Hamid Drake and William Parker Pay a Visit to Springfield

The season schedule of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares was completely full before we received a phone call from Patricia Parker, Executive Director of Arts For Art, who reported that percussionist Hamid Drake would be in New York for the annual Vision Festival and was available to play. Would we be interested in a duo with bassist William Parker? Despite 23 events already on the docket, including a recently arranged house concert with drummer Gerry Hemingway and pianist Izumi Kimura, we said “yes” without hesitation. You don’t refuse an offer like that, and so on June 12, Drake and Parker performed in Springfield for 85 rapturous listeners at New England Public Media.

Drake, who turns 70 in August, is, like his former collaborator Don Cherry, a world traveler. He spends much of his time in Milan these days, and his visits to North America have decreased in recent years, making his appearance even more special. Drake was born in Monroe, Louisiana, raised in Chicago, and since the late 1990s has regularly graced western Massachusetts stages, first under the auspices of Michael Ehlers and later through the efforts of yours truly. His last visit was a Magic Triangle Jazz Series concert with Adam Rudolph and Ralph Jones in 2017.

Now 73, Parker was born and raised in New York, and has been an even more frequent visitor to these parts over the years. His first forays were at Ehlers’ “Fire in the Valley” gatherings in the mid-1990s, and he has subsequently participated in multiple UMass Solos & Duos and Magic Triangle concerts, along with numerous Jazz Shares events. This was the 15th time we’ve worked together.

Drake and Parker first collaborated in Peter Brötzmann’s band in the early 1990s. Also featuring trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, the group was called Die Like a Dog, after the title of their first recording. Drake and Parker performed in the Valley as a duo at Bezanson Recital Hall in 2004, a few years after the release of their celebrated recording, Piercing the Veil. In the interceding two decades they have lost none of their communicative power.

Over 20 years ago Phil Freeman called them “the best rhythm section in jazz”, and their rapport remains intact. Without discussion or written music, Drake and Parker launched into a driving groove on drum kit and bass, respectively. The lines they weaved were supple and organic, and despite shifts in mood and texture, the music retained the force of life. Over the past couple of years, health issues have sapped Parker’s energy and curtailed his bass playing. Having just heard him multiple times at the Vision Festival as well as in Springfield on Thursday, I’m here to report that Parker is back, playing with power and his usual indomitable spirit. More than once, after some crunchy smears and a flurry of high intensity notes, Parker would bring some funk to the fore with a few fat tones, illuminating what Graham Collier called the music’s “deep dark blue centre.”

About half-way through the set, Drake, with painted fingernails, took an extended turn on frame drum. He has been playing tabla and other non-western percussion since he was part of the Mandingo Griot Society in the late 1970s. So the variety of tones and articulate rhythmic patterns he produced on this simple instrument came as no surprise. Still, it’s always amazing. Parker moved between n’goni and sintir (African strings), and a wind instrument shaped like a bassoon but clearly not from Europe. The music moved closer to the multivalent world of Codona or Oregon, and NEPM’s Studio A was transformed from a black box theater to a spiritual hermitage.  Drake sung prayers in multiple languages, beginning in Hebrew, then what sounded like Arabic and Sanskrit. The effect was transformative and at least for a moment, we were unburdened from the weight of a world out of balance.

Parker is a modern-day griot. He is not only the most creative bassist of the past 45 years and a linchpin of the NY jazz scene, he is an easy-going story teller, who speaks in aphorism and metaphor. “I approach the bass as a drum set,” he told us. “The G string is my ride cymbal, the D string is my snare, the A string is my tom-toms, and the E string is my low gong. That’s how I approach it.” Later he made an analogy in which sound is water. “When it vibrates, it turns into steam and changes properties and appearance,” he said. “When it changes, you can step into another place, the tone world.” It seemed significant that the only “merch” he brought were his books: “Who Owns Music?”, “Voices in the First Person”, a few volumes of his “Conversations” series, along with Cisco Bradley’s 2021 biography, “Universal Tonality: The Life and Music of William Parker”.

“There was no greater joy for me than to get in the car and drive up to the University of Massachusetts, where I knew I would be treated like a king,” Parker wrote in “Close to the Music: 25 Years of Magic Triangle Jazz Series”.

We treated him like royalty because for a long time now, we have recognized him as our philosopher king. As much as possible, I surround myself with people who are wise and kind, so William Parker and Hamid Drake, the mayor of the East Village and the cosmic master of rhythm, are welcome anytime.