October 18, 2024
By Evan Haga
Little Big III is the second album that pianist Aaron Parks has released on Blue Note as a bandleader, following 2008’s Invisible Cinema, a powerfully modern, post-genre concept for improvised music in the 21st century. Which makes it a homecoming of sorts. And like any important homecoming, it gathers its meaning by placing the profound changes that life brings against a backdrop of familiarity.
Invisible Cinema was a touchstone for so much of the atmospheric, indie-tinged jazz that came after — “a real independent vision,” per the Guardian — and the catalyst for Parks to develop the working band that became Little Big. Parks’ new album, co-produced by the pianist with Blue Note President Don Was, underscores the evolution of that vision, and that artist. It elevates the rare bond Parks shares with guitarist Greg Tuohey, his co-leader in Little Big, and with the phenomenal rhythm section of bassist David Ginyard Jr. and Jongkuk Kim.
With its shared writing credits and dynamic, streamlined production, Little Big III also reflects the vision of a bandleader who’s learned that letting go fosters greater inspiration than holding the reins tight. “There’s something about this record that feels like it captures the energy of the band in a more raw and honest way,” Parks says. “There was very little trying to create the perfect take; it was a lot more ‘Let’s play everything a few times and try to capture the vibe as best we can.’”
“Flyways” picks up where previous Little Big efforts left off, with a blend of perceptive melody and a pulsating rhythm that evokes krautrock. “Locked Down” was composed, you guessed it, during the onset of the pandemic, and it harbors that hopeless ennui — it’s a “dark blues” tune, per Parks — as well as plenty of melodic beauty; Tuohey hears elements of both Paul Bley and Radiohead in it — “Bleydiohead,” he chuckles. The guitarist’s nimbly joyous “Sports” is global jazz in the image of Joe Zawinul and Weather Report. With its irresistible melody, “Delusions” is similarly hypnotic, though darker and stained with anxiety, culminating in Tuohey’s skronky solo. Much more than a “fusion” stylist, Tuohey has cultivated jazz and rock chops of undiluted authenticity — a singular sound that begins (but doesn’t end) with his triumvirate of guitar heroes: Hendrix, Bill Frisell and Jonny Greenwood.
“Ashé” is an older Parks composition that first appeared on A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), the final Blue Note album the pianist recorded with his mentor Terence Blanchard. The title is a Yoruban word that can translate approximately to “so be it.”
As Little Big III unfolds, the only thing more striking than the concise, accessible writing is the vibrancy of the ensemble: the empathy with which guitar and piano meld, sidestepping any surplus of harmonic information; Kim’s Brian Blade levels of taste and finesse; the way Ginyard functions compositionally on the low end, anchoring this seemingly intuitive, slippery music.
For the pianist, crafting the album was an exercise in “letting the band itself start to show me what it sounded like, rather than me trying to control it all the time.” It follows that Parks is now at a stage in his life where acceptance, humility and levity are crucial — as a husband and a father, and as someone who has diligently worked on his wellness and mental health. At 40, Parks finds he’s able to “take the music itself more seriously, because I’m taking myself a little less seriously.”
The road to such equanimity was long, and it certainly wasn’t easy. “When I think back about that time [when I recorded Invisible Cinema],” Parks begins, “I feel like I had a lot of ideas about music but I had no idea how to lead a band.” In 2008, when that breakout LP was released, Parks was 24 years old, a former prodigy from the Pacific Northwest who cut his teeth most notably in groups led by Blanchard and Kurt Rosenwinkel. “And Terence at the time told me, ‘You’re not ready [to lead] yet,’” Parks recalls. “I’ve come to realize that in many ways he was right. There was still a lot I needed to learn about how to be a band member.”
But Parks forged ahead, making up for whatever acumen he lacked as a bandleader with striking sonic ingenuity; then as now, the shorthand discussion around Invisible Cinema was that Parks had managed to meld contemporary post-bop with expansive art-rock. Of course it was far more organic than that: The album was essentially an answer to the question that continues to guide Parks’ process: “What is the music that I as a listener would like to hear, and how can I get closer to that?” The reviews were strong, and the buzz was building, but the universe seemed to be pushing back against Parks’ success. “I was going through some existential issues in my life at the moment,” he says.
A few months before the album’s release, Parks had started to experience severe manic episodes. These episodes manifested as “unwanted grand, dramatic, romantic gestures,” and a kind of upended, optimistic paranoia — “I was pro-noid,” Parks laughs. “I was seeing secret codes everywhere, feeling like I was unlocking some grand secret of the universe. Everything was a conspiracy for the greater good.” He was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Therapy, medication and self-care followed, as did a thriving career as one of the most insightful improvisers and composers of his generation. In the fall of 2018, Parks released Little Big’s self-titled debut, with the lineup of Tuohey, Ginyard and drummer Tommy Crane; 2020 brought Little Big II: Dreams of a Mechanical Man, which DownBeat lauded for “the music’s soothing calm and quiet strength.” And then a funny thing happened. Largely unbeknownst to the band, Little Big II had become a sort of sleeper hit during the pandemic. By the time European touring resumed for the group in the fall of 2022, Little Big’s audience had exploded. “Suddenly, every venue seemed too small,” Parks recalls.
A few fantastic gigs came off, though the run quickly became a pressure cooker. No one was sleeping much, sets and shows were added to the itinerary off the cuff, and Parks was selling a lot of band merch by himself, without time to rest and recenter. As overwork turned into burnout, Parks’ mania resurfaced. He started digging behind the themes of the music, wondering if he was in fact the robotic Mechanical Man. “I was high and I kept going,” Parks says. “And then it was confirmation bias — finding evidence of anything I wanted to believe in.” The gigs remained compelling, but something was obviously wrong. The onstage chatter went off the rails, and his behavior both on and off the bandstand was increasingly indecipherable.
As Parks spiraled further, his co-leader and guitarist intervened. “There was a point where, it wasn’t that I didn’t care about the music, but the music became very, very secondary. This is my friend; that became all that was important,” Tuohey says. “We live in this world where it’s just music music music, and it suddenly became real human, real fast. We just need to get this guy back to New York in one piece.” The remainder of the tour was canceled.
With the pianist well again, the lineup of Parks, Tuohey, Ginyard and Kim embarked on a more successful tour in May 2023. After those gigs wrapped, a decision was made “to document the feeling of the band, the feeling of that fellowship,” Parks says.Throughout Little Big III, that kinship is palpable. There’s a vitality at play on the record that is simply extraordinary; somehow, it’s beautiful and raw in equal measure. “While this record feels the most supple and alive,” Parks explains, “it also feels like the most focused album Little Big has recorded — the most distilled down to the essence.”
