Jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and educator Aaron Parks has just released his new acoustic quartet album By All Means via Blue Note Records.
Parks expands his acclaimed trio with bassist Ben Street, and drummer Billy Hart into a quartet with the addition of tenor saxophonist Ben Solomon to explore a new sound. The wonderful set of new Parks original compositions includes poignant dedications to his wife and son.
Parks spoke to WBGO's Doug Doyle about By All Means. The gorgeous ballad “For María José” is a dedication to his wife.
"That was a little bit of a song where I get lucky. There are some songs where you work hard and you chisel, sculpt and you move things around, and there was work because relationships also take work, but I got lucky with certain elements. It started to take shape in the early days of COVID during the lockdown. There's a melancholy that's in the heart of the song itself, but at the end of the song after moving through a lot of different moods, some that have uplift and these and twists and turns harmonically through the song, there's this sort of expansive singing lullaby joyous thing that emerges which captures the spark of joy and childhood that's at the core that I love about her."
The Aaron Parks tune about his son is "Little River", which was written for his son Lucas. It's a joyous, yet restless lullaby that shifts between gentle and turbulent sounds.
"Overall, it's a melodically song that you might find yourself humming along. I think he was six months old at the time and my house was set up where when I was at the piano I could look over from the piano bench and see into the bathtub where my wife was giving him a bath. I was just sitting and saying 'look at this, holy moly this is a human being, this is pretty crazy. This song started to emerge and started as this delicate thing. But then gradually playing it with other folks it found a rhythmic feel which harkens back to the Coltrane quartet."
Parks says By All Means is special to him for many reasons.
"One of the things about the album that I like how it came together is that the record as a whole kind of stays in a cruising or ballad feel. It's not a ballads record but it definitely doesn't have any burners or any songs that are taking you out of a flow. It's the kind of album that I hope that you can put on and enjoy with deep attention or just put it on in the background and let it wash over you."
You can SEE Doug Doyle's entire interview with Aaron Parks below:
