Jazz Articles about Orrin Evans

About Orrin Evans

Album Review

Although the Covid pandemic has been devastating to the artistic community, and certainly jazz musicians are no exception, albums like Michael Feinberg's Hard Times point to the possibility of hopeful resilience. With a top-shelf bunch of colleagues and smart compositions with rhythmically crafty arrangements, the bassist's eighth release is a winner, with a plucky spirit and satisfying grooves in abundance. Feinberg pulled this band together in October 2020, and with folks like drummer Jeff Tain" Watts and pianist ...

Album Review

Orrin Evans: The Magic of Now

Read "The Magic of Now" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
December 10, 2021

The pandemic brought with it a shift in sensibilities for many musicians as they navigated new and unfamiliar waters. There were pros and cons of all this activity, with many streaming events and weighty recording projects taking place. Few of the albums coming from that period speak with such authority and freshness as the set at hand. Pianist Evans assembled a trio with bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Bill Stewart back in 2014 for a festival performance and hoped to ...

Album Review

Brian Lynch: Songbook Vol. 1: Bus Stop Serenade

Read "Songbook Vol. 1: Bus Stop Serenade" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
November 29, 2021

Con Bus Stop Serenade Brian Lynch inaugura una serie di album che raccolgono il suo intero songbook, scritto in quarant'anni di carriera e disseminato in numerose incisioni. Da alcuni anni il trombettista ha varato una propria etichetta (la Hollistic MusicWorks) e iniziato a reinterpretare le sue vecchie composizioni: “Ho sentito che avrebbero beneficiato di un po' d'attenzione sotto forma di nuove versioni—ha detto—presentate ad ascoltatori contemporanei, che potrebbero non conoscere il mio lavoro precedente. Sono poi diventato un po' testardo ...

Album Review

Jon Gordon: Stranger Than Fiction

Read "Stranger Than Fiction" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
November 19, 2021

Più noto come eccellente sax contralto e leader di un apprezzato quartetto, Jon Gordon torna a incidere un disco orchestrale per la ArtistShare, dopo l'album Evolution del lontano 2009. Registrato nel mezzo della pandemia, con tutte le difficoltà e restrizioni che sappiamo, il nuovo lavoro rinnova la collaborazione col trombonista e arrangiatore Alan Ferber che partecipa al progetto nel triplice ruolo di co-produttore, arrangiatore di un brano ("Havens") e solista di trombone. Il medio organico include anche il clarinetto basso ...

Album Review

Ember with Orrin Evans: No One is Any One

Read "No One is Any One" reviewed by Paul Rauch

by Paul Rauch
November 6, 2021

To truly be in the headspace to appreciate the music of Ember, an understanding of the individuals making up the collective is paramount. The original compositions are not mind boggling, complex exercises brandishing the challenging dynamics of jazz composition in the 2020s. Refreshingly, the writing is open ended, containing melodies that come across as recitable mantras. The individual approaches to modern melodic improvisation within the collective memory of the musicians so easily rise to the surface of No One is ...

Album Review

Jon Gordon: Stranger Than Fiction

Read "Stranger Than Fiction" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
October 9, 2021

Saxophonist Jon Gordon's superb 13th release as a leader, Stranger Than Fiction, consists of 10 cinematic and captivating originals. Gordon leads a large ensemble of mostly Canadian musicians through his vibrantly textured compositions. The focus is more on dynamic interplay of different band members and orchestral segments than on individual expressions. There are, however, brilliantly virtuosic soloists who seamlessly emerge out of these vividly ebullient works making them even more electrifyingly alive. Opening with delightfully dissonant staccato woodwinds ...

Album Review

Jon Gordon: Stranger Than Fiction

Read "Stranger Than Fiction" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 20, 2021

New York-bred alto saxophonist Jon Gordon has come a long way since he was hailed as something of a prodigy in the mid-1980s and earned first place in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1996. The music performed by Gordon's nonet on Stranger Than Fiction, we are told, “reflects [his] realization that reality takes twists and turns [that are] far more unpredictable than any author would dare write." There are indeed many twists and turns—most ...