Peter Evans - More is More

Psi 06.08

What if Evan Parker played the trumpet? A possible answer to that captivating question comes in the personage of Peter Evans and his newly released solo venture on Psi. Evans adapts the familiar Parkerian extended techniques of circular breathing, split tones and multiphonics to a degree that the surname, first name similarity no longer seems simply a coincidence. Recorded within the reverberant acoustics of a chapel in Oberlin, Ohio, the location incidentally, of his alma mater, Evans holds an intimate recital. Five of the seven pieces feature him on piccolo trumpet, the remaining two on a regular-sized variant. The smaller instrument accommodates a surprising amount of tonal breadth as the busy opener “Sentiment” effusively demonstrates. Growls, slurs and glottal stops pepper an improvisation mainly concerned with pure sound over any semblance of conventional melody or rhythm.

Evans’ pitch command and ability to parse sound are pretty amazing, especially in light of the unforgiving mouthpiece and the traditional octave limitations of his instrument. He regularly sets up a central striated line as base canvas, spectral drones materializing above and below to create a flickering metallic chorus of pigments. The occasional dry scuttling clatter of ungreased valve buttons adds another percussive element. His accelerated constructions on “Ritual” bring these components into bold focus and find him filling the performance space with a huge supply of constantly fluctuating sound. Embouchure puckered tightly against trumpet and air squeezed outward in precisely parceled gusts, the prolonged breath control on display is downright astonishing.

“Air” is all laborious expulsions and pinpoint putterings with Evans referencing everything from throat singing to the reverberating drones of a didgeridoo, culminating in a repeating carousel of Doppler tones that reminds me strangely of a lonely lighthouse lamp illuminating a craggy desolate shore. “Slender Explosions of Noises” initially features him at his most jazz-like, sketching a busy, bouncing succession of notes that grows progressively more abstract and elemental to conclude in a wash of whirring harmonics. “Clothes of Inhabitants Near or Far Away” caps the set with a delicate tone poem coda that uncannily echoes Parker’s mellifluous blurred pitch exercises on soprano. Evans works regularly with a handful of East Coast improv collectives covering a sweep between free jazz and free improv with a naturalistic ease. This work definitely resides at the latter end of that spectrum and proves fully that Parker’s faith in his younger protégé is well founded.

~ Derek Taylor