Statistics of Orrin Evans
piano
In the booklet notes for Orrin Evans’ second album, Captain Black, recorded in 1998, the pianist, then 23, made a remark that encapsulates the aesthetic he’s followed ever since on his kaleidoscopic artistic journey. “I go head-first for a lot of things,” Evans said. “I like to stretch out. Wherever the music takes me, I'm going there.”
That attitude backdrops the title of Evans’ 20th album, Magic of Now (Smoke Sessions), which documents a livestream engagement at Smoke Jazz Club during the second weekend of December 2020. Evans and a multi-generational cohort of A-list partners – first-call New York bassist Vicente Archer; iconic drummer Bill Stewart; and dynamic rising star alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, now 23 himself – generate an eight-piece program that exemplifies state-of-the-art modern jazz. From the first note to the last, the quartet, convening as a unit for the first time, displays the cohesion and creative confidence of old friends, mirroring the leader’s predisposition for finding beauty in the heat of the moment.
That attitude backdrops the title of Evans’ 20th album, Magic of Now (Smoke Sessions), which documents a livestream engagement at Smoke Jazz Club during the second weekend of December 2020. Evans and a multi-generational cohort of A-list partners – first-call New York bassist Vicente Archer; iconic drummer Bill Stewart; and dynamic rising star alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, now 23 himself – generate an eight-piece program that exemplifies state-of-the-art modern jazz. From the first note to the last, the quartet, convening as a unit for the first time, displays the cohesion and creative confidence of old friends, mirroring the leader’s predisposition for finding beauty in the heat of the moment.