NATIONAL JAZZ MUSEUM Announces June Line-Up

 

The National Jazz Museum's June line-up includes discussions with musical artists Paquito D'Rivera and Craig Harris for Harlem Speaks; a talk with a living literary legend, Peter Straub, at Jazz for Curious Readers; and our adult education series, Jazz for Curious Listeners, features instrumentalists Jeremy Pelt, Nicholas Payton and Orrin Evans taking the reins of discourse on jazz in the 21st century.  For more information visit http://jazzmuseuminharlem.org/

On the performance tip, Craig Harris will let his horn do the talking as he headlines the first Harlem in the Himalayas concert of the month, followed by the sax/piano duo of Loren Stillman and Russ Lossing in the intimate performance space at the Rubin Museum of Art. Saturday afternoon is piano jazz, on the Steinway piano of Dick Katz, in honor of whom the musicians will play in a range of stylistic approaches that Katz performed with aplomb for 50+ years.

The Afro-Cuban tradition will be celebrated for Jazz at the Dwyer, with David Oquendo and Havana 3. A special collaboration with the Riverside Theatre features percussionist Vanderlei Pereira binding the ties between jazz and Brazilian music with groove and soul.

The list of June Events Follows:

Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Jazz for Curious Listeners
Hear Me Talkin' To You: Jeremy Pelt
7:00 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Jeremy Pelt arrived in New York in 1998 after graduating from Berklee College of Music. Once he got there, it wasn't long before he started being noticed by a lot of top musicians in the city. His first professional Jazz gig was playing with the Mingus Big Band. That gig lead to many long lasting associations with many of the talent in the band, and a great opportunity for growth. Since his arrival, he has been fortunate enough to play with many of today's and yesterday's Jazz luminaries, such as Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess,Charli Persip, Keter Betts, Frank Foster, John Hicks, Ravi Coltrane, Winard Harper, Vincent Herring, Ralph Peterson, Lonnie Plaxico, Cliff Barbaro, Nancy Wilson, Bobby Short, Bobby "Blue" Bland, The Skatalites, Cedar Walton, and many, many more. Jeremy has also been featured in a variety of different bands, including the Roy Hargrove Big Band, The Village Vanguard Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Big Band. Currently, he is member of the Lewis Nash Septet, and The Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band featuring Louis Hayes.

Thursday, June 3, 2010
Harlem Speaks
Craig Harris, Trombonist/Composer
6:30 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

When Craig Harris exploded onto the jazz scene in 1976, he brought the entire history of the jazz trombone-from the growling gutbucket intensity of early New Orleans music through the refined, articulate improvisation of the modern era set forth by J.J. Johnson, into the confrontational expressionism of the '60s avant-garde.

Yet the contemporary music world quickly realized that his talents went far beyond his superb skills as a trombonist. While he performed with a veritable Who's Who of progressive jazz, including Sun Ra, Sam Rivers, Lester Bowie, Abdullah Ibrahim, Makanda Ken McIntyre, Jaki Byard, Cecil Taylor, MuhAl Richard Abrams, and so on, his own projects displayed both a unique sense of concept and a total command of the sweeping expanse of African-American musical expression.

Those two qualities that have dominaTed Craig's past two decades of activity, bringing him far beyond the confines of the jazz world and into the sphere of multimedia and performance art as composer, performer, conceptualist, curator and artistic director.

Harlem Speaks discussion, Harris will venture forth on his life and career, especially as it intersects with Harlem, where he has lived since 1976.

"I used to visit Harlem a lot before moving here. I went to Paris in July 1976 and returned in October 76. I walked the street with Sun Ra back then. I worked in Aaron Davis Hall. I did a piece entitled 'Brown Butterfly,' based on the physiology of Muhammad Ali, which included seven dancers and seven musicians," said Harris, who more recently composed a long-form composition on Harlem called the TriHarLenium. "I sought to capture the beauty, history and culture of a people who have always been originators. Harlem is currently undergoing gentrification and transition so I wanted to share its history through my TriHarLenium composition with Harlem's people."

