PopMatters.com jazz critic Will Layman dedicates half of the December edition of his monthly Jazz Today column to the latest William Parker Quartet release, Petit Oiseau (AUM Fidelity).
In his review, posted yesterday, Layman credits Parker’s quartet with creating “stunning new music,” calling it the veteran bassist/composer’s “most accessible and irresistible band.”
“Petit Oiseau was released in October of this year,” he writes, “and it extends the quartet’s reach and proves how extraordinary the range of a piano-less group can be in jazz. It is more than one of the finest discs of 2008. It is a stellar piece of work, a mind-bender and a finger-popper at once. Always free but always soulful, the band suggests that it has no limitations.”
Earlier this week, Petit Oiseau was ranked number five on the site’s list of the Best Jazz of 2008.
