William Parker Interview

The fine folks at 50 Miles of Elbow Room have a great William Parker interview up (it reads more like an essay, with only one question prompt given).

Some of the content is particularly interesting given recent discussions about the do-it-yourself ethic, surrounding the recent publishing of Marc Ribot's essay. From the WP interview:

When I was in high school, there was always a community center that was there for us - "us" meaning the kids who lived in the projects - to play basketball and have some activities[....]There was that and then later on, on Boston Road, up the hill from where I lived, there was the Black Panther office. They were organizing things. There were the Black Muslims in the Bronx who used to sell Muhammad Speaks, a newspaper that my father used to buy every week. In this paper Elijah Muhammad would talk frequently about black economic power and self-determination, having your own land, your own houses, your own base of operations. Those ideas were around in that time, to be self-motivated and to do for yourself, because if you didn't do for yourself, who would provide for you? You really couldn't depend on the government or what they call the system to provide the things for one's survival.
[....]
That crossed over to the ideas laid out by John Carter and Bobby Bradford. They recorded a record called Self-Determination Music. Charles Mingus had this track called "Fables of Faubus". Archie Shepp put out a record called Fire Music. All of these things were on the perimeter of doing for one's self, self-promotion, and self-development, and to mirror self worth, which was very important at the time.
[....]
Bold gestures are always inspirational. I read about Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in California, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music, the Liberation Music Orchestra. So politics were in the air but also politics of human beings were in there too, spirituality and all that. But the motivation was to do, to get up and move and make things move when you got up.

There's more at the interview, which is definitely worth reading.