Little Big II: Dreams Of A Mechanical Man (Ropeadope)
Aaron Parks
Released May 8, 2020
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
Jazzwise Top 20 Releases of 2020
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lORNZvP23CaZPZQ1snVoQWujsmnY0spG4
Spotify:
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About:
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.”
These words by legendary bassist/composer
Charles Mingus are a touchstone for Little Big, the quartet led by pianist
Aaron Parks. The band’s new recording, Little Big II: Dreams of a Mechanical
Man, communicates with a clarity and simplicity that belies its ultimate depth.
“I want to cast a spell,” explains Parks, “to lull you into a trance where you
think you know where you’re going, and then take you somewhere unexpected,
almost without realizing how you got there.”
This new music continues the band’s cultivation of a musical language that
marries creative improvised music to more groove-centered music—electronica,
indie-rock, hip-hop, and psychedelia—but without a trace of mannered “fusion”
or a sense that the music is cobbled together from disparate styles. Rather, it
feels seamlessly integrated, whole in and of itself.
Dreams of a Mechanical Man is Little Big’s second release on Ropeadope Records,
recorded after more than two years of touring for Parks, guitarist Greg Tuohey,
bassist David “DJ” Ginyard, and drummer Tommy Crane. One primary distinction of
this new album, according to Parks, is that “today, the band operates as a
single organism. The first record was about the tunes and the aesthetic. This
album keeps that focus and also captures the chemistry we’ve developed on the
road, the way this band feels as it makes music in the moment.”
2018’s Little Big was itself a kind of sequel to Parks’ acclaimed Blue Note
debut, Invisible Cinema, a 2008 recording that put the composer and pianist in
the center of the conversation about how jazz was developing in the new
century. With Dreams of a Mechanical Man, Parks continues to explore the possibilities
of how the music can find a voice that incorporates influences from popular
music, the jazz tradition, classical composition, and folkloric songs—ideas
that are now finding their most compelling and mature expression yet, as
songwriting, performance, and production come together in surprising ways.
“Friendo,” for example, begins with a bumping groove, a catchy melody, a
mantric bassline. But a little over halfway through the track, it shifts into a
new gear and expands kaleidoscopically, revealing an unforeseen element of
menace. “The Ongoing Pulse of Isness” opens into an immersive world
of chimes and bells, develops as a meditative folk song in a swaying 9/4 meter,
and eventually finds its way into swirling harmonic complexity and fiery improvisations.
“Attention, Earthlings” has a stuttering drum beat and hypnotic
chords supporting a stately melody, which gives way to a piano solo that
explodes upward in a froth of notes as Tuohey, Crane and Ginyard ratchet up the
tension to a near breaking point. “The Shadow and the Self,” beginning as a
brooding minor key guitar feature, later takes a dramatic turn and broadens its
palette to include Parks’ own wordless vocals in a fleeting glimpse into the
song’s hidden core. Parks credits Blonde Redhead, Pat Metheny Group, and the
work of Carl Jung as inspirations for this particular composition—just a few of
the many strains of influence that inform an eclectic band aesthetic. This
music comes from everywhere.
The production partnership with Chris Taylor—producer/bassist for Grizzly Bear
and Department of Eagles, among others—was also key. “He was an essential
contributor in the studio,” Parks notes, “adding brilliant details. On the
title track, for example, he came up with the idea of an overdubbed percussion
section, which we ended up recording in the lobby of the studio. It’s a subtle
touch that helps to create a strong sense of place.” Taylor was also critical
in helping the band find its best performances—not the so-called perfect ones
but rather those that captured the band at its most human. “He helped us
embrace these moments of imperfection and rawness, allowing the music to
breathe and come to life.”
“I guess you could say,” Parks explains, “we’re going for and, not or.
Structure and freedom. Restraint and abandon. The idea is for this band to
simultaneously feel like a well-oiled machine and a scrappy crew of
improvisers.”
The voices of Parks’ bandmates are crucial throughout. Both “Is Anything Okay?”
and “Where Now?” were fully improvised in the studio, portions of longer
free-form explorations that lean on the band’s ability to glean logic from
spontaneity. “This,” Parks says, “is the band really being a band, a living
thing.”
2019 was a critical year for Aaron Parks, 36. He not only toured extensively as
a leader with Little Big but also was an integral contributor to Waiting Game,
the acclaimed recording by drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. Since moving to New
York from Seattle to attend the Manhattan School of Music at 16, Parks has been
gradually developing his distinctive voice. Upon the recommendation of
legendary pianist Kenny Barron, he joined Terence Blanchard’s band for five
years and three notable albums, followed by his own Blue Note debut, which John
Fordham of The Guardian declared “a real independent vision” by “a
fast-rising star.” He has also released two highly lauded albums for ECM, the
solo piano Arborescence and Find The Way with Ben Street and Billy Hart. Parks
co-founded the collective supergroup James Farm with Joshua Redman, Matt Penman
and Eric Harland, and many others have sought him out as a collaborator,
including guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, oudist
Dhafer Youssef, singer Gretchen Parlato, and drummer Kendrick Scott.
