We use cookies on our website to provide you with the best experience. Most of these are essential and already present.
We do require your explicit consent to save your cart and browsing history between visits. Read about cookies we use here.
Your cart and preferences will not be saved if you leave the site.
Special 15% discount on all available VOD Records items until Monday at midnight!

William Parker

William Parker (1952) is an American free jazz double bassist, multi-instrumentalist, poet and composer. With his wife, dancer Patricia Nicholson, Parker founded the Improvisers Collective, an organization that presented free jazz in combination with other types of spontaneous performance.  Parker's style is based on a tradition of self-expression and experimentation. His arco work is possibly the most fascinating aspect of his idiom; Parker excels at the creation of dense, hyperactive streaks of color, gleaned from the inherent harmonic properties of the instrument.

William Parker (1952) is an American free jazz double bassist, multi-instrumentalist, poet and composer. With his wife, dancer Patricia Nicholson, Parker founded the Improvisers Collective, an organization that presented free jazz in combination with other types of spontaneous performance.  Parker's style is based on a tradition of self-expression and experimentation. His arco work is possibly the most fascinating aspect of his idiom; Parker excels at the creation of dense, hyperactive streaks of color, gleaned from the inherent harmonic properties of the instrument.

Frode Gjerstad With Hamid Drake And William Parker
Featuring Frode Gjerstad on alto sax & clarinet, William Parker on contrabass and Hamid Drake on drums & percussion. Norwegian saxist Frode Gjerstad is one of the most prolific and hard working of all European saxists, a career that stretches back so…
Magnetism(s)
"The music takes on short, fleeting forms: fading here, held and moody there, as though the improvisation encouraged skepticism of firm certitudes. The tightness of the discourse, however, demands enlightening energy and lucid tautness." (Jean-Franço…
Forgiveness Suite
Composed by Arthur Williams. Recorded on December 19, 1978 at WKCR, New York. Forgiveness Suite is another worthy rediscovery by NoBusiness Records, focusing this time on trumpeter Arthur Williams, an almost forgotten figure of the free jazz scene of…
No Coming, No Going. The Music of Peter Kuhn 1978-1979
Live broadcast recording on December 19, 1978, at Columbia University Radio WKCR-FM, NYC. Originally issued on LP, edited and in slightly different order, as Livin’ Right on Kuhn’s Big City Records (LPK 225). Free-jazz woodwind specialist Peter Kuhn’…
Live At Jazzwerkstatt Peitz
This performance from May 2014 was the opening concert at Jazzwerkstatt 51, given by Charles Gayle (tenor saxophone, piano), William Parker (double bass) and Hamid Drake (drums) in the Stüler Church, Peitz, Germany. The concert was dedicated “In Memo…
Stan's Hat Flapping in the Wind
"Stan's Hat Flapping In The Wind features work from one of the jazz avant-garde's most heralded figures, presented in one of the most traditional of forms. 19 new songs composed by William Parker, and performed by singer Lisa Sokolov & pianist Cooper…
Die Like a Dog
German reedman-composer Peter Brotzmann is, despite an immense catalog spanning over forty years of activity in free music, criminally underrepresented in the format of a "standard" piano-less quartet. From reed-heavy octets and orchestras to the win…
For Those Who Are, Still
An astonishing 3CD box set of new and previously unissued long-form works from world-renowned composer-bassist William Parker. This box set is comprised of four distinctly compelling long-form works -- Parker's first composition written for sympho…
Great Spirit
"Great Spirit again makes abundantly clear William Parker's multi-faceted talents as bassist, composer, poet, bandleader and =songwriter=. Raining On The Moon is the extraordinary group which seamlessly fuses all of these prodigious gifts: his long-s…
Medicine Buddha
\\\"Billy Bang was a brilliant human being, always much more than himself, especially when he surrendered to his true calling-that of musician, one who transforms music into magic, dancing instead of walking, jumping instead standing still. Billy Ban…
Live at NHKM
Outstanding!! A confirmation of their ascension to the highest level of improvising ensembles, Konstrukt recently shared the stage with such names as Evan Parker, Marshall Allen, Joe McPhee and Peter Brotzmann showing their great ability to adjust …
Wood Flute Songs: Anthology/Live 2006-2012
Some of the most amazing work we've ever heard from this legendary bassist – a set that's not based around music from a wooden flute, but which instead refers to the instrument in its title – as an illustration of the very organic approach of the …
Navajo sunrise
Daniel Carter's relaxed phrasing moves naturally between Parker's earthly bass sound and Ughi's sensitive drumming. This trio's music seems to be possessed by a light and welcoming spirit. A constant flux of energy, a three way dialogue consumed with…
Tender Exploration
“Tender Exploration” reminds me of Hayao Miyazaki’s “Howl’s Moving Castle”, it’s an enormous metallic machine on spindly legs, walking like a toddler, but also steaming, mumbling,  panting, a creature full of energy, and inhabited by a fire demon.  “…
Touchin' On Trane
"This is Charles Gayle's most accessible work. Gayle's mastery of free jazz is blended with a more traditional compositional style of jazz on this disc. Touchin' on Trane is composed of five original songs, and even includes ex-Coltrane drummer Ra…
Melodic Art-Tet
**CD edition** 1974 recordings at WKCR in NYC from the quintet of Charles Brackeen (flute & sax), Ahmed Abdullah (trumpet), William Parker (bass), Roger Blank (drums) and Tony Waters (percussion), beautifully recorded and essential free improvisation…
Altitude
Altitude is one of two live recordings to be released in July 2012 as part of the celebration of AUM Fidelity’s 15th anniversary. It documents the first-ever performance by esteemed veteran improvisers Joe Morris, William Parker and Gerald Cleaver as…
Centering
Milestone! The music on these six discs comes from roughly the first decade of William Parker's career, one of the most intensely creative periods enjoyed by any musician of any era. William Parker's Centering (No Business CD 42-47), as the subtitle …
Crumbling in the Shadows Is Fraulein Miller's Stale Cake
A triple CD limited box set of 3 CDs and a 48 page booklet, introducting 2 new studio CDs of solo bass, and a reissue of William Parker's out of print 1995 solo bass album "Testimony". A strictly limited/one-time only edition of 1000 copies (987 to…
Black Man's Blues
Recorded 29th May 1977 at A Day in Solidarity with Soweto: A Fund Raiser, Harlem Fight-Back, 1 East 125th St., New York Violinist Billy Bang made his recording debut as a leader with the Survival Ensemble, the first working band he ever led, on New …
1 2 3 4