William Parker

Interview

07

April, 2026

By: Khagan Aslanov

Photos: Peter Gannushkin

The first thing I ask William Parker about, as we sit down to speak, is about Universal Tonality. After all, the living titan of free jazz has been pursuing, sculpting and honing the concept for many decades. A musical and spiritual philosophy, it asserts that all people and all sounds share a common origin, something intangible and beatific, approaching the divine.

Over the years, Parker has written and spoken about it at length, explaining that, in his view, every sound, regardless of its geographical and personal origin, is something that exists as part of a colossal pre-existing whole, and as musicians press on the boundaries of music, whatever frequencies, tones and lyricisms they find aren’t inventions, but simply found aspects of that pulsing realm, which Parker has long since referred to as “The Tone World.”

This philosophy is what has driven Parker, and, aside from the poetic implications, its practical applications lend artists endless possibilities. Universal Tonality dictates that any combination of musicians can converge and play, without planning or preconception, and can create something beautiful, scraping at and tapping into the Tone World. It has become a crucial scaffold within free improvisation, and music at large, a fountain of creativity from which Parker and his peers have been drawing.

In&OutJazz Magazine: I wanted to ask about your conception of music in the aggregate. Has the definition of Universal Tonality changed for you, as you go in and out, and discover new Tone Worlds?

William Parker: In the beginning, we define music as anything that’s beautiful, that has music as it primary component. Poetry, painting, landscape, architecture – what makes it beautiful is the air vibration, that we call music. If you go down the list of everything that’s music, like mother’s apple pie, or a smile, whatever it is that vibrates that makes you feel good is music. And then sometimes, this music manifests as sound. Whereas we’re used to thinking about in the opposite way, that sound makes music.

[At this point, Parker gets up from his desk, and grabs a ruler. He taps it against a pen. Then, unsatisfied with the limitations of the two objects in the scope of what he is trying to describe, he gets up and begins retrieving small instruments and objects from around the room, inexhaustible at 74 years old. He then induces a series of vibrations and explains to me how these small, almost imperceptible progressions can plait together to make a sheet of noise, a symphony, an absolute manifestation of what we think of as music. It is intoxicating watching this William Parker, who has stood at the forefront of everything there is to love about music, explain what has been fueling him all these years.]

What is sound then? If you rub your hands together – you get sound. You snap your fingers – that’s sound. You tap this ruler on the pen, that’s sound. So how do you get this ruler to produce more sound, and how to turn that sound into tone? If you hit the ruler on a bell, you get a tone. And so, every day you practice with different ways of hitting the bell, you shape the bell, you turn the bell into a horn, into a flute. Eventually, you turn the bell into an instrument, or rather, a lever. You know how at a water pump, you press the lever, and water comes out? An instrument is simply a lever that, when you press it, sound comes out.

[Crucially, for Parker, music, sound and tone carry much more than simple perceptual beauty. They can become curative and pastoral forces, something that can make humans heal.]

Say, your brother is not feeling well today. You find that as you play a certain sound, they feel better. At that point, you realize that this sound can make people feel better. You investigate this, and a shaman is born. A shaman deals with vibrating sound that can heal. And a musician has a whole arsenal of sound. So you realize that you can be a musician who produces both rhythms that can make people dance, and rhythms that can heal people.

Was there a specific moment in your life when you realized that art and music weren’t just aesthetic or transactional pursuits, but something bigger, like the healing force you’re speaking of?

My father and I would watch Westerns on TV on Sundays. We’d watch this Western called High Noon, with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, where he’s the sheriff, and he’s supposed to get married, and then someone is coming into town, and they’re going to have a showdown. It has all these dramatic parts, but in between these dramatic parts, sometimes you’d see a mountain or a tree. They’re small details, but usually, you’re meant to be totally focused on the plot.

When it changed for me was when I started watching independent films, particularly Stan Brakhage. He talks about the peripheral vision. About correlations. That the part that we don’t focus is in fact the greater vision.

It was the same when I first began to listen to music. At first, it was pretty clear, there’s the main progression, then the solo, then something else, then something else. Those are the dramatic parts of it. But then I began to realize that it really isn’t. That there are other reasons for how we see and hear.

Then, I began to listen to music that wasn’t dramatic, but that was poetic. It may not necessarily have to have a plot running through it. It was poetic. And it was in the poetics that the beauty was found. And it was the beauty where the tone was, and it was the tone that was going to heal us. Now, that doesn’t mean that when you hear Johnny Hodges play that beautiful melody, it’s not healing you. It just means that there are many different ways to go somewhere. There’s something else in what Johnny Hodges was doing in between the sound that we all can relate to.

So you can have have that moment in music that is more traditionally arranged as well?

