"We Always Swing" Jazz Series

Aaron Parks Trio - SOLD OUT!

Featuring Billy Hart (dms) • Ben Street (b)

Photo Credit Courtesy of Artist

To add your name to the wait list, please send a note to info@wealwaysswing.org indicating if you prefer the 3:30 p.m. or 7 p.m. concert and how many tickets you'd like.

If you have tickets but can't attend, please let us know so we can sell them to folks on the wait list. Returned tickets to a sold out concert count as a tax-deductible donation.

One of jazz’s most treasured tenets is having the ability to pay close attention to all that has been laid out ahead of when you entered the fray; equally important is possessing the ability to deliver fresh-sounding, new music. Additionally, one of the joys of jazz is, frequently, those making the music cut across multiple generations.
Pianist Aaron Parks’ Trio posseses both traits – and embraces them, doing so with panache. Parks, 35, is surely one of the more forward-thinking pianists of the day. A precocious youth, the pianist hails from Seattle; at 14 he enrolled in an early entrance degree program at the University of Washington. Stints with Terence Blanchard, as a co-leader of James Farm, which includes Joshua Redman, are but two of his many credits, having released 10 recordings as a leader.
Meanwhile, bassist Ben Street, who is from Maine originally, has worked with everyone from Danilo Perez – who he appeared with on another "We Always Swing"® Jazz Series occasion – to elders such as Sam Rivers. As for drummer Billy Hart, his history extends back to the late 1950s/early 1960s. A true master percussionist with his own particular sound, Hart's only other Jazz Series appearance came in 2002 as a member of bassist Ray Drummond’s Excursion Band. On the cusp of 80. understandably, and not surprisingly, Hart's knowledge of and his membership within jazz history digs deeply into tbe tradition, while he simultaneously and unflininchingly looks toward the future.
Together, the three musicians here both engage the audience as well as enthrall it.

Audio and Video

Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020

"Sundays @ Murry's"

Murry's

Show 1 | Doors: 2:30 | Start: 3:30

Show 2 | Doors: 6 | Start: 7

Aaron Parks Trio feat. Billy Hart and Ben Street

Aaron Parks: Piano
Ben Street: Bass
Billy Hart: Drums

"The result is a free-flowing collection of improvisations that take different twists and turns for this growing artist. At times, the music is ethereal. At times searching. At times strongly and directly stated. It has a lightness of being and the conversational aspect among the three is always present."

- R.J. Deluke, All About Jazz

"A multi-levelled luminous calm, that separates the music made by Parks, bassist Ben Street and drummer Billy Hart from the myriad trios playing the well-trodden field."

- Marc Medwin

"... but when the music slams into monolithic chordal solidity toward the end, it does so with a vengeance rivaling Coltrane’s classic rhythm section, and, through cans, Hart’s toms are almost frightening."

Press Photos

Photo #1