CD: Red Door

Pianist Orrin Evans opens "The Red Door," his outstanding new album featuring illustrious guests Nicholas Payton, Wallace Roney, Sy Smith and Jazzmeia Horn. What's behind the red door? For pianist Orrin Evans, this question is symbolic of the daring path his life and music have taken over the course of his three-decade career.
On his latest album, he opens that door once again and rejoices in the collaborators, friends, inspiration and history he finds. Growing up in the Pentecostal church, Evans explains, the color red came to symbolize the negative: think blood, sin, the temptation embodied in red-light districts, all things hellish. Approaching a red door, then, is a daunting prospect. The image manifested itself for him recently when an acquaintance uttered the phrase "I don't see color" - itself something of a red flag. "It struck me that red stands for so many beautiful things besides 'warning' or 'stop,'" he says. "Roses are red and Valentine's hearts. So I see color, and we should all see color, but we shouldn't see the negative history that comes with it. Instead, we need to give ourselves the opportunity to go in and discover what's behind the red door."