approximation of city-born anomie. The brief “Holiday for Flowers” ties up loose ends with a dissatisfying and somewhat maudlin denouement, but considering the strengths of the album as a whole it’s only a minor mis-step. Where Shipp will guide Blue Series loyalists next is anyone’s guess, but this detour into the sort of music that cemented its early acclaim delivers a refreshing alternative to the label’s recent hybridizing ventures. Parker, Bang and Drake should be proud of their efforts. - Derek Taylor
Tracks
01. Scrapbook
02. Sunday Morning Church
03. Singing Spirits
04. Dust on a White Shirt
05. Urban
06. Holiday For Flowers
BILLY BANG violin
HAMID DRAKE drums
WILLIAM PARKER bass
All music composed by William Parker
Recorded May 2002 at Strobe-Light Studios New York, NY
Thirsty Ear - THI57133.2