Aaron Parks Little Big in Hong Kong

Aaron Parks Little Big
Jazz in the Neighbourhood
Tsuen Wan Town Hall, Hong Kong
September 22, 2025

A charged, expectant energy filled the room in the moments before Aaron Parks took to the stage. A few hours before the American pianist's debut Hong Kong appearance as leader, it was announced that all schools would be closed for the next two days; barely 12 hours after he left the stage most workplaces and public transport were ordered to cease. Super typhoon Ragasa was on the way; had the concert be scheduled a day later, it never would have taken place. That so many made it out to the satellite town of Tsuen Wan anyway spoke as much about a collective moment-grabbing as it did Parks' reputation. Rather than stocking up on supplies or comforting loved ones, these dedicated musos were grabbing a last night of normalcy. Before who knows what would hit tomorrow. They guy next to me in the second row had flown in from Indonesia for the occasion; it is likely his stay in the city was significantly extended with 700 flights soon after grounded.

Park probably normally closes his set with "Ashé," a beautiful wordless original he describes as a prayer, named for a word in the West African language Yoruba, which originally appeared on his mentor Terence Blanchard's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) (Blue Note Records, 2007). He normally dedicates it to the "lot of things we have to pray about in the world right now," but tonight it reclaimed its original theme, dedicated to the impending natural weather event heading straight for Hong Kong. It is less likely that he normally comes back out for a solemn, fleeting, off-the-cuff solo performance of "Lilac," seemingly inspired by the outpouring of emotion his Little Big band's performance inspired.

Some 95 minutes earlier the set kicked off with "Delusions," one the stronger, catchier moments the group's imaginatively titled third album Little Big III (Blue Note Records, 2024), a moody rocker riding on knotty riff and churning groove that reminiscent of Radiohead. Perhaps deliberately. Little Big is all about taking small ideas and exploding them to stadium proportions—rock-ish post-jazz for a digital omnivore. It is an indie-friendly aesthetic Parks first brought to the world with Invisible Cinema (Blue Note Records, 2008), as the first millennial artist signed to the imprint this millennium; his return to the label for 2024's outing pushed the ethos further, stripping the harmonic content even barer than its two predecessors. With, it must be said, mixed results; All About Jazz's late Chris May was typically courteous in his three-star review.

This is music of texture and pulse, of simple repetitive driving nuggets that, on the basis of this show, translate better to the live experience than deep LP listening—epitomized in the pared-back, funk-ish nod of "Sports," stadium-ready in its simplicity, introduced here by bassist Matt Brewer's sole solo. Throughout this and most tunes, the unremarkable (but never unpleasant) hooks are typically played in unison with by Parkes and his foil, guitarist Greg Tuohey, a Telecaster-widdler who sits out comping duties, leaving Parkes to methodically thwack out the chugging chord cycles on joyless autopilot. The guitarist's muscular lead lines often felt like the main event—longer, louder and more choreographed than Park's, the leader playing sideman in his own band. Alternating between reverb-drenched twang and harder, faster fusion-influenced shredding, Tuohey often felt like the star attraction—a fact not helped by his all-black dress, grungy rock star jacket, and habit of baying and braying on the spot. A notable exception was penultimate tune "To Here," which saw Parks unleash some of the knotted energy worked up watching his slick-dressed guitarist's theatrical composure.

Yet the greatest applause went to Korean drummer Jongkuk Kim, a regional hero for this local crowd, who earnt every whoop of applause in his playful and inventive command of the kit, ever pulsing while always adding something to the conversation without distracting the narrative. If there was a weak link it was Brewer, whose conspicuous sheet music and stoic reserve marked out his position subbing for regular bassist David Ginyard Jr. However the weakest link of all may have been the threadbare material. While there are heart-tugging set standouts—the yearning "Heart Stories" and a mellow new unreleased track called "Otherwise"—many of the mid-tempo, few-chord vamps whizz by unremarkably, fleeting warm-up sketches that often felt unfinished. It was not helped by the band's reticence to plan any kind of ending, instead allowing tunes to fall unremarkably in on themselves, as if the players were as bored with the material as I felt as the oddly unaggravated protest of "The Machines Say No" petered to a lethargic halt.

Lots of people hear Americana in this band, as much from Tuohey's pretty, post-Bill Frisell rustic guitar chimes as from the band's naked harmonic content. The thing about that kind of singer-songwriter fare, though, is it was never about just the music; the lyric is often as if not more important than the composition, and the bare harmony is service of ensuring you hear the message. This would be the killer band to back a vocalist, perhaps.

Will Little Big zoom in further, or get all macro next? We will have to wait and see, with Parks already elsewhere in spirit, soon to drop a third big-label album, the trio outing By All Means.

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