Improvisations

William Parker is a master musician, improviser, and composer. He plays the bass, shakuhachi, double reeds, tuba, donso ngoni and gembri. He was born in 1952 in the Bronx, New York. He studied bass with Richard Davis, Art Davis, Milt Hinton, Wilber Ware, and Jimmy Garrison. He entered the music scene in 1971 playing at Studio We, Studio Rivbea, Hilly's on The Bowery and The Baby Grand, playing with many acclaimed avant-garde musicians.

Parker began recording in 1994 and leading his own bands, founding two ensembles: In Order To Survive and The Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. In 2001, Parker released O'Neal's Porch, which marked a turn toward a more universal sound working with drummer Hamid Drake.

Parker has taught at Bennington College, NYU, The New England Conservatory of Music, Cal Arts, New School University and Rotterdam Conservatory of Music. He has also taught music workshops internationally. Parker is a theorist and author of several books including the Sound Journal, Document Humanum, Music and the Shadow People and The Mayor of Punkville.

Image by Rob Miller.

Improvisations is curated by musicians Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes, with new guests each month. We create a listening environment that encourages intimate and deep contact with the music, the musicians, and other audience members. Come early and stay late!

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Edgings & Inchings
(formerly Inescapable Rhythms)

The Inescapable Rhythms poetry reading and open mic night has a new name! After taking suggestions from Wallace Stevens (in honor of the original name), the series is now named "Edgings & Inchings." The new name comes from the Wallace Stevens poem "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven."

The featured reader for June is Kate Thorpe. Kate is currently completing a two-year fellowship at Wesleyan University in the Writing Programs. She has recently returned from a Fulbright scholarship in Germany, where she researched the transformation of post-industrial architecture through art as material for a poetic manuscript. Kate holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and her poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Court Green, Volt, and WSQ among other journals.

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