City Folk James Farm, Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman & Eric Harland

• 1 Two Steps 05:06
• 2 Unknown 07:05
• 3 North Star 07:56
• 4 Mr. E 08:56
• 5 Farms 04:36
• 6 Otherwise 06:38
• 7 Jury's Out 05:33
• 8 Aspirin 07:37
• 9 City Folk 07:03
• 10 What Remains 03:26
• Total Runtime 01:03:56

Info for City Folk

Saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman and drummer Eric Harland teamed up in 2009 under the name 'James Farm'. 2014 marks the band's second collaboration, with the release of their second studio album titled City Folk.

The band's roots go back to the 2009 Montreal jazz festival, when Redman asked Harland, Penman and Parks to play in his quartet. They embarked upon another tour in 2010, and each member began contributing their own tunes. Their first album, James Farm, launched in 2011, and City Folk sees the ensemble take their collaborations to new heights.

“The vibe is distinctly urban, though more alt-rock than street. The song-form structures are simple with tuneful themes and grungy beats, but once stated, they morph into the contemporary complexities of story-telling linear jazz.” (Financial Times)

Joshua Redman, saxophone
Aaron Parks, piano
Matt Penman, bass
Eric Harland, drums

Recorded January 4 - 7, 2014 at Brooklyn Recording, Brooklyn, NY
Produced by James Farm

James Farm
is a collaborative band featuring saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland. The band infuses traditional acoustic jazz quartet instrumentation with a progressive attitude and modern sound, creating music that is rhythmically and technically complex and at the same time harmonically rich, melodically satisfying, and emotionally compelling. Redman, Parks, Penman, and Harland exhibit a total commitment to group improvisation combined with a song-based approach to jazz that incorporates the members’ myriad of influences: rock, soul, folk, classical, and electronica, among many others. James Farm brings sincerity and sophistication, fluidity and focus, organic music with a sense of purpose.

"James Farm is where we pool our collective knowledge, let run the best of our ideas arising from our varied musical influences, while acknowledging substantial common ground - a love of jazz, a fascination with song and structure, an obsession with groove, a receptivity to contemporary influences. A band where we can be creative composers and improvisers, in step with the rhythm of the times, constantly evolving....." - Matt Penman

Joshua Redman
is one of the most highly acclaimed and visible jazz artists working today. His sweet, singing tenor sax tone and exploratory projects have been praised by fans and critics alike. The son of legendary saxophonist Dewey Redman, Joshua graduated from Harvard, and was set on studying law at Yale until a summer in New York with his father set him on a very different career path. A 1991 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition winner, Redman brings his profound compositional talent to this new project.

Aaron Parks
24-year old Seattle native Aaron Parks is one of the most talked-about artists in the jazz world. With his technically involved yet boundlessly melodic and sensitive playing, and with the sense of color and imagination he conveys in every musical situation, Parks is setting a new standard for jazz piano expression. He has spent five years as a member of Terence Blanchard‘s group, has toured extensively with Kurt Rosenwinkel, and has recorded with Christian Scott, Gretchen Parlato, and many others.

Eric Harland
Drummer Eric Harland has been a revelatory presence in the jazz world since the mid 1990s. He has performed with Betty Carter, Charles Lloyd, Joe Henderson, Wynton Marsalis, McCoy Tyner, SFJAZZ Collective, and many more. He has appeared on several Grammy-nominated recordings, and counts 18 film scores among the hundreds of recordings he has played on.

This album contains no booklet.