Monday, June 7, 2010
Jazz for Curious Readers
7:00 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

In an excellent overview of the oeuvre, themes, and achievements of renowned contemporary author Peter Straub, writer Stefan Dziemianowicz calls Straub "a jazz stylist of modern horror. Like the musicians whom he references frequently in his stories, he works at an art with deep-rooted traditions that he respectfully acknowledges. But also like those musicians, Straub works tirelessly to extend the range of those traditions, pushing them boldly into hitherto unexplored territory." Critics and fans alike appreciate that Straub is knowledgeable of horror standards since his fiction abounds with ingenious riffs and variations on its classic themes. Yet he is also a restlessly imaginative artist who synthesizes original and deeply personal creations from seemingly disparate elements of his compositions as well as a versatile improviser who never approaches recurring ideas in his work the same way twice.

Straub came to writing horror by way of mainstream fiction, and he is arguably the most literary of contemporary horror writers, with influences that range from D. H. Lawrence to Vladimir Nabokov and John Ashberry. He was an established poet with two volumes of verse to his credit when his first novel, Marriages, was published in 1973. Like his second-written novel, Under Venus (not published until 1984), it was very much a tale of its time, concerned with characters in the grip of midlife emotional and spiritual crises and set in a realistically imagined post-1960s milieu. In much of his fiction to come, Straub would show readers that supernatural experience is an effective tool for expressing states of intense emotion.

But as with the greatest jazz artists, Straub's fiction moves beyond the bounds of simple genre. Jazz itself is a theme around and through which Straub plays variations, as in the title of his path-breaking 1988 novel, Koko. And in a brilliant interview with writer David Mathew, Straub discusses the origin of his novella story-within-a-story, "Pork Pie Hat," and gives a taste of the feeling tones in store for our talk with him tonight.

"The inspiration for Pork Pie Hat came from a long moment in a videotape of 'The Sound of Jazz,' a live television broadcast in 1957 or 1958 that assembled a lot of great jazz musicians in a studio and let them play whatever they felt like for the space of an entire hour. Just before its conclusion, Billie Holiday sat perched on a stool to sing a blues she had written called "Fine and Mellow" at the center of a circle made up of heroic figures like Ben Webster, Vic Dickenson, Jo Jones, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Rex Stewart, and - above all - the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, then only months from the end of his life and in terrible shape. Billie sang a chorus, two musicians played a chorus apiece, Billie sang another chorus, and so on...

"Lester Young wandered into view at the beginning of the second go-round. Someone had to give him a push in the back to get him on his feet and moving toward the microphone. You can see him lick his reed and settle the horn in his mouth. What he plays is one uncomplicated chorus of the blues that moves from phrase to phrase with a kind of otherworldly majesty. Sorrow, heartbreak, and what I can only call wisdom take place through the mechanism of following one note, usually a whole note, with another one, slowly. There he is, this stupendous musician who had once transformed everything about him by the grace of his genius, this present shambles, this human wreckage, hardly able to play at all, delivering a statement that becomes more and more perfect, more and more profound as it advances from step to step. I cried every time I watched it, and I watched it over and over. I played it for my friends and made them watch it. Eventually, I wondered: what could lead a person to a place like that, what brought him there? That was the origin of Pork Pie Hat."

Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Jazz for Curious Listeners
Hear Me Talkin' To You: Nicholas Payton
7:00 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Considered by many the premier jazz trumpeter of his generation, Nicholas Payton is also an outspoken thought leader among his peers. His musings via blog, or his pithy questions and insights via Facebook are evidence of a deep, provocative thinker.

The son of bassist and sousaphonist Walter Payton, he took up the trumpet at the age of four and by the time he was nine he was playing in the Young Tuxedo Brass Band alongside his father. Upon leaving school, he enrolled first at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and then at the University, where he studied with Ellis Marsalis.

