Last year, Aaron Parks dazzled us with his inventive, eclectic Little Big, continuing in the spirit of his highly lauded debut, Invisible Cinema. In a similar sense of that 2008 work still living on through covers and reinterpretations by others over time, Parks took the stems of the songs off Little Big, tossed them online,and let the music community at large have a chance to … [Read more...]
Aaron Parks Little Big – ‘Aaron Parks Little Big’ (Album Review)
Aaron Parks makes music that tells stories. There's a narrative quality to his compositions that seem to carry a throughline to some beautiful truth about the universe. It's hard to say what the propulsive quality is behind his work, but it's always been there-- in his Blue Note debut, Invisible Cinema, released ten years ago; in his work with James Farm; is his trio alongside … [Read more...]
Orlando LeFleming – “Pretentious Brooklyn” (Stream)
Bassist Orlando LeFleming's new project, Romantic Funk, is described as falling "somewhere between the serene, legato passages of early-Jaco-era Weather Report, and the spaced out electronica of late-70's Herbie Hancock". That's a high bar. If the first track available to stream from the project ("Pretentious Brooklyn") is an indicator, though, Romantic Funk should happily … [Read more...]