Peter Evans Ensemble
Action / Metempsychosis

Sinopsis

Whether close at hand or far away, we have grown used to glimpsing the grandeur of Peter Evans’s music: close at hand, we can see his incomparable technique and skill, a look of great concentration and a body dedicated to a meticulous choreography; we feel the energy of someone who is ready and prepared to overcome the final obstacles. Far away, we can hear an astounding capacity for improvisation allied to bold and defiant musical writing, we see a leader, a man with a unique vision of how jazz can be reconstructed as a language of the future. Throughout the last decade, with multiple line-ups and a generous string of recordings, Peter Evans has been staking his claim as one of the great contemporary musicians and composers. If it is always a complicated affair to draw lines that join up all the dots, it is enough to pay full attention to his quintet, perhaps the band that has best displayed the evolution of his compositional work and the ambition of his jazz, and it is not by chance that this group has been involved in three albums released under Evans’ own label. Just as plans were afoot for another album and tour by his quintet, we suddenly find him engaging in a new leap of faith with an expanded line-up, as a septet, further fuelling Peter Evans’ insatiable creative thirst. “Action/Metempsychosis” does not, however, represent a progression from “Genesis”, in 2016, but instead from “Destination: Void”, his 2014 masterpiece. After all that we had heard, it was with this album that we began to believe that the vanguard would have to be rewritten and discovered that the plans that we had for the future displayed serious miscalculations in navigational terms. If the trumpeter promises us a continuation, then let us celebrate the event and let us try, as best we can, to hold in check the eagerness with which we are looking forward to this return of Peter Evans to our theatre for yet another outstanding and overwhelming performance.