After touring with Marcus Roberts and Elvin Jones in the early 90s Payton signed a recording contract with Verve; his first album, From This Moment, appeared in 1994. In 1996 he performed on the soundtrack of the movie Kansas City, and in 1997 received a Grammy Award (Best Instrumental Solo) for his playing on the album Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton. After seven albums on Verve, Payton signed with Warner Bros. Records, releasing Sonic Trance, his first album on the new label, in 2003. Besides his recordings under his own name, Payton has also played and recorded with Roy Haynes, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove, and Joe Henderson.

In 2008, Payton became part of The Blue Note 7, a septet formed that year in honor of the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records. His own latest release, Into the Blue, is a collection of ten tunes steeped in melody and groove that Nicholas says "embodies the sensibilities of beauty, elegance and simplicity" and delivers "danceable tempos."

Friday, June 11, 2010

Harlem in the Himalayas
Craig Harris Quartet
7:00pm
Location: Rubin Museum of Art
(150 West 17th Street)
$18 in advance | $20 at door |
For tickets: RMA Box Office or call 212-620-5000 ext. 344

Born in Hempstead on Long Island, N.Y. in 1953, Craig Harris is a graduate of the renowned music program of SUNY at Old Westbury. Profoundly influenced by its legendary founder and director, the late Makanda Ken McIntyre, Craig's move to New York City in 1978 quickly established him in the forefront of young trombonists, along with Ray Anderson, George Lewis and Joseph Bowie.

First playing alongside another of his teachers at SUNY, baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick in Sun Ra's Arkestra for two years, Harris embarked on a world tour with South African pianist/composer Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) in 1981. Highly affected by their stay in Australia, Craig played with Aborigine musicians and returned with a dijeridoo, a haunting wind instrument that has become a part of his musical arsenal ever since.

Upon his return, Harris became a member of such major groups as David Murray's Octet, the Beaver Harris-Don Pullen 360 Degree Musical Experience, Sam Rivers' various orchestral aggregations, Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy and many, many more. He also played for the now dearly-departed Lena Horne in her Broadway orchestra for a year.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Jazz for Curious Listeners
Hear Me Talkin' To You: Nicholas Payton
7:00 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Since 1994 when Nicholas Payton made his recording debut as a leader with From This Moment, the trumpeter has been lauded as a significant, top-tier voice in jazz. Even though he started out as a "young lion of jazz," heralded as one of the new-generation guardians of the hard bop flame, Payton consistently committed himself to discovering his voice outside of the strict confines of that rearview mirror approach to the music.
While his jazz journey has taken him down many roads - from heritage artist to electric experimenter - the 34-year-old trumpeter has arrived at a new plateau of jazz maturity with Into the Blue, his ninth album and his first for Nonesuch. It's at once a nod to the past and a leap into the future. "It's an amalgam of every recording I've done up until now," says Payton. "As a musician, as an artist, you're always trying to zero in on the bull's eye as a means of becoming a better version of yourself. With Into the Blue, I've been able to find the kind of music that's more inclusive of all of my life. The approach and the ideas of my music have become more singular, more cohesive. I had no agenda in terms of a specific genre or style, only to be true to who I am now."

True to himself: that's a fitting way to describe Payton's approach to music and the issues that he addresses in writing, online, and at rare public discussion appearances such as last week's Jazz for Curious Listeners.

Thursday, June 17, 2010
Harlem Speaks
Paquito D'Rivera, Composer/Saxophonist/Clarinetist
6:30 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Born on the island of Cuba, Paquito D'Rivera began his career as a child prodigy. A restless musical whiz during his teen years, Mr. D'Rivera created various original and ground-breaking musical ensembles. As a founding member of the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, he directed that group for two years, while at the same time playing both the clarinet and saxophone with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. He eventually went on to premiere several works by notable Cuban composers with the same orchestra. Additionally, he was a founding member and co-director of the innovative musical ensemble Irakere. With its explosive mixture of jazz, rock, classical and traditional Cuban music never before heard, Irakere toured extensively throughout America and Europe, won several Grammy nominations (1979, 1980) and a Grammy (1979).

