Jazz guitarist Jeff Parker wrote and recorded Suite for Max Brown in dedication to his mother, whose image graces the album’s cover. You don’t actually have to know that in order to enjoy the largely instrumental album, which offers much to savor with or without the backstory. But when you do know it, it brings this curious piece of music into clearer view. Parker’s intentions explain why the music sounds so lovingly detailed without sounding fussy or overworked; how Suite for Max Brown is such a delicate and particular object of affection, like a Mother’s Day card made with macaroni and glue. 

Maybe that description makes the album sound small, which it is. While some records impress with their scope and their sprawl, Suite for Max Brown is an intimate collection of humble pleasures, derived from laid-back jazz, electronic beat-making, and ambient tranquility; it’s a mosaic of textures, colors, and grooves that extol specificity and warrant close attention. (The album’s modesty makes it a surprising but not unworthy choice for Pitchfork’s first “Best New Music” designation of the decade.) It’s no accident that the album’s lone vocal number, “Build a Nest,” finds Parker’s daughter Ruby espousing the virtues of slowing down, eschewing hustle and bustle, and assiduously constructing something that’s made to last. While Suite for Max Brown flits from one micro-moment to the next, each of those moments feels like it’s been placed with care, imbued with affection, and offered as a focal point for obsession; the music covers a lot of ground but somehow feels unhurried. Its grace is most evident in a glowing rendition of John Coltrane’s “After the Rain,” a moment of zen that revels in mind-clearing languor and pace-setting deliberation. 

So while Parker’s songs are generous with memorable melodies and robust performances, you’re just as likely to latch onto the droning keyboard tone that sounds through “Fusion Swirl,” as if it’s suspended in zero gravity; the loose rattle of Jay Bellerose’s tambourine on “3 for L”; the bright chimes and ringing bells of “Metamorphoses.” Parker curates these micro-moments for their sensual pleasures, their tactility, their instant earworm-ability. That doesn’t leave a ton of space for him to shred— if it’s guitar heroics you’re after, try Julian Lage or The Messthetics— but he does dole out clear, supple licks on the strolling “3 for L,” and on “Go Away,” a full studio band works up a full head of steam, locking into a roiling Afrobeat groove.

One of the album’s most precious curios is “C’mon Now,” a 20-second loop of Otis Redding’s vocal exhortations. It functions as an interlude, yet feels like so much more. It positions Parker’s music on the same continuum with Makaya McCraven, Flying Lotus, and the late J Dilla, auteurs whose work bridges the divide between jazz improvisation and hip-hop splicing-and-dicing. (McCraven also plays on a few of these songs.) In other words, it’s a small gesture toward the big picture. But there are other ways to receive these Otis grunts and incantations: Perhaps they are here to remind us that every moment, every syllable is an opportunity for close attention; or perhaps simply because Jeff Parker knows somebody who loves hearing Otis Redding sing.