William Parker’s Mayan Space Station (William Parker / Gerald Cleaver / Ava Mendoza)

 

William Parker

William Parker is a musician, improviser, composer, educator, and author. He plays the bass, shakuhachi, double reeds, tuba, donso ngoni and gembri. Born in 1952 in the Bronx, New York, he studied bass with Richard Davis, Art Davis, Milt Hinton, Wilber Ware, Jimmy Garrison, and Paul West. Over Parker’s prolific career, he has recorded over 150 albums, has had countless celebrated stage appearances, and has helped to shape the jazz scene for both his peers and the youth. In 2013, Parker received the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award in recognition of his influence and impact on the creative jazz scene over the past forty years.

William entered the music scene in 1971, playing at Studio We, Studio Rivbea, Hilly’s on The Bowery, and The Baby Grand. By the age of twenty, Parker quickly had become a highly sought after bassist, playing with established musicians such as Ed Blackwell, Don Cherry, Bill Dixon, Milford Graves, Billy Higgins, and Sunny Murray. Projects with the dancer and choreographer Patricia Nicholson have created a huge repertoire of composed music for multiple ensembles, ranging from solo works to big band projects. In 1980, he became a member of the Cecil Taylor Unit, in which he played a prominent role for over a decade.

Since the beginning of his career, William Parker has commanded a unique degree of respect from his fellow musicians and critics alike. In 1995, the Village Voice characterized William Parker as “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time.” In addition to his work with artists in the United States, he has developed a strong relationship with musicians in the European improvised music scene such as Peter Kowald, Peter Brötzmann, Han Bennink, Tony Oxley, Derek Bailey, John Tchicai, Louis Sclavis, and Louis Moholo.

William Parker began recording in 1994 and founded the ensembles In Order To Survive and The Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. In 2001, he released O’Neal’s Porch, which marked a turn toward a more universal sound working with drummer Hamid Drake. The Raining on the Moon Quintet followed, adding vocalist Leena Conquest and the Quartet from O’Neal’s Porch. Most notable among many recent projects is The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield.

As Steve Greenlee of the Boston Globe stated in July 2002, “William Parker has emerged as the most important leader of the current avant-garde scene in jazz.” Parker has consistently worked in many of the most important groups within this genre, including his own. He currently leads The Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra, In Order to Survive, Raining on the Moon, Stan’s Hat Flapping in the Wind, and The Cosmic Mountain Quartet with Hamid Drake, Kidd Jordan, and Cooper-Moore.

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Gerald Cleaver

Over the past two decades, Gerald Cleaver has distinguished himself as one of the most important and prolific drummers in the sphere of contemporary creative and free jazz. While based in New York, his influence expands well outside the confines of the city’s local scene. From Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill to Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp, he has collaborated with everyone who’s anyone in the field. Simultaneously, his expressive, often dramatically dynamic style has left a recognizable mark on numerous recordings, regardless of whether he’s playing as a sideman or a leader.

Gerald Cleaver was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and is a product of the rich music tradition found there and in his own home. Inspired by his father, John Cleaver, also a drummer, he began playing the drums at an early age. He also played violin in elementary school and switched to trumpet during junior high and high school. While in his teens, he gained early working experience with Ali Muhammad Jackson, Lamont Hamilton, Earl Van Riper, Pancho Hagood and later with Marcus Belgrave and Donald Walden. During his studies he was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Study Fellowship to study with drummer Victor Lewis. After graduating, he began teaching in Detroit and later joined the jazz faculty at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. He relocated to New York in 2002.

Cleaver has worked with Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Jacky Terrasson, Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Mario Pavone, Charles Gayle, Matthew Shipp, Reggie Workman, Joe Morris, Craig Taborn, Ralph Alessi, Eddie Harris, and Miroslav Vitous, among others. In 2002 Adjust, recorded for the Spanish label Fresh Sound New Talent, was nominated in the Best Debut Recording category.

   

Ava Mendoza

Ava Mendoza creates commanding, challenging music. She plays guitar and stompboxes and, no, she doesn’t use pedals to mask shoddy technique or weak ideas. Her command of the instrument is dexterous, her tonal palette is expansive, and she plays with an intuitive, improvisatory awareness, such that her performance is a profound testament to the state of contemporary guitar.

Ava Mendoza is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer. Born in 1983, she started performing her own music, and as soon as she was legally allowed into venues, as a sidewoman and collaborator in many different projects. As a guitarist, Mendoza has received acclaim for her technique and visceral approach. Her most ongoing work is as leader of the art rock band Unnatural Ways, and as a solo performer of her own music and works by contemporary composers.

In every context, Mendoza commits herself to bringing expressivity, energy and a wide sonic range to the music. She has toured throughout the U.S. and Europe and recorded/performed with musicians such as Carla Bozulich, Malcolm Mooney (CAN), Steve Shelley, Mike Watt, Adele Bertei, Mick Barr, William Hooker, Nels Cline, Matana Roberts, John Zorn, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Fred Frith, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Object Collection (Travis Just), ROVA, Negativland, the Violent Femmes, and members of Caroliner. She has received composition commissions from film distributor Kino Lorber, new music duo The Living Earth Show, the Jazz Coalition, and John Zorn’s Stone Commissioning Series at National Sawdust. Recordings are available on labels Tzadik, Astral Spirits, SGG, Pyroclastic, Clean Feed, Resipiscent, and New Atlantis.

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