Programme
Coming soon
Directions
About The Vortex
News
FAQs
Gig reviews
CD reviews
Book reviewsHire
Agency
Features
Membership
Support The Vortex
Links
Contact
Gig requests
Music
Videos
CD reviews
Browse CD reviews
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Join the Vortex
email list
To receive monthly gig details, news and ticket offers.
RSS feeds
For news, gig and CD reviews and information about the club.
Click on the link below to get the subscribe address
Vortex
news 
For more informaton about RSS see the
RSS help pages
Aaron Parks
Invisible Cinema
Blue Note 50999 5 09011 2 8
An
alumnus of Terence Blanchard's band, pianist Aaron Parks has teamed up with
fellow Blanchard sideman, drummer Eric Harland, plus bassist Matt Penman
and guitarist Mike Moreno for this, Parks's debut Blue Note recording.
The album's title has its roots in Parks's feeling that his music is at once spontaneous and cinematic, and a moody drama, summed up by titles such as 'Peaceful Warrior' and 'Into the Labyrinth', imbues many of his compositions.
Parks's piano playing initially sounds light, tripping and dexterous but, like the UK's Robert Mitchell, for instance, he packs something of a punch where necessary, and his pieces' discernible influences range from the intelligent, limber contemporary jazz of Blanchard, Geri Allen et al. to less likely sources such as prog rock.
Moreno's clean, fluent but gutsy guitar playing is very much in the current Kurt Rosenwinkel-type style, and he brings a bright spikiness to the overall band sound that perfectly complements Parks's more mellifluous lyricism; Harland and Penman mesh flawlessly throughout, too, the drummer's brisk but delicate hip-hop-influenced pattering tattoos injecting urgency into everything the band plays. Intriguing, original, evocative music.
