The Squid's Ear Magazine

Parker, William

I Plan To Stay A Believer: The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield [VINYL]

Parker, William: I Plan To Stay A Believer: The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield [VINYL] (Aum Fidelity)

Parker's definitive document of his Curtis Mayfield songbook project with Hamid Drake, Dave Burrell, Sabir Mateen, Darryl Foster & Amiri Baraka, promoting Mayfield's positive messages of hope and fortitude.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



William Parker-bass, doson'ngoni, balofon

Hamid Drake-drums

Dave Burrell-piano

Lewis Barnes-trumpet

Darryl Foster-tenor & soprano sax

Sabir Mateen-alto &tenor sax, flute

Leena Conquest-vocals

Amiri Baraka-voice, poetry

Lafayete Gilchrist-piano

Guillermo E. Brown-drums

New Life Tabernacle Generation of Praise-choir


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UPC: 642623306215

Label: Aum Fidelity
Catalog ID: AUMF062-63LP
Squidco Product Code: 28726

Format: 2 LPs
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: USA
Packaging: Double LP Sleeve
All tracks recorded Live in Concert: 1 and 2 in Chiasso, Italy, 3 and 8 in Cormons, Italy, 4 in Amherst, MA, 5 and 11 in Paris, France, 6, 7 and 10 in New York City, and 9 in Botticino, Italy.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Bassist/composer William Parker is among the most active and highly regarded musicians performing today. The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield is the first project in his 35-year career devoted to the music of another composer; here Parker interpolates the mighty Mayfield songbook with an equally mighty 8-piece band. Curtis Mayfield was a prophet, a preacher, a revolutionary, a humanist, and a griot. Words that all apply to William Parker himself.

I Plan To Stay A Believer is the definitive document of this project, with fully exuberant performances of each piece drawn from concert recordings spanning the past decade. Included are two pieces from the group's very first 2001 performance in Paris with a chorus of 90 children, and another pair from New York in 2008 which feature a full gospel choir.

As Parker writes in the liner notes, 'Every song written or improvised has an inside song which lives in the shadows, in-between the sounds and silences and behind the words, pulsating, waiting to be reborn as a new song.' I Plan To Stay A Believer brings Curtis Mayfield's positive messages of hope and fortitude in the face of potentially overwhelming odds back into the present moment where these energies remain in great need.

The group features all long-standing compatriots of Parker's: the peerless rhythm section of Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, along with elder masters Dave Burrell on piano and poet/activist Amiri Baraka. The horn section features saxophonists Sabir Mateen & Darryl Foster, and trumpeter Lewis Barnes. Deeply soulful singer Leena Conquest is equally/exquisitely featured in/on Parker's Raining on the Moon group/Corn Meal Dance album."-Aum Fidelity




"I Plan To Stay A Believer is the definitive document of William Parker's The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield project, featuring fully charged extensions and expansions -- both music and text -- of selections from the soul music legend's immortal songbook by an equally mighty and masterful 8-piece band featuring Parker himself in supreme rhythm section communion with drummer Hamid Drake and pianist Dave Burrell. Vocals by the exquisitely gifted Leena Conquest and additional voice/poetry/powerful singing as well by legendary scribe/force Amiri Baraka in one of his greatest/last appearances on record. The horn section takes it to next level, too. Parker brought this ensemble to festival stages in Europe (and Chicago and New York) during the first decade of this new millennium; many of these sets were recorded and this presents the distilled concentrate thereof anew. Gospel-tinged uplift, luminous swing, tight soul grooves, and wholly lit free jazz are rousingly delivered with clear-eyed joy and righteous purpose. This work brings Mayfield's and Parker's positive messages of hope and fortitude in the face of seemingly endless tribulation firmly into the present moment, exultantly so and with total commitment. This first time on vinyl limited edition features all new cover art and insert with Parker's liner notes + a previously unreleased, exclusive to vinyl version of 'People Get Ready/The Inside Song' + a download card for full-resolution download of 7 additional tracks/80 minutes of this profound music. 'It's hard to imagine Curtis Mayfield being anything but flattered by the immense thought and planning that clearly went into these arrangements. To pull and stretch these songs so much and still preserve their essential identity is a true feat of art."-Pitchfork"


Artist Biographies

"William Parker is a bassist, improviser, composer, writer, and educator from New York City, heralded by The Village Voice as, "the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time."

