To close out the season, here are two compelling and complementary conversations with pianists Aaron Parks and Marta Sanchez. Each of their stories is deeply personal, and yet their experiences echo one another beautifully.
I interviewed Aaron Parks last January at Winter Jazzfest in New York City, just a few days before he made the life-changing decision to leave the United States and move to Portugal. At the time, he was quietly working on a new project, Little Big III, which has since been released on Blue Note Records to widespread acclaim. Aaron spoke about his decision to leave New York, where he had spent years cultivating a reputation as one of the most creative voices in jazz, and about his desire for a different kind of life. Moving to Portugal offered him the chance to embrace a slower pace and new inspirations.
But Aaron’s story isn’t just about geography. It’s also about self-discovery and confronting inner struggles. His career started very young, he was a celebrated and remarkable prodigy and his journey was unusual from the beginning. He moved from Washington State where he grew up to New York at age 15 to attend the Manhattan School of Music, and he was touring as a sideman with trumpeter Terence Blanchard before he was old enough to vote.
This left him with a kind of arrested development and unaddressed mental challenges that had a profound impact on his music and career.
"Part of why I couldn't keep a band together before was because I wasn't existing in the real world," he remembers. "It's the kind of thing where I look back and I could feel shame, embarrassment, or sadness about lost time and what could have been. But ultimately [...] it was like a weird rollercoaster ride that I went on that showed me a lot of things about just how strange and confusing and beautiful the world can be."
Aaron was first featured on The Third Story podcast in 2019 shortly before the Covid pandemic. Since then, a lot has changed for him. When we spoke at the Winter Jazzfest, it was January, and Aaron was on the cusp of a major life transition. He was preparing to leave New York and move to Portugal, seeking a different pace and a new kind of inspiration.
Marta Sanchez's journey, in some ways, is the inverse of Aaron’s. While Aaron was leaving New York for Europe, Marta—originally from Madrid—had made the decision years ago to leave Spain and build her life and career in New York.
Marta’s album Perpetual Void is deeply personal, a reflection of a period in her life marked by insomnia, anxiety, and depression. She described how these struggles shaped her music, creating a body of work that is at once raw and beautiful. "I feel like it cannot be real, deep beauty if it doesn't also have the opposite," she says. "I feel like you need both sides - they complement each other - and to get deep into something you have to get deep into the other side of it too."
Here, Aaron and Marta discuss how music has helped them navigate life's complexities. Aaron talks about his move to Portugal, the release of Little Big III, and how addressing mental health shaped his journey. Marta reflects on leaving Madrid for New York and the deeply personal inspiration behind her album Perpetual Void.
