Luc's Lantern:William Parker

Title: Luc’s Lantern

Label: Thirsty Ear

Genre: jazz

Rating: 6.3 of 7

This is the fourth installment into bassist William Parker’s recent creative outburst. Parker, who has been around since the 70s, excels in the traditional style of self-expression with experimentation. He is no stranger to improvisation; in fact he started the Improvisers Collective in the 90s which produced a number of concerts and festivals. Parker’s style is mainly pizzicato, extremely percussive and rhythm driving. He subtly leads every piece of music he plays on creating dense harmonics and utilizing every sound the bass can make. Lately, he has become the bassist of choice for most of the downtown free-jazz players playing along side David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp and Rob Brown. For this solo outing, he has enlisted female pianist Eri Yamamoto and drummer Michael Thompson. The album starts off slower, chilled out jazz but blossoms into upbeat hard bop and a number of explosive free jazz songs. An extremely good jazz cd and yet another success for William Parker.

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