Gil Evans Centennial Celebration! Jazz Times Article (Part1)
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05/23/12
Gil Evans Centennial Celebration, Highline Ballroom, NYC, May 21, 2012
Family, friends and former bandmates honor late jazz great on centennial
By Bill Milkowski
The 700-capacity Highline Ballroom in Chelsea was decked out
with balloons and party favors in celebration of composer-arranger Gil
Evans’ 100th birthday (he was actually born on May 13, 1912 in Toronto
and passed away in 1988 at age 76). A brief film preceding the concert
featured touching personal testimony from Gil’s wife Anita Evans (who
was in attendance) and pop star Sting, who said, “Gil was like a wise
elder, like a wise old soul the people on Star Trek would meet.”
He went on to praise Evans’ open-mindedness and childlike love of music
while mentioning that the greatest advice the elder statesman ever gave
him was, “There are no wrong notes.”
Gil Evans and Miles Davis
Former bandmates from different eras of the Gil Evans Orchestra
converged on the Highline Ballroom stage for this nostalgic event.
Guitarist Ryo Kawasaki, who played in the band during the mid-’70s and
appeared on 1975’s The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix,
flew in from Estonia for the occasion. Other mainstays from the old
order included tuba ace Howard Johnson and trumpeter Lew Soloff (both of
whom joined the Evans orchestra in 1966), guitarist Paul Metzke (from
the mid-’70s band), trombonists Tom “Bones” Malone (who joined in 1973)
and Dave Bargeron (a member since 1972) and drummer Bruce Ditmas
(1971-1977). Tuba virtuoso Bob Stewart, tenor sax great Billy Harper and
trumpeter Jon Faddis, all from the mid-’70s Evans orchestra, were also
on hand for the festivities. The remainder of the aggregation included
stalwarts from the band’s longstanding ’80s Monday night residency at
Sweet Basil, the now-defunct Greenwich Village club (with the exception
of Strat strangler Oz Noy, who filled in for the late and much lamented
Hiram Bullock).
With Paul Shaffer acting as master of ceremonies, Gil’s son,
trumpeter Miles Evans, leading the band and Gil Goldstein filling big
shoes on keyboards, this Gil Evans Centennial kicked off with a rousing
rendition of “Bud & Bird,” which featured alto saxophonist Chris
Hunter blowing passionately over darkly swirling, dissonant harmonies.
Trombonist Bargeron, guitarist Kawasaki and tenorist Harper also stepped
up to blow with abandon on the walking blues section of Evans’ crafty
homage to Bud Powell and Charlie Parker that incorporated some of their
patented phrases into the horn arrangement. Hunter also led the ensemble
through a moving evocation of “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” which had him
wailing way up into the altissimo range. Howard Johnson also turned in a
beautiful baritone sax solo on this richly reharmonized Mingus anthem
while guitarist Noy contributed some edgy six-string work, nonchalantly
running through daring intervallic leaps and audacious runs up and down
the fretboard of his ax.
Paul Shaffer’s Late Show with David Letterman bandmate Will
Lee next thrilled the Highline crowd with his soulful vocal delivery on
Evans’ slow, rapturous arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” that
also had Shaffer sitting in on xylophone. Trumpeter Soloff, who
described the Evans orchestra as “a living organism” during his
pre-concert testimony, gradually built to a signature high-note
crescendo in the course of his dynamic solo on this Evans staple. Lee
then switched bass, doubling with bassist Mark Egan to provide the power
of a charging rhino through the chops-busting lines of Jaco Pastorius’
“Teen Town,” a tune that the Gil Evans Monday Night Orchestra regularly
played at Sweet Basil during the ’80s. Alex Foster contributed a wailing
soprano sax solo on this raucous Jaco anthem from Heavy Weather,
which was underscored by drummer Kenwood Dennard’s insistent backbeat.
At one point, Lee cleverly underscored the jam with Pastorius’ familiar
bass lick from his “River People” while Delmar Brown (a member of the
’80s Gil Evans Orchestra and Jaco Pastorius’ Word of Mouth band) added a
scintillating keytar solo to take the adrenaline-pumped jam up a notch.
