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David Mott, William Parker, Jesse Stewart

David Mott has a multifaceted musical career as a baritone saxophonist, composer and improviser in both new classical music and jazz. He was educated at Hope College, Berklee College of Music and the Yale University School of Music where he received his advanced degrees. He taught graduate composition at Yale from 1974-78 and has been teaching composition at the York University Music Department from 1978 to the present.

His music is greatly influenced by non-western musics and he has an active involvement in the mystical and healing aspects of music. The recording of his composition Regarding Starlight was taken on a Columbia Space Shuttle mission and listened to by Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean, while in orbit, resulting in a second composition Eclipse being requested and taken on MacLean’s latest mission in space.

He has improvised for Pope John Paul II, for the Dalai Lama’s Long Life Empowerment Ceremony in Toronto and has performed with a wide variety of musicians from Stevie Wonder to I Musici de Montreal. His music has represented Canada on the International Rostrum of Composers and his opera Meme was nominated by CBC for a Prix Italia. His compositions have been performed around the world.

He has created a large repertoire of solo baritone saxophone compositions, using extended instrumental technique, for which one critic named him “the Chopin of the baritone saxophone”.

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William Parker was born and raised in the Bronx, and has resided in the Lower East Side since 1975. He has studied bass with Richard Davis, Art Davis, Milt Hinton, Wilber Ware, and Jimmy Garrison. Parker has been a key figure in the NY creative jazz scene. Renowned as a composer, improviser, and a bassist, Parker is also an educator and author. During Parker’s prolific career, he has recorded over 150 albums, had countless celebrated stage appearances, and helped shaped the jazz scene for both his peers and the youth. He is the recipient of awards including ‘musician of the year’ in 2007 in Italy.

In 2013, Parker received the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, recognizing Parker’s influence and impact on the creative jazz scene over the last 40 years.William Parker entered the music scene in 1971, playing at Studio We, Studio Rivbea, Hilly’s on The Bowery, the Salt and Pepper club and The Baby Grand, and quickly became a sought after bass player in the New York music scene. He has played with many musicians from the avant-garde such as, Bill Dixon, Sunny Murray, Charles Tyler, Billy Higgins, Charles Brackeen, Alan Silva, Frank Wright, Frank Lowe, Rashid Ali, Donald Ayler, Sonny Simmons, Jeanne Lee, Gunter Hampel, Karl Berger Dave Burrell, Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, Jimmy Lyons, Milford Graves and with traditionalists like Walter Bishop, Sr. and Maxine Sullivan.

Mr. Parker has released over 20 albums under his leadership. In 1995 after years of obscurity as a leader, he released Flowers Grow In My Room, on the Centering label. This was the first documentation of the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. This CD hit #1 on the CMJ charts and The Little Huey began to tour. They have performed in the Verona Jazz Festival and Banlieues Bleues among others. William Parker’s new Quartet has hit with rave reviews for both albums “O’Neals Porch” and “Raining on the Moon.”

These releases and their success highlight William Parker as an outstanding composer and bandleader. From the beginning of his musical career, William Parker has been prolific, composing music all of the music for his projects. His compositional skills span a range including operas, oratorios, ballets, film scores, and soliloquies for solo instruments. He has also successfully explored diverse concepts in instrumentation for large and small ensembles.

William Parker is a poet, with three volumes published thus far: “Music Is,” “Document Humanum,” and “The Shadow People.”

“He (William Parker) is something of a father figure” stated Larry Blumenfeld in a New York Times article. He has looked for and encouraged young talent and has been a mentor to many young musicians.

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Jesse Stewart is an award-winning composer, improviser, percussionist, visual artist, instrument builder, researcher, writer, educator, and community activist dedicated to reimagining the spaces between artistic disciplines.

As a musician, he works primarily in the areas of jazz, new music, free improvisation, and electronic music. He has performed and/or recorded with musical luminaries from around the world including George Lewis, Roswell Rudd, Hamid Drake, Evan Parker, Bill Dixon, William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, David Mott, Malcolm Goldstein, Jandek, Pandit Anindo Chatterjee and many others, in addition to leading several groups and performing regularly as a soloist. In 2012, he was honored with the “Instrumental Album of the Year” Juno award (the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy) for his work with Stretch Orchestra, a trio consisting of Kevin Breit on guitars, Matt Brubeck on cello, and Jesse on drums. He has been widely commissioned as a composer. His music has been featured at festivals throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe and is documented on over 20 recordings.

A dynamic and inventive performer, Stewart has a remarkable ability to coax unexpected—even magical—sounds out of virtually any resonating object or material. In addition to drum set, he performs on a wide variety of percussion instruments including many of his own design built out of such unconventional materials as stone, glass, ice, and cardboard. In addition, he is one of the few virtuoso performers of the waterphone, an experimental percussion instrument that consists of bronze rods, steel, and water. Quoting Richard Waters, the inventor of the instrument, “Jesse Stewart is rapidly becoming a music wizard on the MegaBass Waterphone by coaxing new sounds from the instrument. His extended range of techniques and skill in utilizing these techniques is evident in his improvised musical compositions. I consider Jesse to be a very creative and inventive forerunner of others who will follow. He is, in short, a Master Waterphone Player.” In addition, he is the only person in Canada to perform regularly on the “reactable,”a new electronic instrument that is a virtual modular synthesizer and digital sampler with a tangible user interface on an illuminated tabletop.