Alone Together, Ep. 6: Terence Blanchard & Aaron Parks
play Jimmy van Heusen's "I Thought About You"
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Watch more Alone Together episodes and exclusive SFJAZZ concerts.
Watch the most recent on-demand concert featuring Terence Blanchard’s E-Collective.
Our Alone Together series is a celebration of spontaneous creation, presenting exclusive and unrehearsed duo performances captured live in the intimacy of the SFJAZZ Center. Whether they’re longtime collaborators or meeting on stage for the first time, these world class artists are improvisors of the highest level, creating powerful musical dialogues in the moment.
For our second “home team” episode, trumpeter and SFJAZZ Executive Artistic Director Terence Blanchard and pianist Aaron Parks give a soulful reading of Jimmy Van Heusen’s 1939 standard “I Thought About You.” The composition has been recorded innumerable times over the years, with standout versions appearing on Miles Davis’ Some Day My Prince Will Come, Frank Sinatra’s Songs for Swingin’ Lovers and Carmen McRae’s Great American Songbook.
A technical note — Miner Auditorium’s immersive media system is using an audio-reactive feature that interprets Terence’s trumpet playing as visual projections throughout the space.
Also, please stick around after the song for an entertaining discussion about their history together.
ABOUT TERENCE BLANCHARD
A savvy bandleader, celebrated film composer, brilliant jazz writer, and influential educator, the GRAMMY-winning New Orleans native Terence Blanchard is a major creative force in the contemporary jazz scene. He has composed over 40 movie scores, has released 23 albums as a leader, and is an active opera composer, becoming the first Black composer to have an opera performed by New York’s Metropolitan Opera. He became SFJAZZ’s Executive Artistic Director in 2023 and was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2024.
ABOUT AARON PARKS
A prodigious artist who attended the University of Washington at age 14 with a triple-major in computer science, mathematics, and music before entering the prestigious Manhattan School of Music at 16. Parks is best known as a visionary bandleader, recording the landmark quartet session Invisible Cinema for Blue Note in 2008. He’s worked widely with Terence Blanchard, Dave Holland and Joshua Redman, and his latest Blue Note album, Little Big III, was released in 2024.
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