Music
Aaron Parks Trio
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Rob Adams
THREE STARS
Aaron Parks might have had reservations about leading a trio ahead of his current UK tour but the Seattle-born pianist seems well capable of finding his own path in what is a very heavily populated area in jazz currently. This was a brand new group playing mostly brand new music written especially for the personnel, and if there was a sense of the three musicians feeling their way through much of it, the essence of what they created proved attractive and engrossing.
Parks has led trios before. His first recording, aged sixteen, was in this format although versions of Wayne Shorter’s obliquely melodic Marie Antoinette and George Shearing’s darting, tricky Conception aside, this was far from the standard repertoire and relatively conventional approach of those early sessions. Half a lifetime on, Parks has developed his own style that leans more towards pastoralism and an almost painterly use of musical colour than a demonstration of jazz chops.
His colleagues played with real empathy. Bassist Ben Street left lots of space for Parks to build his meditative figures, often quietly bell ringing-like patterns and carefully developed melodic progressions and drummer Billy Hart brought a huge repertoire of touches, seldom taking the obvious time-keeping route and instead using drums and cymbals more as tuned percussion as he used sticks, brushes and beaters to bring a brilliantly skilful range of dynamics to bear.
A dedication to a friend of Parks’ who recently moved to Edinburgh was a particular highlight, with its dancing, lightly propulsive rhythm, and Alice, written for Alice Coltrane, confirmed Parks’ ability to capture another composer’s musical personality while also sounding like himself.
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