Praise for William Parker’s Voice (s)

While The Nation’s David Hajudu may think that bassist William Parker has reached an apogee in his music because the writer can now relate to all the songs on the bassist’s three-CD set, Voices Fall from the Sky, he does give readers of this progressive political publication some idea of what he calls Parker’s boundless inventiveness. Hajudu, who admits that he only discovered (!) Parker when he mistakenly (!!) attended a performance of pianist Cecil Taylor’s sextet at a defunct New York night club in 1983, has since then seen the bassist, band leader and composer perform dozens of times in New York with the likes of pianist Matthew Shipp, tenor saxophonist David S. Ware and violinist Billy Bang. While he acknowledges but doesn’t seem to really understand how the bassist’s Free Jazz prowess has given Parker international musical stature, Hajudu describes this three-CD set as a late-career blossoming since he’s impressed by Parker’s music and poetry performed by vocalists such as Leena Conquest, and especially AnneMarie Sandy– interestingly enough, the most classically trained of all the singers involved. Still this unbridled praise may hopefully encourage others to explore Parker’s instrumental work on other CDs cited.