Pianist Orrin Evans’ new disc is a memorial to his late father, the playwright Don Evans. It is also an occasion for personal stocktaking – one sign of this being Evans’ revisiting of several pieces from his first two Criss Cross releases, Justin Time and Captain Black. Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father” (with guest saxophonist J.D. Allen) is refashioned as a dirge, but otherwise the mood is tempestuously celebratory for the most part rather than downcast. Ralph Bowen, more usually a tenor player, turns in excellent work on both alto and soprano, and the revolving-door rhythm section (bassists Mike Boone and Eric Revis and drummers Rodney Green and Landham) effortlessly makes sense of the jigsaw-puzzle grooves, but the most striking player is Evans himself, who combines Herbie-Hancock fleetness with a karate-chop percussiveness out of Monk and Latin jazz. He likes to keep the music’s surface ruffled: pieces start in an unlikely place, take a few right-angled turns, then end up in an even unlikelier place; there’s even a blast of free jazz on “Dance on the Moon,” though it’s a bit of a put-on (judging from the quote from “Chopsticks”). The end of the album is a bit ragged, since “Dorm Life” and the reprise of “Don’t Fall Off the L.E.J.” are edited down to mere stubs, but otherwise this is excellent stuff from a pianist who’s not inclined to sit still.

Nate Dorward

Cadence, October 2005