In addition to recording over 150 albums, he has published six books and taught and mentored hundreds of young musicians and artists.

Parker's current bands include the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra, In Order to Survive, Raining on the Moon, Stan's Hat Flapping in the Wind, and the Cosmic Mountain Quartet with Hamid Drake, Kidd Jordan, and Cooper-Moore. Throughout his career he has performed with Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Milford Graves, and David S. Ware, among others."

-William Parker Website (http://www.williamparker.net/)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Hamid Drake (born August 3, 1955) is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. He lives in Chicago, IL but spends a great deal of time touring worldwide. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and avant improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and African percussion instruments and influence, in addition to using the standard trap set, Drake has collaborated extensively with top free-jazz improvisers. Drake also has performed world music; by the late 70s, he was a member of Foday Musa Suso's Mandingo Griot Society and has played reggae throughout his career.

Drake has worked with trumpeter Don Cherry, pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonists Pharoah Sanders, Fred Anderson, Archie Shepp and David Murray and bassists Reggie Workman and William Parker (in a large number of lineups)

He studied drums extensively, including eastern and Caribbean styles. He frequently plays without sticks; using his hands to develop subtle commanding undertones. His tabla playing is notable for his subtlety and flair. Drake's questing nature and his interest in Caribbean percussion led to a deep involvement with reggae."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Drake)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Distinguished composer-pianist Dave Burrell is an African-American performing artist of singular stature on the international contemporary music scene. His dynamic compositions with blues and gospel roots recall the tradition of Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson and Duke Ellington, as well avant garde composers Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane.

Dave and his parents moved from New York to Hawaii in 1946. After majoring in music at the University of Hawaii, he enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts graduating with degrees in composition/arranging and performance in 1965. He moved to New York City, where he quickly established himself as one of the most innovative and original pianists, collaborating with the emerging leaders in contemporary jazz, joining the groups of saxophonists Marion Brown, Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp.

[...]

Dave Burrell has 40 recordings under his own name, among them High, High Two, Echo, La Vie de Boheme, After Love, In-Sanity, Only Me, Dreams, Black Spring, Lush Life, 'Round Midnight, Teardrops for Jimmy, Windward Passages, Daybreak, Brother to Brother, In Concert, Jelly Roll Joys, Esquisses for a Walk, Live at Caramoor, Changes and Chances, Recital, Expansion, Margy Pargy, Momentum, Dave Burrell Plays His Songs, No Fools No Fun, Dave Burrell Conception. Dave Burrell appears on 130 recordings, among them his pivotal recordings with tenor saxophonists Archie Shepp: Live from Pan-African Festival, There is a Trumpet in MySoul, Blasé, Kwanza, Attica Blues, Cry of My People, Montreaux One, Montreaux Two, Lover Man, Pharoah Sanders: Tauhid, Marion Brown: Jubalee, Three For Shepp, Live in Japan, David Murray: Hope Scope, Lovers, Deep River, Ballads, Spirituals, Remembrances, Lucky Four, Picasso, Windward Passages. Other important recordings are 360 Degree Music Experience: From Ragtime to No Time, In:sanity, Grachan Moncur: New Africa, Sunny Murray: Homage to Africa, Bob Stewart: Here and Now, and Consequences with drummer Billy Martin. The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield and Essence of Ellington with William Parker's Ensembles. Horo Records in Italy recently released a live duo recording, No Fools No Fun with Ellington-drummer Sam Woodyard from a 2 months long engagement in Paris (1979). Dave Burrell appears on the Argentine saxophonist Roberto Pettinato's Sony/Columbia Argentina Records releases Purity and Same Egg. A live duo recording with guitarist Garrison Fewell, New Earth to be released in 2015.

