Peter Evans Quartet – ! – 2007
Free Improvisation, Avant-garde Jazz, Free Jazz, Avant-garde
Collaboration
1. !!!!! (04:32)
2. Bodies And Souls (16:55)
3. How Long (00:14)
4. Tag (08:41)
5. Frank Sinatra (14:58)
6. Iris (00:44)
7. The 3/4 Tune (08:28)
Bass – Tom Blancarte
Drums – Kevin Shea
Guitar, Electronics – Brandon Seabrook
Trumpet – Peter Evans
Recorded February 10 & 11, 2007 at Firehouse 12, New Heaven, CT.
New York-based trumpeter/composer Peter Evans's first recording as a leader, The Peter Evans Quartet, introduces his group of the same name featuring guitarist Brandon Seabrook, bassist Tom Blancarte and drummer Kevin Shea. Evans describes the band's music, which it has performed at the annual Festival of New Trumpet Music among many other prominent New York venues, as using "a combination of influences that are near and dear to the all the members of the group (the great recorded Jazz of the 50's and 60's, abrasive noise music, wild and kinetic free improvisation) to give the listener something searing, intense, and honest."
"The compositions here are almost entirely made up of harmonic material lifted directly out of standards, but with many layers of melody and noise piled on top," writes Evans in the liner notes. "My goal is that the familiar elements are constantly coming in and out of focus, creating loaded, pressurized music. The collective and individual improvisation on the material I've provided constitutes and second layer of tension; we are forcing our kinetic playing styles through the (usually very difficult) notation, rather than seeking a comfortable relationship with it...traditional chord structures, white noise, bebop licks, tape hiss and practice exercises are set in wild motion against each other."
Peter Evans is without a doubt a technically very gifted trumpeter, who now released his first album with a band, consisting of Brandon Seabrook on guitar, Tom Blancarte on bass and Kevin Shea on drums. Evan's own definition offers a good description of the music : "a combination of influences that are near and dear to the all the members of the group (the great recorded Jazz of the 50’s and 60’s, abrasive noise music, wild and kinetic free improvisation) to give the listener something searing, intense, and honest." He has played in all kinds of settings : from baroque classical music to the extreme avant-garde of his solo album "More is More", with in between the more boppish "Mostly Other People Do The Killing", or the avant free "Carnival Skin". His first quartet CD can again be positioned in between the two latter CDs (can you still follow?), or with other words : an avant free indirect rendition of standard material. In that respect the four musicians are uncompromising : they do what they do as they see fit, interacting strongly and rapidly, creating intense yet precize new musical forms, often angular, offering suprising and interesting vistas, sometimes broad cinematic pictures. Yet the music is not as hermetically closed as some of his other projects. If there is one downside to the album - and that's a sentiment I often have with more avant-garde music where new musical forms get all the attention - it's the fact that the emotional component is at times a little bit neglected, with the exception of the piece called "Frank Sinatra" and the last track, which are truly excellent.
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