William Parker Quartet at Art of Improvisation: double bass, groove and Hamid Drake’s drums

William Parker Quartet will be among the performers at the Art Of Improvisation festival, organised in June by Wrocław’s Agora Cultural Centre. The concert is being prepared in cooperation with LIONSTAGE Management.

William Parker Quartet will present jazz improvisations: expressive, playful yet melodic jazz, understood also as rhythm and dance. It is the jazz we seek at its source, turning to the great names of the fifties and sixties. Yet William Parker Quartet do not offer swing or reproduce bebop. They serve the same emotion, the same feeling and the same expression in their own original form.

Their exceptional music rests primarily on the rhythm section: leader and world-famous double bassist William Parker and equally respected, important drummer Hamid Drake. Their distinctive groove underpins a shamanic atmosphere and the audience’s trance. Add expressive horn parts and solos, and the result is contemporary jazz of the highest quality, rarely encountered not only in Poland but across Europe.

On 23 June from 10–12, William Parker will also lead a music workshop in masterclass form, with members of the public attending as observers.