Raining on the Moon

The Village Voice once proclaimed that William Parker was “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time.” The New York Times called Parker a “champion of improvised music, community building, and appreciation of beauty.” If Parker had his druthers, though, he would likely strip away the hierarchy not just of superlatives but also of money in music, so that the art could simply exist. “Music is a great force, and we have to get it out there,” he once said. “We will continue to exist without the praise and the talk and the pay.” Parker grew up in the South Bronx, playing along to his father’s record collection by blowing into the end of a toy gun, pretending it was a trumpet. He got a gig the day he bought his first bass at 19 and often walked nine miles across New York, his bass strapped across his back, to play on the Lower East Side. He has not looked back since. He played with Cecil Taylor and David S. Ware for decades before emerging as a bandleader in the ’90s, becoming wildly prolific in part by being open to Universality Tonality—that is, the belief that everyone can tap into the shared communication, wisdom, and redemption of music. Big Ears 2027 will celebrate the 75th birthday of this free music powerhouse and mentor by hosting five of his bands.

A quarter-century ago, Parker expanded his steadfast quartet with a surprising addition: the Texas-born singer Leena Conquest. Parker had written a set of tunes about American oppression and solidarity, violence and hope, including a piece about James Baldwin. Five years later, this quintet, dubbed Raining on the Moon, expanded again with Osaka-born pianist Eri Yamamoto, debuting with the sweeping and quietly charged Corn Meal Dance. It was a masterclass in winning more arguments with honey than vinegar, Parker wrapping his frustrations inside Yamamoto’s confident piano runs or Rob Brown’s serpentine sax lines while he and Hamid Drake dug deep into rhythms behind them. “Conquest delivers indictments without stridency, and the horn charts are whimsical and melancholy at exactly the right times,” Bandcamp wrote in a 2022 guide to Parker’s enormous discography. “Pleas for peace and testimony for justice rarely exude such beauty.” With Taylor Ho Bynum stepping into the trumpeter role, the Raining on the Moon sextet reconvenes in Knoxville.