A frequent lecturer, Burrell's Master Classes include Strasbourg Conservatory, Tremblay Conservatory (Paris), Conservatoire Municipal (Paris), Guildhall School of Music and Dance (London), Columbia University, New York University, Queens College, Bard College, New York. University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, Duquesne University, School of Music, Pennsylvania. Brandeis University, Massachusetts. Rice University, Houston, Texas. DePauw University, Indiana. Library of Congress and Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. Burrell's most recent commissions include Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia, and Whitney Museum, New York City.

Dave Burrell is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including National Endowment for the Arts, Philadelphia Music Foundation, William J. Cooper Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Pennsylvania State Council on The Arts, MidAtlantic Foundation, John Garcia Gensel Award, and the Pew Fellowship in Jazz Composition. Dave Burrell joined the Steinway Artist Roster (www.Steinway.com) in 2007."

-Dave Burrell Website (http://www.daveburrell.com/frameset.html)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Sabir Mateen (born April 16, 1951) is a musician and composer from Philadelphia who plays primarily in the avant-garde jazz idiom. He plays tenor and alto saxophone, B♭ and alto clarinet, and flute.

As a young man, Mateen was originally a percussionist, and he started playing flute as a teenager. From there he moved to alto and then tenor saxophone. He started out playing rhythm and blues in the early 1970s which led him to the tenor saxophone chair of the Horace Tapscott Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. He has performed or recorded with Cecil Taylor, Sunny Murray, William Parker, Alan Silva, Butch and Wilber Morris, Raphe Malik, Steve Swell, Roy Campbell, Jr., Matthew Shipp, Marc Edwards, Jemeel Moondoc, William Hooker, Henry Grimes, Rashid Bakr, Hamid Drake among others. He also is a member of the band TEST, with Daniel Carter."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabir_Mateen)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"American singer Leena Conquest is a recording artist steeped in the jazz tradition and full of all things soulful. Her ability to bridge that eternal divide, moving from the classic to the modern; fusing music genres along with a captivating presence puts her in a class with the best. This Texas- born chanteuse has been heralded for her work on several recordings including Raining on the Moon (thirstyear.com), Cornmeal Dance and I Plan to Stay a Believer (aumfidelity.com), selected for this year's 2011 DOWNBEAT Critics Poll TOP 10 Albums. She has worked with a host of jazz luminaries including trumpeter Doc Cheatham, pianist Mal Waldron and vibesman Roy Ayers who is featured on her Come Fly Away CD."

-All About Jazz (https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/leenaconquest)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 - January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone. Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been described by scholars as constituting defining texts for African-American culture.

Baraka's career spanned nearly 52 years, and his themes range from black liberation to white racism. His notable poems include "The Music: Reflection on Jazz and Blues", "The Book of Monk", and "New Music, New Poetry", works that draw on topics from the worlds of society, music, and literature.

Baraka's poetry and writing have attracted both high praise and condemnation. In the African-American community, some compare Baraka to James Baldwin and recognize him as one of the most respected and most widely published black writers of his generation, though some have said his work is an expression of violence, misogyny, and homophobia. Baraka's brief tenure as Poet Laureate of New Jersey (in 2002 and 2003) involved controversy over a public reading of his poem "Somebody Blew Up America?", which resulted in accusations of antisemitism and negative attention from critics and politicians."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiri_Baraka)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. I Plan To Stay A Believer 12:53

2. New World Order 6:59

SIDE B



1. We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue 17:44

SIDE C



1. This Is My Country 10:57

2. Ya He Yey Ya 10:45

SIDE D



1. People Get Ready / The Inside Song 16:58

Related Categories of Interest:


Vinyl Recordings
Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Parker, William
Octet Recordings
Song Based Music
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