William Parker Quartet at Diverseworks

Houston’s Warehouse district was alive on Saturday night with the rainy chill of a reluctant spring evening and the cosmic life-altering sounds of the William Parker Quartet in performance at DiverseWorks. You think I exaggerate, but the gruff audience member voice that barked out over the final applause “you change my life” sounded pretty sincere to me. It reminded me of the times that a performance can crystallize an idea that’s been forming and set about a chain of events that brings the idea to fruition. Parker was smokin’, mesmerizing, and true. Playing, talking, and sitting in the lobby with the audience during intermission. Joined by the considerable talents of Rob Brown on sax, Hamid Drake on drums, and Lewis Barnes on trumpet, Parker played his upright as well as a host of small wind instruments. An acro section played with two bows at the same time during one of his solos evoked a plaintive voice over the drone-like rumblings of some innermost and fleeting thought. As Parker writes “sounds that enlighten are infinite.” DiverseWorks was packed with chairs on the stage, and people sitting on the floor and on the cushions in the rafters. Time after time it is the smaller organizations, like the concert’s presenter, Nameless Sound, that create an eager and overflowing, leave-your-dinner-on-the-stove audience, with visionary programming designed to create a meaningful experience. Check out http://www.williamparkermusic.net/ and http://www.namelesssound.org/