Live In Berlin, by Aaron Parks Little Big

Live In Berlin by Aaron Parks Little Big, released 01 December 2023 1. Rising Mind 2. My Mistake 3. Solace 4. Right in Front of Me 5. Sports 6. Here 7. Kid 8. Siren A band that endures over the course of years is bound to deepen and evolve, and that is certainly true of Aaron Parks Little Big, launched by the celebrated pianist in collaboration with guitarist Greg Tuohey, bassist David Ginyard Jr. and original drummer Tommy Crane. Now with new drummer Jongkuk Kim joining the fold, the group is proud to share the release of a rough-and-ready live performance—recorded as an iPhone voice memo—that captures its inimitable dynamic on the bandstand. As they reinterpret material from their first two studio albums Little Big continues to cultivate a productive tension between structure and spontaneity, with melodies that seem not read from a page “but more as if they’re spontaneously sung,” Tuohey says. “When the band began we would approach Aaron’s songs with clear written parts, working within a fairly tight framework with a lot of polishing and tightening.” But over time, “it’s become something of its own nature, and not always on the grid,” he says. “We’re creating something really loose and open. We’re listening so deeply that it has become a collective sound, not like piano and guitar but a single, fused instrument.” “It’s not a perfect recording, there are plenty of mistakes—mostly mine,” admits Parks, “but you can hear us laughing through them because we’re feeling good as a band.” The aim for the next studio recording is to harness that spirit while expanding the group’s compositional reach with new tunes such as Tuohey’s surging ostinato groover, “Sports” (which also appears on Live in Berlin, preceded by a spontaneous composition by Ginyard entitled “Right in Front of Me”). The recording’s infectious crowd energy is a testament to this lean-and-mean offering from Little Big—and a prelude to its collaborative third album, to be recorded this December.