JAZZ MEETS INDIE ROCK ON AARON PARKS' BLUE NOTE DEBUT

"VISIONARY" PIANIST & COMPOSER CELEBRATES AUG. 19 RELEASE

OF INVISIBLE CINEMA WITH AOL SPINNER LISTENING PARTY;

FALL TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED IN NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA,

LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO & SEATTLE

Invisible Cinema, the striking Blue Note Records debut by Aaron Parks will be released next Tuesday August 19, 2008, and already critics are raving. The album finds the 24-year old pianist and composer-who is featured in the September issue of JazzTimes as a "New Visionary"-exploring the common ground between his influences: from modern progressive jazz to indie rock and hip-hop. Parks represents a new generation of Jazz musicians, as is evidenced by the fact that he cites bands from Radiohead to Blonde Redhead among his major influences alongside Herbie Hancock, Brad Mehldau, and Terence Blanchard.

AOL Spinner will be hosting a Listening Party featuring full-album streaming of Invisible Cinema the week of release starting August 18. That's a rare honor for an instrumental Jazz album, but then again the Boston Globe noted that Invisible Cinema "is a different sort of piano jazz record... Everything is in this mix: classical influence, bop-based grooves, rock attitude, film-score drama, and hip-hop textures." DETAILS magazine simply declared "Parks is a wonder on his major-label debut."

The album title and theme explore the relationship between the aural and the visual. Parks explains: "The title has different meanings. For one thing, invisible cinema is what music is, in a sense. You can't see it. But there's all this drama between the musicians, all these stories that can be told. Also, this album has a story line that I wouldn't spell out to anybody, because I want to leave it open to interpretation. But for me there's a narration in the sequence and song titles and everything."

Parks will be hitting the road this Fall in support of Invisible Cinema. In New York, Parks will be giving a free show at J&R MusicFest 2008 in City Hall Park (8/22), and will celebrate the album release with two nights at the Jazz Standard (9/10-11). See below for all U.S. tour dates.

TOUR DATES

8/19-20 - New York, NY - Small's Jazz Club (w/ Kurt Rosenwinkel)

8/22 - New York, NY - J&R MusicFest @ CityHallPark (w/ Roy Hargrove & Esperanza Spalding)

8/29 - Lenox, MA - Tanglewood Jazz Festival

9/10-11 - New York, NY - Jazz Standard

10/17 - Memphis, TN - Germantown Performing ArtsCenter

10/18 - New Orleans, LA - SnugHarbor

10/19 - Los Angeles, CA - Jazz Bakery

10/20 - San Francisco, CA - Yoshi's

10/23 - Seattle, WA - Earshot Jazz Festival

10/24 - Denver, CO - Dazzle Jazz Club

11/01 - Philadelphia, PA - Chris' Jazz Cafe

Early Praise for Invisible Cinema

"New visionary"

-JazzTimes

"A jazz pianist who takes risks, Parks is a wonder on his major-label debut."

-DETAILS

"...this is a different sort of piano jazz record... Everything is in this mix: classical influence, bop-based grooves, rock attitude, film-score drama, and hip-hop textures... Invisible Cinema is the opposite of a silent film. The soundtrack is provided; the listener brings the visuals."

-Boston Globe

Check out the Invisible Cinemadigital player.

Check out Aaron Parks on Facebook.

Check out Aaron Parks on MySpace.

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