You know, I was playing with Cecil Taylor, and he was talking about Marvin Gaye. He loved Marvin Gaye. And so we grew up listening to Marvin Gaye and James Brown. But in all that music, there was something that was not immediately obvious that was maybe more beautiful. While still being connected to the roots of the music, to Africa, to Asia, to the blues,

And because it is hard for black musicians to let go of the blues. Even when you talk to musicians who do play with chords and numbers and systems and improvisations and lines with squiggles, the blues are there. You can’t run away from it.

This is also academic musicians versus street musicians. But street music is just another form of academia. Just a differently wired system of how we learn. The academic will always acknowledge John Cage. But I hope that John Cage acknowledges Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor. It’s all valid because we are all human beings. So whatever system we use, it becomes the keys to that great doorway to poetry that we’re trying to open up.

Music is a great force. And we have to get it out there. We have to. It’s not just about making money. We will continue to exist without the praise and the talk and the pay.

Do you think that in the age of computer-generated music, improvised notes become a safe haven? Because a computer can never replicate them with any degree of soul?

Yeah, I mean, so far it can’t replicate it. When someone plays music, it becomes their life force. They have to play for it to come alive. It’s not alive on paper, not until it’s played. So it is the life force of the musician that makes it come to life. No matter how skillful the machine is, it is never going to come up to the way musicians can play. Musicians can improvise, they can make mistakes. These variations are just another road to beauty. That’s why mistakes exist.

And it comes from truly loving something. In America, we play baseball. So a kid, when they get into baseball, they sleep with their baseball mitt right next to them. And they’re so happy. Everything is baseball. Everything is baseball. And that’s the way it is with music. Once I got into music, I could never get enough of it. I can’t stop talking about it. I can’t stop listening to it. I can’t because I really love it.

And there are people like you out there, who are interested in this, interested in music, in its poetry. That makes me so happy to find people who really love music, and are into it, and try to do anything to help the music get along. Once once it grabs you by the heart, you can never let go.

That’s what it is about. It is never about money. I mean, the only reason I think about money is how to help people and get rid of it. How much it is to have an apartment here in New York? It’s $3,000 a month for the lowest apartment. If I had money, I would just be buying up buildings and putting up low-income housing. That would help people.

You are right, William. Art was always the be-all and end-all. It’s the first and the last thing to push against tyranny.

Yeah! It’s quite amazing. But you are right, the frequency of the world has changed. I feel like there’s less people now who find that frequency and that tone early in their lives. They get written into this kind of circle of like, have to work, have to make rent, you know, have to watch something on TV and then have to go to bed. And it doesn’t leave a lot of room for beautiful things and healing things.

And even when you watch TV, you watch Netflix, there are new movies every week. But they use it all to control what is beautiful. They control what is important in life. They put out there in these movies. They control the tonalities that we hear.

But then, hopefully, you hear something like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, and BAM! It changes your life. All of this other stuff is still going on around you, but you hear Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane. And you follow that path to A Love Supreme. You find your tone.

Tone is the answer. Tone leads you to the Tone World. There’s no rent in the Tone World. There’s no global warming, no war. It’s beautiful there. That’s why once you stop playing, you want to play again as soon as possible.

Janning Trumann

Cologne Jazzweek Director

Interview

06

April, 2026

By: José Cabello

Photo: Michaela Bönsch

During our stay in Cologne we got the amazing chance to meet Janning Trumann, manager and director of the Cologne Jazzweek. Being also a musician makes him have a real and truthful taste for the task of programming and promoting artists for the festival. In this interview you will get an insight of the work that Janning puts into the festival and how he approaches each and every aspect of it. He shared valuable information that could be interesting for both artists and jazz critics. We hope you enjoy both the podcast and the written interview.

In&OutJazz Magazine: So, Janning, director of the Cologne Jazz Week Festival. We’re really honored to have been invited. Thank you so much, firstly. We’re a journal based in Madrid, with a lot of collaborators working around the globe to really give a shout-out to all the artists out there that are doing cool stuff. We like to cover all kinds of music, but it’s true that our main focus draws its attention from the avant-garde jazz scene, from the newest and coolest things happening in the free jazz scene. That’s also one of the reasons why we were so, so pleased and excited to come to this Cologne Jazz Week, because the program seemed really, really, really touchful to us.

I did want to ask you how you’re feeling so far about the festival. Is it going well? Are you excited, too?

Janning Trumann: Absolutely. We started yesterday and there are another five days ahead, so in total there are six days to go through. It’s a little marathon. Last year we did eight concerts, so this was too much. In the end, we were all burned out in a way, so that’s shortened up a bit. But yesterday was a really beautiful start.

We started always with a free entrance series here around Stadtgarten. People just come in the afternoon and start listening to the music. In the end of the day, we had around 2000 to 2500 visitors just listening to that music.

