Most of pianist Aaron Parks’ recordings as a bandleader since the late 2010s have focused on Little Big, an electric quartet whose ultra-polished fusions sound like a cross between ’70s ECM and Radiohead, so an album as relatively rootsy as By All Means comes as a surprise. There’s the perambulating blues of Coltrane (“Parks Lope”), the midnight elegance of Bill Evans (“Dense Phantasy”), Wayne Shorter, and Jackie McLean (whose It’s Time had to have inspired By All Means’ cover—look it up). Parks—alongside tenor Ben Solomon, bassist Ben Street, and drummer Billy Hart—channels his referents with a fidelity and clarity that feel both intuitively appealing and refreshingly low-concept. He swears this isn’t a nostalgia record, which is fine, but if it were, there are certainly lesser pasts you could serve.