William Parker Quartet

Biography

10 January 1952, New York City, New York, USA. Parker played cello in junior school and acquired a bass in the last year of high school. He remembers being sent with 99 cents to the store to buy Duke Ellington records for his father. He found a cut-price record by Ornette Coleman and rapidly became interested in the New Thing: John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp. He attended sessions at Studio We in the early 70s, playing with Sam Rivers and Frank Lowe amongst others, and was involved with a Cecil Taylor big band at Carnegie Hall in 1973. Parker married in 1974 and worked at his day-job for the housing authority for a short time, then quit to play the Five Spot with Don Cherry. He next played with drummer Rashid Baker in Jemeel Moondoc’s band and in 1980 also joined Taylor, with whom he has continued to work regularly throughout the 80s and early 90s in a variety of settings, including the pianist’s recent Feel Trio. Other long-term associates -...

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