Pianist and composer Aaron Parks is best known as a member of trumpeter Terence Blanchard's excellent sextet that recorded Bounce (2003) and Flow (2005). In addition, he worked with Blanchard on the soundtrack to Spike Lee's #Inside Man and score for Lee's #Katrina: A Tale of God's Will. Invisible Cinema is his debut on Blue Note Records. Parks teams with Eric Harland, the brilliant drummer from Charles Lloyd's group, as well as bassist Matt Penman and guitarist Mike Moreno. This is an interesting group with interlocking histories, creating a sense of familiarity with one another that all comes together here. Parks and Moreno played together on former Blanchard alum Kendrick Scott's album The Source, as well as Moreno's own Between the Lines. Penman and Harland are members of the SF Jazz Collective, and Harland and Parks backed Penman on Catch of the Day. The name of the game here is in the title; this is imagistic music that is big on nuance, space, and beautifully constructed melodies made up of equal parts piano and guitar, underscored and articulately dramatized by Penman's pristine sense of time and pulse and Harland's dancing movement but yet very physical manner of inhabiting his drum kit. Melodic improvisation is the key in Parks' mysterious, strangely beautiful compositions, such as the elliptical, shapeshifting Peaceful Warrior. Parks employs his elegant style to full effect, allowing his sense of restraint and economy to create tension and drama, which is pointedly accented by Moreno. The dialogue between them is uncanny even in sparser moments -- one can think of only two other piano/guitar pairings like this one, Pat Metheny/Lyle Mays and Ketil Bjørnstad/Terje Rypdal. Here the structured euphoric feel of the former and the spaciousness and haunting melodic sense of the latter are combined.

1		Travelers
2		Peaceful Warrior
3		Nemesis
4		Riddle Me This
5		Into the Labyrinth
6		Karma
7		Roadside Distraction
8		Harvesting Dance
9		Praise
10		Afterglow

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