Peter Evans

[Quasimado]

Ted Joans has the following story concerning Bird at one of his (Joans) parties, quoted in Robert Reisner's "Bird" (p117) ...

*The purpose of the party - I always like to have a high and serious purpose for my parties - was to hear the poetry of some of the young surrealist poets. One had written "An Ode to a Piece of Vaccinated Bread." As soon as the poet started to read this work, Bird interrupted, "Stop right there. We are all brothers and sisters. This man here is going to tell us about a piece of bread that has been vaccinated. Now you know there are no idiots in the house; and, if you want to hear these poems, you can ... but, if you are like me, we will continue the party.*

Enjoy the poems, folks. I'll be at the party.

Q.

[danasgoodstuff]

Personally, I don't think the comparisons between representational and non-representational art and free/experimental - harmony based improv are really useful anymore. And they were misguided at the actual time of their so called relevance anyway. It was a way to analougise Modernism to a point across different artforms. But the things that drove radical expression in Visual Art cultures and those that drove radical expression in Jazz, were different animals. Although the 'modern' world they both existed in certainly influenced them both.

What he said, plus why would you take a hard sell and make it harder by tying it to something else that was WTF for most?

And fuck Ardorno/Oderono, to mash up Clem & Petey T.

[uli]

“Peter is the latest flowering in the line of great trumpet improvisers commencing with Louis Armstrong and developing through Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro and Clifford Brown”.

Not to challenge your line of thought but it seems to me you are missing some links. I mean there is a generation or two between the beboppers and Peter Evans. Miles. Leo Smith, Bill Dixon Don Cherry, Lester Bowie. I think today's trumpet players are all indepted one way or the other to these and other players.

[robertoart]

Personally, I don't think the comparisons between representational and non-representational art and free/experimental - harmony based improv are really useful anymore. And they were misguided at the actual time of their so called relevance anyway. It was a way to analougise Modernism to a point across different artforms. But the things that drove radical expression in Visual Art cultures and those that drove radical expression in Jazz, were different animals. Although the 'modern' world they both existed in certainly influenced them both.

What he said, plus why would you take a hard sell and make it harder by tying it to something else that was WTF for most?

And fuck Ardorno/Oderono, to mash up Clem & Petey T.

Funnily enough Adorno is as dense to read and achieve cognisance as seems to be the music of Evans for most people. But then again Adorno (cultural elitist though he was), was trying to think through the horrors of the Holocaust. What's driving Evans?

[clifford_thornton]

I'll ask him next time I see him .

[robertoart]

I'll ask him next time I see him .

Maybe you could interview him like Perelman.

[Larry Kart]

And I'll ask Adorno the next time I see him.

[robertoart]

Not if I see him first.

[Quasimado]

“Peter is the latest flowering in the line of great trumpet improvisers commencing with Louis Armstrong and developing through Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro and Clifford Brown”.

Not to challenge your line of thought but it seems to me you are missing some links. I mean there is a generation or two between the beboppers and Peter Evans. Miles. Leo Smith, Bill Dixon Don Cherry, Lester Bowie. I think today's trumpet players are all indepted one way or the other to these and other players.

Thank you - I've been away ...

Hopefully my doctor will take this into consideration.

Whatever, I trust it will not affect my medications...(if you know what I mean) ...

Q.

[uli]

Jazz on 3 ‏@BBCJazzon329 Oct

Miss last night's trumpet wizardry from Peter Evans on Jazz on 3? Listen again here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f87nk … pic.twitter.com/gaZwzZnP9f

Retweeted by Alexander Hawkins

[robertoart]

I like the work Evans' is doing, in principal. Though I always, with musicians like him, wish they had gone a little bit further to solve the content side of the old form and content argument. Not long ago I was critical of what I consider to be the new formalism - in which artists think that, having reached solutions as to development of form, they have solved the larger problem of expression. Which they, at least to my way of thinking, have not. But that's me, as I like things more strictly organized and less randomly chosen,

The content of the 'this' music as originally conceived was Blackness.

Can you get around it?

[Blue Train]

Jazz on 3 ‏@BBCJazzon329 Oct

Miss last night's trumpet wizardry from Peter Evans on Jazz on 3? Listen again here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f87nk … pic.twitter.com/gaZwzZnP9f

Retweeted by Alexander Hawkins

Thanks, I missed it. Evans isn't on until about 17:30 into it. Nice interview with Evans and Alexander Hawkins.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Blue Train

[Leeway]

Saw Peter Evans at Evan Parker's residency at The Stone in NYC in September, in the Rocket Science group (which also played as part of Evans; residency the week before). The first set has to be among the top 2 or 3 sets of free jazz I have seen. Tremendously exciting. Evans was doing things with the trumpet that I did not think probable or maybe even permissible. He was throwing everything at Evan Parker imaginable, and the beauty of the set was that Evan handled it all and came back with an elevated game of his own. Maybe because I was sitting about 3 feet from Peter Evans the visceral impact was even stronger.