We did the whole area of Stadtgarten for concerts outside and inside and the churches nearby, just to gain interest in what we do. It’s always a really heavy start, let’s say, because most concerts are happening on the first day, entrance-free. A lot of people are coming, so that means a lot of attention.

Of course, all the media attention to it is quite nice this year. It was a good but also stressful start, but it looks very nice. Tickets are selling good and all in all, I’m more and more relaxed.

All right, all right. That sounds like a very, very interesting start indeed. It’s cool and there are a lot of venues around with music going on and on during the festival.

That’s one of the things that makes it feel so alive. Tell us, how are the bands and musicians selected?

What’s the criteria you guys follow?

I mean, there’s no right or wrong criteria about choosing an artist. It’s more about where we come from. This festival celebrates its fifth anniversary. It’s a very young festival. It started in 2021. What’s special about this festival is that the majority stakeholder of this festival is the scene of musicians itself. There is a Cologne professional jazz musician scene organized by the Cologne Jazz Conference. That’s their name and they founded this festival in 2021. Back then, I was the head of this institution, let’s say, and then I switched over to do the festival. What we always have in mind is that it’s a festival from musicians for musicians. This is, I think, a special perspective on how to curate. In the end, it’s also our members in the organization. There are around 300 who choose the greatest board. We have a board of five curators. Every year, there’s an election to elect two people in the jury for two years, meaning our board is five people big. At the moment, it’s Line Juul from the Oslo Jazz Festival, Frank van Berkel from the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, Alfred Vogel from Bezau Beatz and Boomslang Records, and Rio Sakairi from the Jazz Gallery in New York and me. So we five create this program. And they are always elected or selected, let’s say, by the Cologne Jazz Conference members in a democratic election. So, in every year, there are two people changing. So, this is the concept. I stay, of course, because in the end, it’s me as a manager, of course, who’s keeping it together and also in doing negotiations and the final decisions are going to be done by me. But this is how we do it, the technical side of it.

Sounds super cool.

It’s been a process to find that way and also the process of how to choose. So, what we say is like we’re a festival of musicians, of course, but in the end, we want to show the artists who do their type of current jazz, improvised music scene. So, it’s all about their content. We’re not a commercial festival. So yes, we need to sell tickets in the end, of course. Tonight there’s a Philharmonic hall, 1800 seats. It’s big, so we better have also a guest who’s selling it. So, we think about it, but it’s not our first priority. Our first priority in order to choose this program is to choose an artist who does whatever he or she does and it’s really something we think needs to be heard. So, it’s individual, there’s not just one genre, but in the end, it’s a venue and this venue has special characteristics and we try to find a suitable artist for that kind of room and stage. So, in the end, it’s very bright.

Right. It’s super cool. Do you guys try to find a balance between you guys’ artists, meaning the artists that come from Cologne and from all around the German scene and the abroad scene?

Yeah, we try to have a balance. In the end, I always say it’s 33% Cologne scene, 33% international scene and 33% German-European. So we want to mix up and give the Cologne musicians a chance, but it’s not our first priority to bring Cologne musicians on the stage because it’s an international setting. We want to show them in combination ways, or we want to curate a new ensemble or we give some funded pieces and commissioned works. We, in fact, do a lot of commissioned works and premieres. And then we think about how to interact Cologne musicians with others.

How to mix them up.

It’s a festival that’s not happening every day here in the city because in the city we have around 1000 concerts of jazz and British music every year.

I know, yeah. There’s a big scene here.

And we always say this festival is one week, it’s a little bit more special, so make your project special.

Yeah, there you go.

And if you want to play, it needs to be something that cannot be seen in everyday world.

Do you guys try to also take care of the new talents?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we’re not a festival for old guys. I mean, I think Kurt Rosenwinkel is the oldest in this line-up, and he’s not that old.

Yeah, yeah, I got it.

But we say, like, so this is a musician’s festival, so we think about what’s up and coming. And let’s say up and coming is always coming from the young ones.

The young ones.

So, I think 50% at least is below 35 or something. So, it’s just my guessing. I’m not sure, but of course it is coming from the young ones.

That’s cool. A little personal question. What’s your contact with music? How did it start? Do you play any instrument? What’s your relationship with music?

So, I mean, I started playing violin when I was five. And the household I come from is very musical. My mother is a music and geography teacher in school, she was, actually. And then my brothers and I, we started having a house band together, whatever. And with 10 years of age, I switched to trombone because my mother also had a trombone at home. Played in churches. She’s a church organ player.

Cool.

Yeah, and then being 14 or 15, I started playing trombone in a youth jazz orchestra.

Look at that.

