Since ascending onto the world stage in the 1990s as one of the premier bassists and composers of his generation, William Parker has perpetually toured around the world and released over forty albums as a leader. He is one of the most influential jazz artists alive today. In Universal Tonality historian and critic Cisco Bradley tells the story of Parker’s life and music. Drawing on interviews with Parker and his collaborators, Bradley traces Parker’s ancestral roots in West Africa via the Carolinas to his childhood in the South Bronx, and illustrates his rise from the 1970s jazz lofts and extended work with pianist Cecil Taylor to the present day. He outlines how Parker’s early influences—Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and writers of the Black Arts Movement—grounded Parker’s aesthetic and musical practice in a commitment to community and the struggle for justice and freedom. Throughout, Bradley foregrounds Parker’s understanding of music, the role of the artist, and the relationship between art, politics, and social transformation. Intimate and capacious, Universal Tonality is the definitive work on Parker’s life and music.
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction / “Flowers Grow in My Room”: Realizing a Vision
- I. Origins
- One / Enslavement and Resistance: From West Africa to the Carolinas to Harlem
- Two / Struggle, Beauty, and Survival: Childhood in the South Bronx
- Three / Consciousness: Art, Politics, and Self in the Mind of a Young Man
- II. Early Work
- Four / The Loft Scene: Art, Community and Self-Determination
- Five / “Music That Will Give People Hope”: Centering Dance Music with Patricia Nicholson
- Six / “Music Is Supposed to Change People”: Working with Cecil Taylor
- III. Toward the Universal
- Seven / “It Is the Job of the Artist to Incite Political Revolution”: In Order to Survive
- Eight / Into the Tone World: Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra
- Nine / Toward a Universal Sound: William Parker Quartet and Raining on the Moon
- Ten / Honoring the Elders: Tribute Projects and Other Bands
- Eleven / All People Need Truth to Survive: Recent Work and Legacy
- Appendix: William Parker Discography
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
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