Little Big is an album you’ll want to spin like a globe, placing your finger anywhere and opening your eyes to take joy in where it lands. From first to last, Aaron Parks amps up his artistry in a ripe configuration with guitarist Greg Tuohey, bassist David Ginyard and drummer Tommy Crane. Gliding through a set of 14 originals, the itinerant keyboard player renders a sound perhaps best characterized as photorealistic.

Little Big runs on a spirit of genuine appreciation, be it for childhood (“Kid”), love (“Good Morning”) or worlds within our own (“Aquarium”). Every surface reflects some form of nostalgia, made possible only by the quality of its summoners. Parks and Tuohey are as inseparable yet distinct as gesso and pigment, each defining the other in mutual appreciation, while Ginyard and Crane uphold their canvas with algorithmic integrity. As a whole, these musicians render tessellations of melody and rhythm that would give M.C. Escher a run for his money.

Parks’ writing speaks power into being, unrolling the full breadth of this quartet’s capabilities across the brain. From the intimate piano solos “Lilac” and “Hearth” to the representative “Rising Mind” and “Doors Open,” a purpose-driven energy prevails. Among the music’s many strengths is its evocative clarity, exemplified to the fullest in “Small Planet.” The steampunk ambiance of “Professor Strangeweather” offers another highlight in treating each instrument like a cog for a balanced machine. “Digital Society,” by its own measure, grounds us in the here and now through its bitmapping of the modern soul. If the band’s name tells us anything more, it’s that once any contradiction becomes a reality, you wonder why you ever thought of it as a contradiction to begin with.

(This review originally appeared in the February 2019 issue of The New York City Jazz Record, a full PDF of which is available here.)