Paquito D'Rivera is the first artist to win Latin Grammy's in both Classical and Latin Jazz categories (2003), for Stravinsky's Historia del Soldado (L'Histoire du Soldat) and Brazilian Dreams with the New York Voices. The other historic recipient who has won duo Grammy's in both Classical and Jazz categories is Wynton Marsalis.

D'Rivera is a recipient of the National Medal for the Arts, presented at the White House by President George W. Bush in 2005, and was named one of the 2005 NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) Jazz Masters.

While Paquito D'Rivera's discography includes over 30 solo albums in Jazz, Bebop and Latin music, his contributions to classical music are impressive. They include solo performances with the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has also performed with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, the Costa Rica National Symphony, the Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, the Bronx Arts Ensemble, and the St. Luke's Chamber Orchestra, among others.

In addition to his extraordinary performing career as an instrumentalist, Paquito D'Rivera has rapidly gained a reputation as a dynamic composer. The prestigious music house, Boosey and Hawkes, is the exclusive publisher of Mr. D'Rivera's compositions. Recognition of his significant compositional skills came in 2007 with the award of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, and the 2007-2008 appointment as Composer-In-Residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. His works often reveal his widespread and eclectic musical interests, ranging from Afro-Cuban rhythms and melodies, including influences encountered in his many travels, and back to his classical origins.

Also a gifted author, Mr. D'Rivera's book, My Sax Life, was published in Spain by the prestigious literary house, Seix Barral, and contains a prologue by Guillermo Cabrera Infante. Acclaimed by the public and critics alike, the English edition was released by Northwestern University Press in November 2005.

Friday, June 18, 2010
Harlem in the Himalayas Loren Stillman/Russ Lossing Duo
7:00pm
Location: Rubin Museum of Art
(150 West 17th Street)
$18 in advance | $20 at door |
For tickets: RMA Box Office or call 212-620-5000 ext. 344

A saxophonist and composer from Brooklyn, Loren Stillman is hailed as a writer and a stylist that has found a previously unoccupied slot in the jazz spectrum. He's been recognized as one of today's truly original creative voices by publications such as The New York Times, Downbeat Magazine, Jazziz and Jazz Times as well as by National Public Radio. A former student of Lee Konitz and David Liebman, Stillman has performed and recorded throughout the United States and Europe and Japan with his own ensembles, and with those led by Charlie Haden, Carla Bley, Paul Motian, John Abercrombie, Andy Milnes DAPP Theory, Eivind Opsviks Overseas, Tyshawn Soreys Obliquity, Vic Juris Quartet and The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.

Russ Lossing is a provocative, fresh leader in creating alternatives to long held conceptions in music. His individual voice, as a pianist, teacher and composer, is sought out as an authority in the jazz and avant-garde fields emerging in music today. He's has composed over 300 works and is in special demand as a world class jazz pianist and improviser. Lossing has seven CDs as leader and is featured on over 30 other CDs as sideman and collaborator with world acclaimed musicians such as Paul Motian, Dave Liebman, John Abercrombie, Mat Maneri and Mark Dresser. He has composed 21 film scores from avant-garde shorts to full length documentaries for PBS, BBC and world broadcast performances, as well as dramatic features both foreign and domestic. He has numerous television and live radio performances and interviews in the U.S.A. and Europe relative to his distinction as a performer and composer.

