Orrin Evans
Captain Black Big Band / Tarbaby / Trio
EU
““...a poised artist with an impressive template of ideas at his command,””
During his kaleidoscopic quarter-century as a professional jazz musician, pianist OrrinEvans has become the model of a fiercely independent artist who pushes the envelope in all directions. Evans upholds that reputation on his 20 th album, Magic of Now (SmokeSessions), on which he helms a multi-generational A-list quartet through an eight-pieceprogram that exemplifies state-of-the-art modern jazz. From first note to last, themembers, convening as a unit for the first time, display the cohesion and creativeconfidence of old friends, mirroring the leader’s predisposition for finding beauty in theheat of the moment.
Although he’s never had the support of a major label, Evans has ascended to top-of-the-pyramid stature on his instrument, as affirmed by a #1-ranking as “Rising Star Pianist” inthe 2018 DownBeat Critics Poll. Grammy nominations for the Smoke Sessions albumsThe Intangible Between and Presence, by Evans’ raucous, risk-friendly Captain BlackBig Band, cement his bona fides as a bandleader and composer.
Evans bedrocks his speculative sensibility with virtuoso command of the piano and deepassimilation of the fundamentals. A deft tune deconstructor, he commands vocabularyacross a broad timeline of swinging, blues-infused hardcore jazz and spiritual jazz/avantgarde jazz dialects, as well as the Euro-canon, and conveys his stories with the intuitivespontaneity of an ear player. He projects an instantly recognizable sound, sometimes creating flowing rubato tone poems, sometimes embodying the notion that the pianoc omprises 88 tuned drums.
Evans’ stylistically polyglot compositions – influenced by the expansive, individuality-first Black Music culture of his native Philadelphia and by a decade playing CharlesMingus’ beyond-category music in the Mingus Big Band – similarly postulate an environment of “structured freedom” that instigates the personnel to push the envelope in all his multifarious leader and collaborative projects. These include the Eubanks Evans
Experience (a recent venture with eminent guitarist Kevin Eubanks); the just-formed Brazilian unit Terreno Comum; Evans’ working trio with bassist Luques Curtis anddrummer Mark Whitfield; Jr.; and Tar Baby (a collective trio of 20 years standing with.bassist Eric Revis and drummer Nasheet Waits).
In addition Orrin is an influential educator, devoted to passing the torch to new generations.