Aaron Parks trio at Cornelia St Cafe - NYC, Apr 15

• photography by Clara Pereira / text by Filipe Freitas

This trio of unlimited talent gathered on Cornelia’s stage to play standards in such a way that I felt I could stay there all night listening to them.
Besides the numerous collaborations with other renowned artists, Aaron Parks and Tyshawn Sorey have their own projects. In turn, Thomas Morgan keeps showing his virtuosity in multiple adventures with respected names like Bill Frisell, David Virelles, Craig Taborn, Jakob Bro, and Dan Weiss.

With a natural instinct to create a variety of colorful textures, the band outlined melodic lines over refined rhythmic orientations, unleashing all their imagination and expressiveness.
Parks, breathing deeply between his phrasings, entered into a sort of trance, clearly impressed by the work of his bandmates . Morgan is a colossus both in the art of accompaniment and improvisation while the exceptional Sorey does miracles with a reduced drumset: hi-hat and ride cymbals, bass drum pedal, and snare drum. 

They opened the performance with ‘Here’s That Rainy Day’, which was capable of shedding tears, and continued with recognizable pearls such as ‘Like Someone in Love’, ‘Polka Dots and Moonbeams’ and revisiting the inevitable Charlie Parker, who certainly would be proud with the modern arrangement given to one of his tunes. 

Never fatiguing or fussy, and evincing an enviable intimacy and communication in their interplay, the mighty trio made me rejoice with this lovely performance.