You sometimes have to ask where the line is drawn between modern jazz and modern classical. Baritone saxist Charles Evans walks the tightrope between the two here with David Liebman/ss, Ron Stabinsky/p and Tony Marino/b on a 9 movement collection that could easily be performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion as well as at The Blue Whale.
The band here mixes the abstractions of free jazz with Schoenberg-like themes throughout the mult-movented suite. Evans opens up the album with a solo wail that eventually has the entire band joining into the fray. Piano and bass take the lead on “Movement I” before saxophone chirps and clips are bounced around Stabinsky’s keys. Baritone groans, scurrying fingers on the piano and bass ruminations as well as punctuated soprano flurries Dominate the remaining movements and interludes. Rarely a sense of swing as much as somberness.
More Is More Records