Peter Evans can make that sort of moment happen. Staggeringly good, jaw-dropping technique. But I do believe that his approach to the trumpet is defined by a manic, anarchic, harlequin quality. In contrast, Nate Wooley, who also has major chops, often takes a personal, even philosophical approach in much of his playing. Very roughly, they strike me as sort of the Dizzy/Miles couple of this generation.

As for Adorno, Greenberg, et al, I'll need to go bakc to check them out, but it does seem to me that the music we are talking about is post-modern and derives much of its inspiration from post-modern-classicism. OTOH, I often feel that musician are always out in front of any definition you'd care care to throw over them.

[robertoart]

Is it post-modern because it is no longer in a dialectical relationship with its original context?

[Larry Kart]

In this general bag, leave us not forget Jacob Wick.

[Leeway]

Is it post-modern because it is no longer in a dialectical relationship with its original context?

Let's call it a non-privileged, multivalent conversation.

[robertoart]

multivalent

ˌmʌltɪˈveɪl(ə)nt/

adjective

1. 1.

   having or susceptible of many applications, interpretations, meanings, or values.

   "visually complex and multivalent work"

[king ubu]

o tempora o mores

[xybert]

I have a handful of his albums as a leader (Live in Lisbon, Ghosts, Zebulon... not a leader date as such but Scenes in the House of Music w/ Evan Parker et al) and really, really dig them. He's definitely got a unique flavour of his own that i like. I find the solo/'noise' stuff to be enjoyable and interesting when i'm in the mood but not enough to invest in the albums... wouldn't mind having it in my collection but i've been around long enough to know that i just won't get many spins for my money, no point fooling myself. Also probably worth noting that i found the solo Evans stuff jaw dropping at first but less and less interesting as time goes on.

For the life of me i just can't warm to MOPDTK. Really dug the live album on clean feed but it was stuck in my CD player in my car for a while and i catastrophically went off it. Probably need to dig in to them further but its extremely rare for me to dislike music like this, especially when on paper it looks good.

Possible controversial opinion: does anyone else hear something of Wynton Marsalis in Evans' playing? It seems like he's either listened to a lot of Marsalis' music or maybe it's that they both have classical music in their backgrounds(?). Obviously Evans' goes way further out at times but it's notable to me that there are always moments where i'm reminded of Wynton when i listen to Evans. I definitely associate the two in my mind.

Edit to add that Zebulon is one of my favourite albums of the year. Awesome stuff.

Edited November 3, 2013 by xybert

[king ubu]

MOPDTK is style over substance ... empty hipster crap. Didn't take me long to figure that out, after a first, rather positive impression, it quickly faded (thought The Cherry Thing was the same ... though The Thing as a group definitely has a few things going for it, way more than MOPDTK).

[Leeway]

I've heard Evans live a fair number of times plus have a bunch of albums with him as leader or sideman but I have to say I've not heard any strains of Marsalis there, and believe me, I'm hypersensitive to that . I'll keep an ear cocked. Count me among those who fail to find much of interest in MOPDTK. While we're at it, Jon Irabagon doesn't do much for me either.

[CraigP]

I'm with you Xybert, and he adds a lot to Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble as well. I can't get into MOPDTK either. I listened to the most recent one, Red Hot, and with the expanded group the best parts were courtesy of pianist Ron Stabinsky, who does some humorous interpolations of Joe Jackson at one point, and in another piece does a dead-on McCoy Tyner impersonation. But he's not part of the core group. And I don't see why people are so high on Jon Irabagon; he's good, but I don't hear anything really compelling about his soloing.

[jlhoots]

I guess I'm the only one that likes MOPDTK.

So be it.

[xybert]

I guess I'm the only one that likes MOPDTK.

So be it.

Ha ha, don't mind us. I was actually surprised that i wasn't the only one who didn't dig them.

[xybert]

I've heard Evans live a fair number of times plus have a bunch of albums with him as leader or sideman but I have to say I've not heard any strains of Marsalis there, and believe me, I'm hypersensitive to that . I'll keep an ear cocked. Count me among those who fail to find much of interest in MOPDTK. While we're at it, Jon Irabagon doesn't do much for me either.

If i'm listening to any Evans in the near future and something particularly Wynton like jumps out at me i'll actually make a note of it and report back here, FWIW. I'm curious to hear whether anyone is hearing it as i am... the brain can play tricks on the ears, and it may be that i'm just imagining things. I'm not trying to jack up a Marsalis/Evans conspiracy theory or anything, it's just interesting to me.