The larger purpose of Dreams of a Mechanical Man, Parks says, goes beyond the
development of musical ideas. “There’s so much deeply troubling news coming at
us each day, amplified by how we consume media. It is all too easy for our
hearts to become overwhelmed and hardened. For us to do the systemic work that
we need to do to stand a chance on this Earth, we will need to be able to show
up with our hearts available and whole. We must be able to feel.”
And so, after a solo piano introduction, “Solace” takes form as a winding
melody that develops with both melancholy and optimism. “That song comes from a
place of real tenderness and vulnerability,” he says. “It’s intended as a small
dose of heart-opening medicine.”
Parks, who has himself experienced periods of depression, hopes that the songs
and musical narratives presented in Dreams of a Mechanical Man can offer us all
a bit of therapy. This is music that aims to sound the alarm about some of the
big picture issues on our planet (“Attention, Earthlings”), asks us to think
deeper (the title track “Dreams of a Mechanical Man,” evoking the Pinocchio
story and G.I. Gurdjieff’s teachings), and invites us to turn inward to examine
how we relate to ourselves and one another in these precarious times
(“Unknown”).
With this most recent recording, Aaron Parks has built something simple and
complex, outer and inner, stirring and soothing. It is a beacon for what
creative music can be in 2020 and beyond.
Track Listing:
1. Attention Earthlings (Aaron Parks) 05:59
2. Here (Aaron Parks) 05:44
3. Solace (Aaron Parks) 07:13
4. Friendo (Aaron Parks) 06:34
5. Is Anything Okay? (Aaron Parks / Greg Tuohey / David Ginyard, Jr / Tommy Crane / Chris Taylor) 03:24
6. The Shadow & the Self (Aaron Parks) 07:20
7. The Storyteller (Aaron Parks) 06:29
8. Dreams of a Mechanical Man (Aaron Parks) 05:32
9. My Mistake (Aaron Parks) 04:54
10. The Ongoing Pulse of Isness (Aaron Parks) 07:16
11. Where Now? (Aaron Parks / Greg Tuohey / David Ginyard, Jr / Tommy Crane / Chris Taylor) 03:22
12. Unknown (Aaron Parks) 06:57
Personnel:
Aaron Parks: piano, synthesizers, Wurlitzer, Rhodes, celeste, vibraphone, glockenspiel, chimes, voice
Greg Tuohey: guitar
David Ginyard, Jr: bass
Tommy Crane: drums, percussion
Recorded
December 5 – 8, 2019, at Brooklyn Recording, NYC, by Andy Taub
Assistant Engineer: Samuel Wahl
Produced
by Chris Taylor & Aaron Parks
Mixed by Chris Taylor
Mastered by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound
Executive Producers: Aaron Parks & Tommy Hawk Wilson
Album Design and Layout by Maria Jarzyna
Cover Illustration by Dan Creary
Review:
There’s a sneaky power to Aaron Parks’ music. Take “Friendo,” a track that appears early on Little Big II: Dreams Of A Mechanical Man. The title feels goofy, and the song starts with a cyclical piano/bass/drums pattern that feels more roots-rock than jazz or funk. But as the song starts rolling along, and Parks and guitarist Greg Tuohey start layering melodies over a taut groove, the music takes on depth and shape, evoking the infectious feeling of a wide, natural grin.
Much of Little Big II blooms in a similar fashion. Parks and the members of his ensemble rarely open a track with a loud announcement of their collective intentions. They build their musical argument layer by layer, each element sliding smoothly, discreetly into the mix.
“The Ongoing Pulse Of Isness” opens with the sound of chimes and glockenspiel jangling together for a full minute before Parks’ piano becomes apparent. The rest of the group slips in behind him and settles into what feels like a glassy-eyed homage to vintage Pat Metheny Group, anchored by Tuohey’s watery guitar lines. Even the most upbeat track, the reggae-informed “Where Now?,” fades into being, as if not wanting its busy bass lines and Stylophone-like synth tones to scare anyone off.
By that point, though, as it’s Little Big II’s penultimate track, Parks and his band already should have listeners under their spell. Or at least basking in the music’s soothing calm and quiet strength—qualities that are much needed in this unprecedented era. That might not have been their intended goal, but they hit the mark with seemingly little effort.
Robert Ham (DownBeat)
