{"id":9799,"date":"2024-11-06T16:41:56","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T22:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=9799"},"modified":"2024-11-07T08:55:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T14:55:06","slug":"aaron-parks-little-big-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/aaron-parks-little-big-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful Imperfections: A Conversation with Aaron Parks on \u2018Little Big III\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As artificial intelligence increasingly disrupts our ordinary lives, there is an ongoing concern about how the new technology will impact music. In an industry in which its chief creators are already economically suppressed, it is all too easy to envision a future in which algorithms supplant artists. However, as anyone who has listened to significant amounts of AI-generated music can attest, there is something not quite right about the output. Often, the results sound \u201ctoo perfect.\u201d Too flawless in their execution to the point that any emotional appeal is left sterile. It is in the flaws and imperfections that music develops its weight. It is the “errors” that resonate directly from the heart of the performer to that of the listener. This element of music is at the crux of pianist Aaron Parks’ Little Big III<\/em> (Blue Note, 2024). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last three albums, Little Big has applied conceptually different stylistic layers in a sonic decoupage. Shades of jazz, indie rock, electronic music, and even the blues are evident if one looks at the pieces from afar. However, up close, these thoughts merge and blend into one another, making their edges indistinguishable. Part of this morphability comes directly from Parks\u2019 mission with the group: taking highly structured ideas and stretching and pushing them to their breaking point. The idea is to break perfection in a way that only a natural artistic mind could. This approach has carried across all of Little Big\u2019s output, but III<\/em> steps aside from the thematics of its immediate predecessor is noticeable. Little Big II: Dreams of a Mechanical Man<\/em> (Ropeadope, 2020) explicitly drew upon robotic imagery to hone in on the intersectionality of structure and freedom<\/a> and of logic and emotion. With III<\/em>, the band steps away from science fiction. The message is clear – one need not look to fantasical metaphor. Instead, inward reflection reveals that we all internally find ways to balance control and chaos within our own realm. Parks even internalizes some of this by tying III<\/em> to his personal experiences with bipolar disorder, where there can be significant swings in emotions between manic and depressive episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musically, these concepts result in songs like \u201cLocked Down\u201d which reflects upon the isolation of COVID-era lockdowns by drawing upon themes of desolation, melancholy, and a faint hint of an urgent desire to escape. Conversely, however, the piece is also very laid back and peaceful. It shifts between these emotional extremes while somehow simultaneously representing both. \u201cSports\u201d is a piece that is somehow equally evocative of the danceability of Ethiojazz music, the fusionized world-funk of Weather Report\u2019s Black Market<\/em> (Sony, 1976), and the intimacy of chamber music. These different threads seem in the abstract as though they may be in conflict. However, the piece finds a way to somehow cogently represent them all at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little Big’s best to date, III<\/em> shows a continued evolution of a band that is both introspective and continually grasping for new inputs. Their music reflects an appreciation of tradition while striving to push beyond, which makes the iconic Blue Note Records the perfect label for this record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PostGenre: You have a different drummer  – Jongkuk Kim – on Little Big III<\/em> than the last two Little Big records, which had Tommy Crane. How do you feel the group has changed the most from the change in drummer?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aaron Parks: The drums can change so many things about a band. They are one of the crucial elements of any group. JK [Jongkuk] is a younger guy than the rest of us in the band. He’s from a different generation. And so he’s bringing a different generation\u2019s perspectives and solutions to the strange question that I’m posing with this band of how we can take influences from the music that we love of other types of so-called genres and have it inhabit song structures and things that are as much about a sense of place and mood as they are about content. To find ways to improvise where other ideas do not feel like they are grafted on. I\u2019m not interested in making something that is essentially jazz with a little production thrown in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That idea is something that this band has been seeking for a while. Even before the first two records came out, we made two other unreleased recordings of versions of some of the music. The music wasn’t ready yet. It\u2019s been a slow process of us starting to get a little closer to the idea I have in my head to some degree. Once we get close to that idea, the band itself starts to tell me where we are headed. The music starts to become alive rather than a conscious reach for something that I hadn\u2019t heard before. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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