So, I’m a trombonist. And my first teacher was Nils Landgren, finally. And then I was a youth student in Hamburg. I studied jazz and professional music here in Cologne and in New York. And in the end, I’m making money with, of course, being head of this festival. But on the other side, I have a professorship for trombone in Maastritch.

Yeah, you’re a complete musician.

Yeah, I’m a musician.

That’s so cool, man. You know, I would say, maybe it’s a little bold bet, but I would say it’s cool to have on the head of the festivals, people that do have a real relationship with music. And at the end, you being a musician, I think it’s something that really, really, really informs all in all sensation of the festival.

In the end, I think, of course, I make maybe different decisions to people who are not on stage. So, my whole life I’ve been on stage and touring, still have my projects and so on. So, I know how it is to play on these stages, bigger halls and smaller halls. I know what is important to me on a festival, like how to arrive, where to sleep, what to eat, which setting you are, how you get paid.

All things to take care of.

Yeah, all this stuff, the really practical stuff. And sometimes, I mean, I’m a guy who always thinks this can be done so much better with some easy stuff, you know. And like, starting at the travel, offering people like another night in the hotel, just arrive one day, chill out, then play on the second day. Maybe meet another musicians in here, whatever. And then also think about payment, what’s the fair pay, whatever. So, of course, practical background helps.

Cool, man. It really touches me, because I feel like we do have things in common. I also love music. I’m also, you know, involved in different musical projects. But at the same time, I’m really trying to push forward the musical scene in however ways I can. And, you know, my collaboration with the journal is one of the signs of that. And, you know, I feel pleased and thankful that you are, you know, occupying the place and the spot that you are occupying.

I think it’s very important to make ourselves comfortable with what we want to do. So, it’s about to have a goal, set a goal, and to think about how to achieve a goal. And also be okay with that, that there are different hats on. So, you don’t necessarily need to be just the musician or just the festival organizer or just the press journalist, whatever. So, for me, it never worked, because I knew I wanted to change some stuff. I can’t change something like a festival by just playing. In the end, it’s always me. I mean, it’s also got to do with, like, responsibility and also a lot of stress and whatever. But, in the end, if I get the opportunity to change something, I try to use this opportunity. And, of course, this means that I can’t maybe be 100% in everything, like playing, whatever

Totally, totally.

But, in the end, I’m okay with that.

Sure. And you’re still building up the scene.

Yes, in the end, yes. And I think there’s a good payback as well. I mean, of course, it’s a lot of invisible work and always not the best paying work. But, in the end, something’s out of it. And it’s maybe bigger than, I don’t know, just one thing.

Yeah. Really inspiring, the words that you’re sharing. Two last questions, really, really fast. Maybe it’s a really compromised question, so you can totally choose not to answer. But what’s the artist or the band or the artist that you’re most looking forward to listen to?

In the festival?

Yeah!

I mean, in the end, of course, I have some preferences, of course. I mean, I’m just a human being. I try to, I mean, disclaimer, I try to see as many concerts as possible in the festival. But it’s a more strategic thing, like checking out if everything works well. Everyone does their job good. But there’s some highlights. Of course, I was looking forward yesterday. I mean, I look forward to a lot to this Gard Nilssen – Supersonic Orchestra because I really am a fan of this band and of Gard. They played yesterday. Also, yesterday there was one quartet from Cologne, Mumble Jazz, Big Breeezy. It’s his name. It’s a young Cologne saxophone player, also playing with a mask all the time. So, he’s got a character himself. But of course, also like emotionally, I mean, playing in the Cologne Cathedral is something that’s also special for us as a festival. I mean, in Cologne, this church means a lot to the people. And obviously, it’s been very much in the focus of media attention as well. But still, it’s like I love Kit’s playing, how he’s playing organ. I listened a lot to his Ovidian record 2019, I think. So, I’m looking forward to that. And on Thursday, there’s a concert of a local artist, Annie Bloch is her name. She does like singer-songwriter, independent, jazzy, large ensemble-y stuff. And a club in Ehrenfeld. So, this is also something I’m looking forward to

That’s awesome, man. Well, that was all. I was just wanting to invite you to Spain whenever you want.

Yeah, I’ve never been to Madrid.

The local scene is actually real, real alive too. But we do need to build bridges between each other to know all the, you know, all the cool stuff that is going on. Because I really believe that the musical scene in Spain, out there, the young people are making cool stuff. They’re cooking up real cool stuff.

Actually, I’ve never been so much in contact with the Spanish scene. So, you need to send me something over.

We’re going to try to invite you.

Send me something over.

There you go. Man, it was such a pleasure. Again, Janning, the director of Cologne Jazz Week Festival with us. It was a pleasure and we are looking forward to keep going with this relationship, thank you so much.