William Parker: bass, compositions
Stefano Scodanibbio: bass, compositions
Bass Duo presents the historic & sole performance meeting of these two renowned and innovative bass masters, each representing distinct musical traditions, and both fully committed to the summit
at hand. This concert recording was produced for release by William Parker in 2017 on his own Centering Records imprint; made in a limited CD edition of 1000 copies. Packaged in a deluxe 6-panel digipak featuring liner notes by fellow bassist-composer Mark Dresser, and Parker himself.
William Parker (Bronx, NY, January 10, 1952) has long been heralded as “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time” and Time Out New York named him one of the “50 Greatest New York Musicians of All Time.” He has been a key figure in the New York and European creative music scenes since the 1970s, performing extensively with Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Peter Brötzmann, Milford Graves, Peter Kowald, and David S. Ware, among innumerable others. He has appeared on well over 150 albums to date, and as a leader has been perpetually presenting his far-ranging and highly acclaimed work since the mid-90s.
Stefano Scodanibbio (Macerata, Italy, June 18, 1956 / Cuernavaca, Mexico, January 8, 2012). During his too short lifetime he was renowned as an interpreter and collaborator with many of the major composers writing for the contrabass (Bussotti, Donatoni, Estrada, Ferneyhough, Frith, Globokar, Xenakis, among others), and he
performed dozens of works written especially for him in major festivals throughout the world. The Los Angeles Times acclaimed his “dazzling, disciplined virtuosity,” and later that “[he] lifted the instrument into new realms.” John Cage, on hearing his work Ryoanji performed by Scodanibbio, stated “his performance was absolutely magic. I was just amazed!”
4-Stars: "This big-boned and ambitious music speaks over extended structural measures. The unity of their shared language is obvious from the off and is achieved without either player compromising or taming their basic approach. Scodanibbio spent much of his career painstakingly unravelling dense notation. And much of this music is similarly obsessed with different definitions of energy-flow, the opening piece dealing up delicately balanced tremolos and fleet finger-work that totter forwards, the second concerned with an intricate mesh of mechanisms that are given momentum by shifting accents and subliminal rhythmic reboots. Grooves move by stealth, sometimes materializing as both bassists make a collective snap decision to swap direction, but never as a ‘and now here’s some jazz’ gear-change. Alert, ardent music-making." –Philip Clark, Jazzwise
5-Stars "The music is deeply riveting. My first spin of the album found me transfixed in front of my speakers, rooted deeply to the floor. The second listen, through good headphones, left my mind reeling." –David Menestres (a fellow bass player), The Free Jazz Collective
"Parker and Scodannibio come from different musical worlds and have very distinctive styles, but they also have much in common. Scodannibio was trained in classical new music, but was very much at ease in improvising contexts; Parker is a jazz bassist, but has always embraced far-flung musical languages. Both men excel at pizzicato and arco, and both have the ability to generate great waves of sound. As they weave in and out of each other's lines, they increasingly converge to the point where it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish them: the point where a unified force field of the double-bass forms, and fills the room with its inescapable presence." –Adam Shatz, As Serious As Your Life
"Two powerful and articulate voices, each complete in its own sphere but whose instances of convergence create moments of collaborative brilliance. Common to both is a language consisting in an expansive palette of timbres, which each have developed and structured in their own ways. Parker plays with an exuberance and coiled energy that find expression in denser textures and the explicit rhythms of several vamps and grooves he sets out—not least on the second piece, which moves in an eddy of sophisticated cross-rhythms. Scodanibbio generally favors a more dispersed, episodic sound based on harmonics, multiphonics and bow articulation, but he too spells out rhythms, often by bouncing the bow on the strings or by tapping complex patterns on the body of the bass. Both bassists are masters of sonic nuance and tonal shading; it’s a true pleasure to hear them as they converge and diverge in an elaborate timbral counterpoint." –Daniel Barbiero, Avant Music News
* Full art & notes included as PDF booklet with Digital Album.
