Aaron PArks

Little Big II: Dreams of a Mechanical Man

Release Date: May 8, 2020

PIANIST AND COMPOSER AARON PARKS’ LITTLE BIG TO RELEASE ITS DRAMATIC 
SOPHOMORE RECORDING LITTLE BIG II: DREAMS OF A MECHANICAL MAN

Available May 8, 2020 on Ropeadope Records

After two years of touring with Little Big (guitarist Greg Tuohey, bassist David “DJ” Ginyard, and drummer Tommy Crane) and a year of vanguard collaboration with other artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington, Parks returns with his most appealing and ambitious take on creative music in the new century.

"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.

About Aaron Parks

Aaron Parks, the new Ropeadope album from the acclaimed pianist, keyboardist and composer, is at once the culmination of his brilliant early career and the long-awaited follow-up to his Blue Note Records debut, Invisible Cinema. That 2008 release, with its gorgeously melodic writing and improvising and deft use of indie-rock, electronica and hip-hop elements, established Parks as one of the most gifted and original young voices in jazz. “This is the natural successor to that record,” says the New York-based artist, 34. “It’s taking the ideas of that project and doubling down on them—fully committing to that direction.”

Little Big also marks the recorded debut of the intuitive working group that gives the album its title (and which takes its name from a fantastical novel by John Crowley—a favorite book of Parks and, the pianist notes, Wayne Shorter). Parks handled the production duties, with engineering by Daniel Schlett (whose credits include The War on Drugs and Ghostface Killah). The album was mixed by both Schlett and Grizzly Bear bassist/producer Chris Taylor, the latter of whom Parks met in a Seattle big band at the age of 10. “We put a lot of time and care into the way this record sounds, and the result”—simultaneously crystalline and warm, postmodern and natural—“makes me really happy,” Parks adds.

After experimenting with various lineups and sessions, Parks landed on three musicians ideally suited for this atmospheric, genre-bending new work. “This feels like a real band, one that will be around for a while,” he says. Greg Tuohey is the longest-running member, a guitarist who places taste and tone ahead of chops-focused bravado—or, as Parks puts it, “It’s like he’s chasing Miles Davis’ phrasing with Jimi Hendrix’s attitude.” On electric bass is David “DJ” Ginyard Jr., a left-handed player with a distinctively lyrical approach and an aptitude for seeing the bigger musical picture. “He really understands what the bass does, and he thinks super compositionally,” Parks says, noting how some of Ginyard’s basslines have become integral to the songs. Anchoring the unit is Tommy Crane, a forward-looking, stylistically resourceful drummer who brings both explosive creativity and a producer’s knack for precision. “He has a very unique ability to internalize and commit to the particular heartbeat of each song,” Parks explains, “but always with this vital and elastic human element, which is rare to hear in combination with the kinds of grooves we’re exploring.”

Together they interpret a panoramic set of Parks’ original compositions—from the 21st-century fusion of “Kid,” to the odd-metered studio jam “Professor Strangeweather,” to the trip-hop ambiance and folkish melody of “Bells.” The psychedelic “Aquarium”—“probably the sexiest tune on the album,” Parks says, chuckling—conjures up the trippy, sultry neo-soul vibe of Meshell Ndegeocello, before Tuohey offers a solo that channels Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. “Digital Society” somehow manages to evoke Afrobeat, bluegrass and Aphex Twin. “Lilac” is, as Parks describes it, “a solo-piano pop tune.” The leader’s “secret favorite” cut, “Doors Open,” seeks inspiration in late Talk Talk and the “earnestness” of Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band. That closing track is “definitely not afraid to go straight for your heart,” Parks says with a laugh. 

A prodigal talent raised outside of Seattle, Parks moved with his family to study at the Manhattan School of Music when he was 16. Two years later, on the recommendation of a teacher, NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron, he was invited to join trumpet great Terence Blanchard’s band. That tenure began the relationship with Blue Note that would yield Invisible Cinema, released when Parks was just 24. In The Guardian, John Fordham called the album “a real independent vision,” adding that “Parks is a fast-rising star.” In the September 2008 issue of JazzTimes, Parks was named a “New Jazz Visionary” alongside current giants like Esperanza Spalding, Robert Glasper and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah. Over the ensuing decade, Parks certainly made good on that early promise. He was an essential presence in Kurt Rosenwinkel’s band, including on the guitarist’s well-received double album from 2012, Star of Jupiter. As a member of the supergroup James Farm, also featuring saxophonist Joshua Redman, bassist Matt Penman and drummer Eric Harland, Parks put out two celebrated albums on Nonesuch. In 2013 he released his first disc as an ECM Records artist, Arborescence, which DownBeat’s J.D. Considine called “a forest-invoking solo-piano effort marked by wonderfully detailed narratives and a harmonic palette worthy of Ravel.” Find the Way, an ECM trio session with bassist Ben Street and drummer Billy Hart, followed last year and garnered equally enthusiastic reviews. 

On Little Big, Parks taps into the lessons he’s absorbed throughout those far-reaching experiences, while also progressing some of the au courant sounds he investigated on Invisible Cinema. “This feels like the most personal record I’ve ever made,” he says. What’s more, the album reflects his worldview, an outlook in which optimism and inclusion supersede politics. “There’s a lot out there right now to protest against, and it feels like it’s the artist’s duty to create music that reckons with the issues of the day. Nonetheless, this is not a protest record. It’s not against anything; it’s much more for something. What we’re aiming to do is blend genres and ideas in an open and fluid way, so that structure and freedom work together to serve the larger concept of the song. It’s a way of working together that feels representative of the kind of world I could imagine many of us might want to live in.”