Evans Wanz

What’s behind THE RED DOOR? For pianist Orrin Evans, that question has come to symbolize the daring path his life and music have taken over the course of his three-decade career. On his latest album, he once again flings that door open, delighting in the collaborators, friends, inspiration, and history that he finds inside.

When Bill Evans agreed to do a two piano date with Bob Brookmeyer, eyebrows surely must have raised. Pairing a rising superstar of modern jazz with a gentleman known for playing valve trombone and arranging charts might have been deemed by some as a daunting task. Fortunately for the keyboardists, this was a good idea and a marvelous concept, where the two could use the concept of counterpoint and improvisation to an enjoyable means, much like a great chess match. For the listener, you are easily able to hear the difference between ostensible leader Evans in the right channel of the stereo separation, and the accompanist Brookmeyer in the left.

Bill Evans' third and final recording of overdubbed solos differs from the previous two in that he utilizes an electric piano in addition to his acoustic playing. Evans plays quite well on this album (which includes four of his later originals, obscurities by Cy Coleman, Cole Porter and Duke Ellington and "Nobody Else but Me") but the results are less memorable than one might expect for Bill Evans seemed always at his best in trio settings.

“I started onstage when I was four years old in cover bands with my brothers, so I've been waiting my entire career for the right time to do a covers record,” Sara Evans tells Apple Music. More than two decades into her recording career, recognizing that both her interest in brightly lit country-pop singles and her chance at radio success have faded, she’s gotten back to her roots her way. Over the course of 13 tracks, Evans reinterprets vintage crowd-pleasers, many of them plucked from a plushly orchestrated era of ’70s and ’80s pop rock like Fleetwood Mac and the Pretenders, with a couple of more recent pop tunes and country classics thrown in. “I just wanted to flex my muscles and show people what I can do,” she says. “There's so many sides to me and so much to my personality other than just people thinking I'm just a straight country singer.” She made the new album a family affair by featuring the vocal and instrumental talents of her own progeny, and enlisted a co-producer, Jarrad Kritzstein, from outside her circle because she was taken with how he blended subtle eccentricities, moody warmth, and finesse on Ruston Kelly’s 2018 breakthrough Dying Star.

Jimi Hendrix was scheduled to record with Gil Evans' Orchestra but died before the session could take place. A few years later, Evans explored ten of Hendrix's compositions with his unique 19-piece unit, an orchestra that included two French horns, the tuba of Howard Johnson, three guitars, two basses, two percussionists and such soloists as altoist David Sanborn, trumpeter Marvin "Hannibal" Peterson, Billy Harper on tenor, and guitarists Ryo Kawasaki and John Abercrombie. Evans' arrangements uplift many of Hendrix's more blues-oriented compositions and create a memorable set that is rock-oriented but retains the improvisation and personality of jazz.

Bill Evans At Town Hall (1966). This LP is a superior effort by Bill Evans and his trio in early 1966. The last recording by longtime bassist Chuck Israels (who had joined the Trio in 1962) with Evans (the tastefully supportive drummer Arnold Wise completes the group), this live set features the group mostly performing lyrical and thoughtful standards. Highlights include "I Should Care," "Who Can I Turn To," and "My Foolish Heart." The most memorable piece, however, is the 13-and-a-half-minute "Solo: In Memory of His Father," an extensive unaccompanied exploration by Evans that partly uses a theme that became "Turn Out the Stars"…