Slow Start
A fiendish and contrapuntal piano solo introduced “Riddle Me This,” a tune with a simple groove and an ominous melody. On the album, this piece is under three minutes long, and features no solos. Thursday’s performance seemed slightly sluggish, perhaps because it was opened up for improvisation. In order to maintain the restrained but haunting mood of the piece, the soloists seemed to shy away from growing intense. The energy reached a low-hanging ceiling right away, and then dangled there for the rest of the song.The first half of the set had a similar feel. The group sounded as if it were deliberately avoiding experimentation, not willing to risk allowing the intended moods of the Invisible Cinema material to escape them. Perhaps Parks was advised to keep the music sounding as similar to the album as possible on this official CD release performance, but when I heard his group (featuring Penman, Kurt Rosenwinkel on guitar and Kendrick Scott on drums) at Smalls on August 19th, the day the album was released, the musicians were exploring the limits of each tune, and the set had a superior vivacity.
Loosening Up
After playing somewhat reserved renditions of Mike Moreno’s “Between the Lines” and Parks’ “Nemesis,” Moreno left the stage and Parks managed to harness the subdued atmosphere in a muted performance of his arrangement of “Blame It On My Youth.” Finally the restraints were dissolved, and the music was free to develop. In keeping with the style of his repertoire, Parks’ arrangement of the standard tune made use of mixed meter, suspended harmonies and a backbeat.After the trio loosened things up, Moreno returned to the stage for Parks’ “Harvesting Dance,” the highlight of the evening. Moreno’s solo was immediately fervent and blistering, as if making up for the more inhibited first half of the set. Rueckert also got a chance to abandon his rather rigid role as beat dropper to solo over the menacing staccato vamp at the end of the piece. The group closed with “Praise,” a sweet and poignant piece with undercurrents of pop and gospel.
Parks’ music, taking on the unwieldy position of straddling the line between jazz and pop, is exciting and often unexpected. Thursday’s performance seemed to initially shy away from risk, and had trouble distinguishing itself from a mere live documentation of the compositions from Invisible Cinema. Once the band grew comfortable exploring within the constrained atmosphere, it demonstrated the rousing potential that Parks has as a composer and bandleader.
