Summer Snow (album)

Summer Snow
Studio album by William Parker & Hamid Drake
Released	April 10, 2007
Recorded	September 21, 2005
Studio	Systems Two Studio, Brooklyn, New York City
Genre	Jazz
Length	52:43
Label	AUM Fidelity AUM 041
Producer	Steven Joerg, William Parker, Hamid Drake
William Parker chronology
For Percy Heath (2005) Summer Snow (2007) Corn Meal Dance (2007)

Summer Snow is an album by bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, which was recorded in 2005 and released on the AUM Fidelity label. ^{[1] [2]} The album is the second volume of duets by the pair following Piercing the Veil (2001). ^[3]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[4]
PopMatters	[5]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings	[6]

In his review for AllMusic, Michael G. Nastos said "The album works as a whole and should be listened to all the way through for maximum enjoyment. All of our natural and otherworldly elements are at the duo's command, whether they be ethnic music sources from Asia, Africa, greater Europe, the Middle East, or the heartland of the U.S.A. This is exactly what one should expect from these masters of creative improvised music, and is delivered in spades". ^[4]

The All About Jazz review noted "Summer Snow incorporates jazz improvisation into myriad ethnic traditions in a satisfyingly organic way. Blending cultures and aesthetics, this is global music in the truest sense, equal parts uncharted future and primordial past". ^[7]

The JazzTimes review noted "A duo album by a bassist and drummer might not seem like a good idea, unless you consider that William Parker and Hamid Drake aren’t just a bassist and a drummer—they’re master improvisers with a jazz bias, prone to styles that encompass an assortment of folk traditions". ^[8]

PopMatters stated "What Parker and Drake do together is less a string of classic jazz duets—the kind of thing, say, that Jim Hall and Bill Evans used to do—than an act of collective groove and sound that happens, almost incidentally, to be performed by jazz musicians". ^[5]

Track listing

All compositions by William Parker and Hamid Drake

1. "Awake, Arise" - 0:23
2. "Sky" - 7:30
3. "Earth" - 3:03
4. "Pahos" - 9:22
5. "Sifting the Dust" - 3:49
6. "Edge of Everything" - 3:31
7. "Traces of the Beloved" - 1:38
8. "Anaya Dancing" - 3:53
9. "Konte" - 11:33
10. "Faces" - 7:18
11. "Hadra" - 0:43

Personnel

• William Parker - bass, water bowls, doson'ngoni, talking drum, dumbek, shakuhachi
• Hamid Drake - drums, frame drum, tabla, gong

References

1. Lopez, R., William Parker sessionography, accessed June 6, 2014
2. AUM Fidelity catalog, accessed June 6, 2014
3. AUM Fidelity catalog, accessed June 6, 2014
4. Nastos, Michael G.. William Parker & Hamid Drake - Summer Snow: Review at AllMusic . Retrieved June 6, 2014.
5. Layman, W., PopMatters Review, July 26, 2007
6. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 1130. ISBN   978-0-141-03401-0.
7. Collins, T., All About Jazz Review, April 13, 2007
8. Kelsey, C., JazzTimes Review, July/August 2007