In the decade between
Invisible Cinema, his 2008 Blue Note debut, and
Little Big, an intentional sequel, pianist and composer
Aaron Parks has covered a lot of ground. He cut two leader dates for
ECM (one solo, one trio), and two as a member of the active
James Farm collective on Nonesuch. In addition,
Parks has worked as a sideman too, playing live and on recordings with more than a dozen artists including
Kurt Rosenwinkel,
Yeahwon Shin, and
Gilad Heckselman.
Little Big is the self-titled debut from his electric quartet with guitarist
Greg Tuohey, bassist David Ginyard, and drummer
Tommy Crane. The album shares its title with the 1981 award-winning fantasy novel by John Crowley. This 15-song set is the proper sequel to
Invisible Cinema. Few artists in 2008 were bridging the aesthetics of post-bop jazz, hip-hop, and indie rock, let alone articulating them in a single compositional voice. Here
Parks continues to create episodic, accessible, yet mysterious melodies, framed by layered textures, rock dynamics, and electro-acoustic atmospherics amid shifting harmonic narratives and solos.
On opener "Kid," a relentless piano figure contrasts with
Tuohey's (
Parks' foil throughout) electric guitar in direct tension. He follows the motif with a melody of his own. Driving it all is a skeletal but propulsive bassline and a series of tight, fleshy hi-hat and snare flourishes that push at the seams in roiling tension. There are subtle electronics hovering about the backdrop as various players solo, but
Parks' pattern never relents, keeping the listener in circular time. On "Trickster," the pace is slower, and
Parks' melody is at the fore as
Tuohey's extends his vamp in jagged fragments as
Crane's kit flits between rock timekeeping, elegantly funky breaks and jazz syncopations. In other tunes, such as "Professor Strangeweather" and "Digital Society," one can hear
Herbie Hancock's pioneering keyboard-driven fusion ring about amid interplay between Ginyard's funky bubbling bass and
Crane's drums ring canny and streetwise under
Parks' layers of electric and acoustic keyboards in an exchange of edgy ideas with
Tuohey. "Siren," "Mandala," "Hearth," and "The Fool," from the center section of the set, offer four takes on ballad forms; they echo everything from gentle fusion to a taut atmospheric dimension akin to
Radiohead's
Kid A without sacrificing
Parks' inherent compositional lyricism. "Rising Mind," with its undulating hip-hop rhythm, allows the other players to build on a post-bop foundation while
Parks' solo engages knotty Latin jazz, even as guitar rock chord changes add drama. Closers "Good Morning" and "Doors Open" begin mantra-like on the same note. The former amid a slow shuffle as a near euphoric melody revels in songlike interplay between guitar and piano, while the latter offers a near telegraphic drone that unfolds to reveal a crystalline, processional harmonic conversation from the ensemble. Though
Little Big emerges from the aesthetic
Parks employed on
Invisible Cinema, it travels deeper and wider, forming a new intersection between song, inquiry, and improvisation. ~ Thom Jurek