Friday, June 18, 2010
Jazz at the Dwyer
Afro-Cuban Jazz Dance Night: David Oquendo and Havana 3
7:00 - 11:00pm
Location: The Dwyer Cultural Center
(258 St. Nicholas Avenue at W. 123rd Street)
$15 | More information: info@DwyerCC.org

Dance was formerly a mainstay of the public ritual of jazz performance, and remains an essential part of the variety of Latin American music. The Afro-Cuban legacy in jazz brings dance to the forefront, as declarative horns and clave-based rhythms kiss the American impulse to swing.

David Oquendo was born in Havana, Cuba in 1958. Self taught, Oquendo absorbed the essence of the Afro Cuban rhythmical vernacular in the poorest neighborhoods of his native city. At 12 years of age, David started playing guitar and singing in several "Rock" bands around Cuba. Even though he was not conservatory trained, his passion for music, his discipline and self-criticism, took him to the point where eventually he was considered one of the best guitar accompanist in Cuba. This was evident in his appearances at "El Rincon del Feeling", "Cabaret Tropicana", "Cabaret Internacional de Varadero", " Salon Rojo" at the Hotel Capri and many more venues.

As accompanist, David has worked with artist of the caliber of: Moraima Secada, Elena Burke, Lucho Gatica, Meme Solis, Maggie Carles, Lenny Andrade, and many others. As guitarist, singer, composer, arranger and bassist, David has performed in concerts and recordings in Cuba, Panama, Dominican Republic, Austria, Canada, Greece, Spain, Brasil, Bermuda and the US with names such: Paquito D'Rivera, Compay Segundo, Marc Anthony, Johnny Ventura, Ray Barreto, Arturo Sandoval, Giovanni Hidalgo "Manenguito", Mauricio Smith, Andy Gonzalez, Manny Oquendo, Johnny Pacheco, Gilberto Santarrosa, El Gran Combo, Jose Luis Quintana "Changuito", Willie Chirino, Regina Carter, Candido Camero, Patato Valdez, Gato Barbieri, Carlos Ponce, Sergio Vargas, Rudy Calzado, Basilio, Yomo Toro, Anthony Rios, Jose Fajardo, Israel Lopez "Cachao", Graciela and Chico O'Farril to mention a few.

David has a Grammy Award for the album "Tropicana's Nights" with Paquito D'Rivera, a Grammy Nomination for "Bebop Timba" with Raphael Cruz and three Latin Grammy Nominations for "Raices Habaneras", "50 Years of Mambo" and "Paquito D'Rivera Presenta Las Hermanas Marquez".

Founder and director of the Afro Cuban folklore group "Raices Habaneras", which has been performing, without interruption, every Sunday since 1996 what has become known as "Domingos de la Rumba" (Rumba Sundays), David's mission is to expose the public to a genuine representation of the "Rumba" genre. David, was musical director and producer for "The Cuban Rumba All Stars", a first time, historical collaboration by members of Cuba's Rumba groups: Los Munequitos de Matanzas, Yoruba Andabo, Clave y Guaguanco, Obba ILU, Coro Folklorico Cubano, Raices Profundas y Grupo Tata Guines.

As a member of Faculty of Harbor Conservatory for The Performing Arts, since 2002, he is teaching guitar, Cuban tres, bass, voice and the Afro-Cuban folklore workshop, the Latin Band workshop, the Guitar ensemble and the Vocal training Group Class.

David has appeared in: "El Show de Cristina" in Univision, the series "OZ" in HBO, "Harmony in the Kitchen" in the Food Network, "State of the Arts" and "The Cuban Americans" in PBS, The Ivan Acosta's films "How to Create a Rumba" and " Candido Hands of Fire", The Heddy Honigmann's film "Dame la Mano", "Al Rojo Vivo" in Telemundo and "Orgullo Hispano" in Channel 47 Telemundo NYC, "Sabado al Mediodia" and "Al Despertar" in Channel 41 Univision NYC. As well as WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM, WBAI 99.5 FM and WADO 12.80 AM radio in NYC. He has also performed in prestigious stages such as: Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Town Hall, Beacon Theatre, NJPAC Newark, Symphony Space, Cami Hall, Seattle International Children Festival, Jackie Gleason Theater, Olympia Theater at Gusman Center and Tropigala at The Fontainebleu in Miami Beach as a part of The 4th Annual Latin Grammy's performance, The WOMAD Festival in Spain, Tenerife's Carnival, Sao Pablo and Rio de Janeiro Jazz Festival in Brasil, The JVC Jazz Festival, Ravinia Jazz Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival and The Montreal Jazz Festival.

