William Parker, Cooper-Moore & Hamid Drake - Heart Trio (2024)

Heart Trio features three lifelong-devoted fellow travelers on the path of healing through sound. World-renowned & revered bassist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, improvisor, community leader William Parker has performed and recorded extensively with both master pianist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, inveterate performer Cooper-Moore & master drummer, improviser, composer Hamid Drake over the past 30+ years. And, the three of them have been core since 2012 in Parker’s reborn In Order To Survive quartet.

Heart Trio is, remarkably then, their debut as a trio on record. Here, Wiliam plays doson ngoni, dudek, and flutes of bamboo, cedar, and walnut. Cooper-Moore on his hand-crafted ashimba and harp; Hamid Drake on frame drum and drum kit. All of this music was collectively composed at the time of its creation.

Some time ago, I recall Hamid marveling at how William could pick up seemingly any instrument and play music upon it. The flutes & ngoni which Parker performs on here, he has been playing music on for many, many years. Same with Cooper-Moore – he built the instruments he plays here in the 1970s. Suffice to say, each of these men are long- time master musicians and non-stop practitioners of creative music.

Heart Trio creates balancing music in a world which day to day is more evidently filled with the exponential effect of increasingly grotesque inequity, a world where wars continue to be started and maintained by men adept at manipulation and a thorough disregard for the sanctity of life. Heart Trio creates organic music played on organic materials in a world of exponentially accelerating “technologies” whose primary stock-in-trade is to transform each of us into more readily exploitable data sets. Data sets which we do not own, rendering the very notion of self-sovereignty moot. These advanced technologies are also expertly used to build more efficient weapons of war, and allow a handful of multi-billionaires to dream of populating.. Mars? ..with said “dreamers” lording roosts featuring breathtaking vistas here on majestic parcels of still livable Earth. The rest of us certainly do live in dangerous times.

Yes, Heart Trio creates balancing music, antithetical to destruction. Music to draw sustenance from. Some measure of fortitude, at least, for compassionate souls in the elevating struggle against increasingly inextricable imposed realities that parse a human being’s value solely on what they are able to consume.

This is music for sunrise and sunset. Daily music. Healing, centering, mantra, heart music.

From William’s notes for this release: “The theory behind this music is the music itself. Empty and fill the heart and soul with sound, letting it dance. Without pretense. We are trying to get to a flow—Earth, sky, and flowing water sounds that jump out of the painting.”

William Parker: doson ngoni, shakuhachi, bass dudek, Serbian flute in F#, Ney flute
Cooper-Moore: ashimba, hoe-handle harp
Hamid Drake: frame drum, drum kit