Parker McAllister, an award-winning touring and recording bassist based in New York City who is equally proficient on upright and electric bass and adroit in performing jazz, Latin, rhythm & blues, rock, pop, and gospel genres.

Touring regularly with internationally acclaimed Grammy-nominated Sweet Honey in the Rock, McAllister performed in the “Sweet Honey in the Rock: A Tribute” concert and he is part of the much-admired Live at Lincoln Center concert and on the associated CD.  In addition to performing in the Tribute concerts, McAllister tours as bassist with Sweet Honey in the Rock as the single instrumentalist with the traditionally a cappella group.

McAllister is now the newest member of the critically acclaimed group Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, whose record “War” is featured in the two Hunger Games movies.

In addition to McAllister’s regular performing and touring duties, his recent projects include recording and touring Central America with the jazz quartet PACT; the Costa Rican jazz festival with the Joel Larue Smith trio; and recorded and toured with the Love Experiment.  McAllister is also featured on the iPad app “Tutti Music Player” now used as standard curriculum at the

renowned Berklee College of Music.  McAllister has also recently agreed to sign on to the music faculty as an adjunct professor at the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music in Chennai, India.

McAlllister has performed, recorded and toured with a wide variety of performers and genres including Jason Moran, Teodross Avery, Jazzmeia Horn, Dorinda Clarke, Kersten Stevens and the Kuumba Singers of Harvard.  He has appeared at the Blue Note and the Apollo in New York City, Blues Alley and the Howard Theater in Washington, DC; the “Jazz Beneath the Stars” festival in Pennsylvania, the Ottawa Jazz festival, Winter Jazz Festival in New York City.  In 2010, McAllister selected to participate in the highly competitive “Snowmass Jazz Festival” in Aspen Colorado headed by the celebrated bassist Christian McBride and mentored by legendary bassist John Clayton.  In 2010 McAllister won the “Young Jazz Lion award, bestowed by the prestigious Brooklyn Jazz Consortium, past winners including Robert Glasper, Maurice Brown and Tut Amin, to name a few.

McAllister graduated the New England Conservatory of Music in 2012 where he was mentored by the greats Cecil McBee and Oscar Stagnaro. During his tenure in Boston, McAllister studied upright and was one of a very few students accepted on electric bass.  In addition to a rigorous curriculum, McAllister continued to hone his craft performing extensively with a wide range of artists and genres.

As a teenager, Parker studied jazz piano and bass at the Manhattan School of Music where he had the privilege of studying and performing with icons including Josh Parish and Ethan Halpern on bass, and Donald Vega and Karim Merchant on piano.

Parker McAllister was born in Brooklyn New York where music career began playing classical piano at age four.  In 5th grade he learned to play upright bass and performed regularly with a classical string quartet.  He is self-taught on the electric bass and began playing with his church at age 11 and touring extensively with gospel groups through high school.

A passionate and natural musician, McAllister continues to perform nationally and internationally on both upright and electric bass exploring and expanding his musical heights.