Inara George is a Los Angeles–based singer and songwriter whose voiceand musicality move easily between pop, folk, and jazz. Best known asone half of The Bird and the Bee with Grammy-winning producer Greg Kurstin, and as a member of The Living Sisters, she has built a rich andvaried career that spans acclaimed solo work, collaborations with VanDyke Parks and Michael Andrews, and performances at venues ranging from the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall to beloved Los Angeles clubs like Largo and the Troubadour. Her latest release, Songs of Douglass and Littell, revisits music written years ago by her friends and longtime collaborators Philip Littell and Eliot Douglass. The album offers a fresh interpretation of their work—one that veers into new territory for George as she dives more deeply into jazz-inspired phrasing, harmony, and mood than ever before. Yet these interpretations fit seamlessly within the arc of her broader catalog, reflecting the same warmth, wit, and melodic imagination that define her earlier work. In performance, the music from Songs of Douglass and Littell feel like a natural extension of the voice and sensibility that have long been at the heart of her sound.

Van Dyke Parks has left an indelible mark on music as one of the preeminent arrangers and pop artists in the world since first performing as a child in the 1950s.  Parks is an instrumentalist, performer, singer, songwriter, lyricist, and producer. But above all, he considers himself an arranger. Parks was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1943. In 1952, he left home, to attend the American Boy Choir School in Princeton, New Jersey. There, he met Albert Einstein, who accompanied him on violin with Noëls one Christmas. By age 10, Parks had performed in all of the contiguous 48 states, traveling by bus across America. He first appeared on stage at Carnegie Hall in 1955, with famed conductor Arturo Toscanini. Parks was a child actor in the 1950s, in New York City and around the world. He performed on live television with the likes of Jackie Gleason, on The Honeymooners, and with John Cassavetes, in specials directed by acclaimed filmmaker Sidney Lumet. At age 12, Parks had his first feature film acting credit in The Swan, starring Grace Kelly and Alec Guinness. The film’s production brought Parks to Los Angeles for the first time, where he stayed at the Chateau Marmont, in a bungalow across from Eartha Kitt. After briefly pursuing a composition major at Carnegie Tech, in Pittsburgh, in 1961, Parks moved to Los Angeles for good. He performed in a folk music duo with his older brother Carson in coffee houses up and down the coast. He soon became ensconced in the Los Angeles music scene as an arranger, producer, session musician, songwriter, and recording artist. Parks’ first union arranging job was Disney’s “The Bare Necessities” for The Jungle Book. After meeting Brian Wilson at a party at Terry Melcher’s house on Cielo Drive, Parks found himself in the studio during the recording of “Good Vibrations.” Parks declined Wilson’s offer to re-write the lyrics to the song, but suggested he add a cello part, which became the signature sound of one of the Beach Boys most-iconic hits. Parks then titled and wrote lyrics for Brian Wilson’s celebrated SMiLE in 1966, which resulted in several Beach Boys hits, including “Heroes and Villains” and “Surf’s Up.”  Parks then pursued a career as an artist and producer at Warner Brothers Records, where he established and led the first Audio-Visual Department at any record label, producing musical short films (on Little Feat, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, and others) which played in theaters, before feature films. Parks’ AV Department is considered a predecessor to the concept of MTV, which arrived 10 years later. At Warner Brothers in the 1960s and 1970s, Parks also produced debut albums for Randy Newman and Ry Cooder, and releases by Phil Ochs, and many others. His own albums (Song Cycle, Discover America, Clang of the Yankee Reaper, Jump!, Tokyo Rose, Orange Crate Art, Songs Cycled) are elaborately orchestrated fantasies on interconnected themes, and the examination and reinvention of our American Dream. All the while, Parks continued the act, occasionally — on David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, for example, and Jack Nicholson’s The Two Jakes. He has written innumerable film and television scores. And he has authored three children’s books based on American folklore. Parks’ genre-hopping, cross-generational productions, arrangements, and collaborations range from Skrillex to Ramblin’ Jack Elliott; U2 to Carly Simon. And also: The Byrds, The Everly Brothers, Frank Zappa, Judy Collins, Ringo Starr, Joanna Newsom, Peter Case, Fiona Apple, Little Feat, Gaby Moreno, Haruomi Hosono, Inara George, Harry Nilsson, Carly Simon, T-Bone Burnett, Rufus Wainwright, Sheryl Crow, silverchair, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Sam Phillips, Laurie Anderson, Loudon Wainwright III, Tim Buckley, The Esso Trinidad Steel Band, and The Kronos Quartet. In 2025, Parks staged a series of concerts in Japan, with his son, Richard, on mandolin. The reinterpretations of Parks’ famously dense arrangements for just two instruments (piano and mandolin) were lauded in the Japanese press. In these concerts at Blue Note, you will hear why.   Richard Parks III grew up immersed in the musical world of his father, the composer Van Dyke Parks, with whom he has performed on stages from Los Angeles’ Disney Hall, to Europe, and Japan. The father-son duo also guested on Rufus Wainwright's 2023 Grammy-nominated album Folkocracy. Richard has made original music for TV and film, and for his own audio and podcast productions, which have received critical acclaim in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR’s Fresh Air. Richard has spent two decades working as a journalist and documentarian. In Cambodia, he shot a documentary on the Cambodian genocide, and the recent United Nations tribunal against the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge. In India, he made a film about mangoes. Richard has produced documentaries aired on PBS and the Documentary Channel, one nominated for an Emmy, and several Vimeo “Staff Pick” shorts. Richard also has an extensive background in print journalism, including a stint as the editor-in-chief of two small-town newspapers in Northern California. Richard first entered the field of “audio” in 2010, when McSweeney’s author Dave Eggers asked him to write, produce, and star in an hour-long radio drama with The Flaming Lips. The resulting special aired on KCRW and featured original compositions from Bill Callahan (Smog), the composer Nico Muhly, and others. Richard went on to create Richard's Famous Food Podcast, a cult favorite food/comedy show that Vulture called “a stream of consciousness that explodes with clouds of color and aural wit.” With the actor Seth Rogen, Richard developed, wrote, and produced Storytime with Seth Rogen, which was named a best podcast of the year by many publications. Richard’s baseball show Dodger Blue Dream was named a best podcast by Audible and Vulture. Richard’s other career track is in food. A James Beard Award nominee, he is the co-author of two cookbooks: Guerrilla Tacos (with Wesley Avila) and The Boba Book, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Lucky Peach magazine. Richard Hill Parks III lives in Los Angeles, with his dog, Blue.