Aaron Parks, Grown Up and Thriving in New York SEATTLE, WA (KPLU) - What happens when a teen prodigy grows up? Often, those who push hard when they're young crash and burn-out too soon. Others hit their stride and keep going. Aaron Parks is one of those. Eight years ago, at age 16, he had already recorded three albums. Raised on Whidbey Island, the 25-year-old jazz pianist now lives in Brooklyn, New York. KPLU's Bellamy Pailthorp first met Parks when he was still a teenager. Now, she tells us, he's developing a rich and promising musical career.

Bellamy Pailthorp's full interview with Aaron Parks
Aaron Parks' Web Site
Bellamy's Profile of Aaron Parks that aired 9-16-2000 on npr's Weekend Edition Saturday
Aaron Parks on npr music




Full Script:

Aaron Parks, Grown Up and Thriving in New York

HOST: What happens when a teen prodigy grows up? Often, those who push hard when they're young crash and burn-out too soon. Others hit their stride and keep going. Aaron Parks is one of those. Eight years ago, at age 16, he had already recorded three albums. Raised on Whidbey Island, the 25-year-old jazz pianist now lives in Brooklyn, New York. KPLU's Bellamy Pailthorp first met Parks when he was still a teenager. Now, she tells us, he's developing a rich and promising musical career.

REPORTER: This summer, Aaron Parks joined the ranks of an elite group of jazz artists with the release of an album called "Invisible Cinema." The record has been topping critics' lists around the country for "Best Jazz of 2008." Here's my favorite track. It's called "Peaceful Warrior."

AARON PARKS: hook of song

REPORTER: "Invisible Cinema" is a Blue Note Record, which puts Parks in a league that includes many great names of the genre -- folks like Thelonius Monk, Bud Powell and John Coltrane. Parks says being on Blue Note is a huge honor. He's also thankful that they let him do what HE wanted with the album

AARON PARKS: "You know, a lot of times with a new artist, some labels would put a lot of pressure on them to make some sort of record, you know, a little bit more straightforward, put some jazz standards on it, you ease the listeners in - a debut, album. And they really let me make the album I wanted to make."

REPORTER: That's something Parks is accustomed to doing. He's always been a self-starter. He taught himself how to play the piano when he was ten and finished high school in the Running Start program in Seattle when he was sixteen. That's when I first met him - right before he moved to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music. Now, he's sharing a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with a friend -- and with his favorite piano, where I found him one recent evening, working on his music.

AARON PARKS: "This is weird, you're going to hear something that isn't done at all - strange. OK.

AARON PARKS: plays the piano

REPORTERL He's quick to point out that this is a work in progress. It has no title yet. That's something he's still figuring it out.

AARON PARKS: We'll see how it evolves. It's going to be all about the drums and how that makes this song come together. It's a skeleton of something.

REPORTER: Parks says he feels his last record was pretty rigid. "Invisible Cinema" was made after he spent several years working on film scores and as a side man for New Orleans jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard. Parks says being on the road with Blanchard's band taught him more than he learned in any school - because the agenda was so loose, sometimes they would fall flat on their faces improvising. It was a kind of musicians' school of hard knocks. Now, Parks says he's looking for a balance between those two extremes.

AARON PARKS: "I really love structure. I love architectural forms in a sense, having compositions that have a lot of things that are planned out. But I'm trying to find more and more ways to screw around with the things that I've built. So I like to build really rigid things and then sort of like, start chipping away at them. You know like find the freedom within the form.

REPORTER: So it's like you create this complex maze and then you're running around inside of it?

AARON PARKS: Running around inside of it, sometimes knocking down some of the walls, sometimes building new ones while you're in the moment."

REPORTER: He says being in the moment with other artists who share his vision - and are well equipped to carry it out as they improvise - is a big part of his motivation.

AARON PARKS: When I'm in that state of flow, when I'm like a hundred percent in the moment - that is the divine to me. When you're right there, fully experiencing the moment, with all of the intensity. That is basically religious experience.

REPORTER: You can hear that kind of intensity on an earlier record, says Paul Debarros - a music critic for the Seattle Times and Downbeat Magazine who heard and wrote about Aaron Parks a decade ago. DeBarros isn't as keen as many people are on Parks' latest record - he thinks it's too abstract and a bit heady. But he is still hooked on the artist.

PAUL DEBARROS: If anybody doubts that Aaron is a compelling composer, they need look no further than the track that he wrote on Terrance Blanchard's piece about Hurricane Katrina. (0:10)

REPORTER: Blanchard made the album "A Tale of God's Will" in 2007. Parks wrote a song on it, called Ashe.

MUSIC: Excerpt of "Ashe."

REPORTER: Debarros calls Parks a great artist. He says the Blue Note debut is just a signpost along the way of what he thinks will be a long career.

PAUL DEBARROS: He's a terrific writer, he's a terrific player, he has a great future. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing everything that he does.
v REPORTER: For his part, Parks says although he finds living in New York inspiring, he misses the trees and mountain views he grew up with on Whidbey Island. He thinks he'll settle back in the Northwest someday - or maybe in Japan or Europe.

Bellamy Pailthorp, KPLU News, Seattle.

MUSIC: excerpt of Ashe with Terence Blanchard solo.

HOST: The Aaron Parks song you're hearing will be performed by Terence Blanchard Friday, February 13th at the Portland Jazz Festival. Aaron Parks will perform more of his own compositions when he opens for Patricia Barber the following weekend. © Copyright 2009, KPLU