Pianist Aaron Parks can present as one of jazz’s dual personalities: a bandleader who creates slippery new jazz that fuses indie rock, hip-hop, and crisp modern jazz (for example, on his Blue Note debut album Invisible Cinema, or on his recent albums with the band Little Big) and a more traditional jazz pianist in a lyrical, post-bebop mold.
If you buy into that paradigm, then his new album, By All Means, falls into the second bucket. The trio with which he has often recorded is here, with Ben Street on acoustic bass and the venerable Billy Hart on drums, as well as tenor saxophonist Ben Solomon. The sound of the performances is, well, straight ahead; no electronics or plugged-in instruments, and a theme-solos-theme structure for most of the tracks. The music is beautiful, but the truth of By All Means is more wonderful and complicated than that.
The easy swing and straight-ahead sound is best represented by “Parks Lope”, an attractive mid-tempo theme stated over, indeed, a loping two-beat feel that flumes into a 4/4 walking bass feeling for Solomon’s comfy-as-a-good-sweater solo. When Aaron Parks takes his turn, he alternates between chordal bits and light single-note lines. Wonderful, but some Parks fans could be thinking, is this overly conventional for a pianist who usually insinuates, who often sounds less Wyton Kelly-ish, less like he’s on a good Prestige Records date from 60 years ago?
Most of By All Means is more insinuating and sly, just in a delicate way. The style of piano that Parks is best known for—a thrumming and almost guitar-like way he washes impressionistic chords over the rhythm section—is here but surrounded by a rhythm section less likely to shift into a modern groove. This album highlights both versions of Aaron Parks, though, yes, in a lyrical mood.
The delicious “For María José” begins with a repeated figure by Parks that sets up his style, and he spins the melody—first by himself, then with Solomon—with that pulsing feeling in his left hand. Street matches it with his full, woody bass sound, and the luxurious piano solo unspools over Billy Hart’s brushes, sounding as modern as anything you please, but with a jazz classicism at its heart. The only reasonable comparisons are to the Keith Jarrett (Standards) Trio or the Brad Mehldau Trio. Except that Parks is lyrically himself: delicate and heart-first, with lots of open space in his sound even as he sustains accompanying chords. Particularly at the end, when he plays solo for a half chorus, he is out to steal your feelings.
“Little River”, a waltz that is stated entirely by the piano trio in the first chorus, has a similar cozy yet slippery quality. Parks’ melody rises and falls like a jazz classic, and he ends many of the phrases with a pedal point in the rhythm section that creates continual tension and release. However, it is his personality as a pianist—the tendency to wrap the beauty and classic form of the tune in a gauzy freshness—that makes it all compelling.
Similarly, the ballad “Raincoat” is built around a set of cycling piano figures. These arpeggiated chords bob and weave like Steve Reich figures, but enhanced with delicate jazz embellishments and chordal movement. Another ballad, “A Way”, opens the record, with Parks and Solomon playing in a duet before Hart and Street enter in free time, never locking into tempo. The texture is also gauzy, transparent, and rich in beautiful tonal intersections.
Saxophonist Ben Solomon is particularly engaging on “The Way”. His tone is modern but extremely tender. There are moments, such as at the climaxes of his solos on “Little River” and “Anywhere Together”, when he turns his phrases like John Coltrane, but he more often reminds me of a player such as Joshua Redman, with a ripe but quiet cry when he reaches for a high note. Unlike some younger tenor saxophonists, I don’t hear him as a Mark Turner or Chris Potter clone. He brings real warmth to tracks like “Dark Phantasy”, which contain some of Parks’ knottier harmonic turns.
That same tune contains a memorable, sublimely subtle performance by Billy Hart. He keeps time, of course, but his dialogue with the soloists adds extra interest. He is even more elemental to the mid-tempo modern jazz of “Anywhere Together” directing traffic as part of the group performances that are the “solos”. Ben Street sounds like Hart’s other limb, pulsing with the drummer’s crashes, pliant, then taking a rich solo of his own.
The cover of By All Means is a hip commentary on the music inside. This is a return to Blue Note Records for Aaron Parks, and the cover design (by artist Maria Jarzyna) is a wonderful nod to the designs from Blue Note’s past, particularly the ones done by Reid Miles that prominently featured the creative use of fonts (check out, for example, Hank Mobley’s Dippin’).
I mention this because Aaron Parks knows that he is in conversation with some of the finest jazz from the past. That is one of the best things about great art — it connects us to legacy. However, just like By All Means consistently does, great art also shows us the present and points us forward. I strongly recommend this album to fans who want to hear new music, love fresh sounds, and also appreciate music rooted in the best of jazz history. Here it is, wrapped up in great warmth and emotion but also keen and new. By All Means is a hug and a gentle slap on the back, too.