Saturday, June 19, 2010
Saturday Panels A Piano Extravaganza
12:00 - 4:00pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Special guest: Ethan Iverson and others

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem presents four hours of live piano jazz as they welcome the Steinway piano of the late Dick Katz, and kick off their Memorial Concert Series in his honor.

Renowned as a repository of the variety of jazz piano styles from the earliest years of the idiom to the modern styles of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Katz was last at the museum during our Saturday panel on Papa Jo Jones in 2009. His body was weak, and his gait slow that day, but his eyes gleamed with delight as he discussEd Jones's life and career, and the generation of musicians that were central to his own development as a jazz artist.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Jazz for Curious Listeners
Hear Me Talkin' To You: Orrin Evans
7:00 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Born in Trenton, NJ but raised in Philadelphia, acoustic pianist Orrin Evans was among the "Young Lions" of straight-ahead jazz who emerged in the 1990s, as was the previous Jazz for Curious Listeners guest host, Nicholas Payton. Evans' main focus is hard bop, although he has occasionally ventured into soul-jazz and R&B when backing such vocalists as Denice Kinghttp://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/card/0,,525768,00.html and his wife, Dawn Warrenhttp://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/card/0,,679983,00.html.

Expect a far-reaching discussion with jazz at the starting gate, and audience participation and feedback determining the finish line.

Sunday, June 27, 2010
Special Event
Evening of Brazilian music and jazz: Vanderlei Pereira 5
2:00 - 4:30pm
Location: Riverside Theatre (at the Riverside Church)
91 Claremont Avenue, betw. 120th and 122nd
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Music by drummer, percussionist, composer and educator Vanderlei Pereira and friends.
Drummer Vanderlei Pereira is one of the most sought-after musicians on the contemporary Brazilian jazz scene. Combining a prodigious knowledge of Brazilian rhythms with dazzling technique and a distinctive touch, Vanderlei has captivated audiences with his unique and electrifying performances.

Yet Vanderlei Pereira's proficiency on the drum set extends beyond his mastery of Brazilian rhythms. He received a Diploma in Jazz Studies from the Mannes College of Music in New York City, where he studied with the renowned jazz drummers John Riley and Vernel Fournier. In addition, Vanderlei has studied with the Latin jazz drum and percussion masters Ignacio Berroa, Bobby Sanabria and Johnny Almendra. He has incorporated these diverse influences into his playing and, as a result, has earned the respect of both straight-ahead and Latin jazz musicians on the demanding New York scene, where he is widely admired and respected for his musical versatility.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Jazz for Curious Listeners
Hear Me Talkin' To You: Orrin Evans
7:00 - 8:30pm
Location: NJMH Visitors Center
(104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Influenced by McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver, Bud Powell, and Thelonious Monk, among others, our guest host Orrin Evans graduated from high school in the early 1990s and studied at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ before going on to private study with Kenny Barron, and work as a sideman with Ralph Peterson, Duane Eubanks, singer Lenora Zenzalai-Helm and Bobby Watson. In fact, Watson's effect on Evans has been so affecting that Evans's latest CD, Faith in Action (on Posi-Tone Records), is a tribute to the silvery alto saxophonist.

Evans recorded his first CD as a leader, The Orrin Evans Trio, for his own Black Entertainment label in 1994. After that, he signed with Criss Cross and recorded numerous CDs. Most recently, he's released a DVD titled, "Live All Over the Place."