Orrin Evans and the Captain Black Big Band: Walk A Mile In My Shoe

A glance through the track list—with covers of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye and two swing-era vocal standards—could give you the wrong impression. Yes, this is a very accessible and soulful album, but it is serious and heartfelt jazz, with Orrin Evans' personal stamp making it work. Blues, soul and gospel sounds share the stage here with swing, straight-ahead and avant-garde influences—no surprise given Evans' decade of playing with the Mingus Big Band.

Evans' piano sets the tone immediately, starting the first track, "Dislocation Blues," with choppy blues clusters, and then adding harmonic twists and elegance in a few short bars. Guest organist Jesse Fischer engages Evans in an eerie, slightly dissonant duet before the horns and vocalist Paul Jost make their first entry. Throughout, it is Evans' blues-tinged riffs and unusual voicings that drive this music.

Of the four vocalists on the album, Lisa Fischer stands out. Covering Wonder's vocal tour-de-force "Overjoyed," Evans has Fischer starting at a slower tempo, accompanied at first only by piano and Nicholas Payton's trumpet obbligato. Fischer takes a low, slow, bluesy approach and stays behind the beat as the song gradually builds and goes through Wonder's trademark modulations.

This is Evans' fifth Captain Black Big Band album, his first with so many vocals, and on this one, the horns most often provide accents, flourishes and solos rather than dominating the arrangements. On "Hymn," the horns are prominent, but are they accompanying Evans, or is he backing them? While the sound does get big at times on this album, the music more often feels intimate, a quality suggested by Evans' title.

Walk a Mile in My Shoe uses shoe in the singular, and with it, Evans is making a personal disclosure: "My musical journey is closely connected to my medical journey, and this record is me opening the door into what I've lived with for years," he said. "I walk with a cane because I was born with neurofibromatosis. This is what the 'Elephant Man' had, but luckily, it only affected my left leg/foot. I had several surgeries, the last one when I was eight. I don't have the neurological issues anymore, but I've had several reconstructive surgeries since then."

Resilience and persistence have characterized Evans' career as well, with an output of more than 30 albums as a leader on top of his work with The Bad Plus and as a sideman. He also holds a faculty position at Rutgers University. To provide an outlet for his music, he started his own label, Imani Records, which now also distributes many other artists and stages the annual Imani Records Club Patio Jazz Day near Evans' hometown of Philadelphia. If this album is any indication, traveling to Philly to see the Captain Black Big Band live at the festival might be a very good idea.

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