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Hail to The Captain
Jazz pianist Orrin Evans and The Captain Black Big Band to perform at Dizzy’s
Orrin Evans
Acclaimed jazz pianist Orrin Evans will share a night of big band swing music with his audience as he performs for the first time at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola Monday evening.
Evans, a native of Philadelphia, has been performing since the mid-1990s when he moved to New York, and Imani Records lauds him as “one of the most distinctive and inventive pianists of his generation.” He juggles multiple roles in addition to pianist, including composer, teacher, band leader and producer. The New York Times recognizes him as “a poised artist with an impressive template of ideas at his command.”
The jazz musician will be joined by 18 members of The Captain Black Big Band, an “innovative, multi-generational” jazz orchestra he formed. The Captain Black Big Band, while still new, is already critically acclaimed, and its debut album of the same name has been receiving high praise since its release in late March. Evans’ newest album features the talents of 38 jazz musicians of all ages from Philadelphia and New York. They perform in various combinations over a total of seven tracks, with the majority playing saxophone or trumpet.
Todd Barkan, director of programming at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, said that Evans’ abilities as a composer and arranger drew him to the artist.
“I’ve had my eye on him for a couple of years, and finally found a good occasion to have his Big Band in,” Barkan says. “I like him very much.” Barkan said Evans was “very honored” to be asked to play at Dizzy’s.
NPR describes the The Captain Black Big Band as a type of “town hall meeting” that “makes the kind of jazz that nearly everyone could agree to call jazz. There are layers of squirming saxes, bright piano and serious blasts – low-end, high-note, and mid-range alike – tied together with a surplus of swing. But it doesn’t sound stuck in a misremembered era – there are jutting edges to the writing, and they’re played with a fashionably loose vibe.”
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