Review of “Island Hopping” by the Gabriel Evan Orchestra

Oh man, I needed that. In the middle of a long day of listening to a playlist of recent ambitious, complicated, and progressive improvised music, “Bar Cor De Zailes” from the Gabriel Evan Orchestra’s Island Hopping somehow floated in. Sure, it isn’t going to win a Pulitzer, but it sounded just like an unexpected shoulder rub feels.

Evan’s sextet plays Carribean, Cuban, and Venezuelan folk music in an early jazz style. Think Sidney Bechet, Jack Teagarden, Jelly Roll Morton, and Django Reinhardt in big Bermuda shorts, slightly tipsy from fruity drinks in the Bahamas. There’s just something timelessly joyful about hearing some Dixieland-style collective improvisation played with such tasteful restraint and supreme confidence. When done over a calypso shuffle, and maybe with just a sprinkle of klezmer, it’s irresistible. I know, I know, there are lots of serious new ECM records that need attention, but it hit me in the sweet spot to hear melodies where things just go right where they’re supposed to go. You can whistle along with these songs even when you hear them for the first time. There’s something refreshingly normal about these beautiful, lilting, and reassuringly logical tunes. When the melodies go up, they’re going to come back down right where you expect them to, and no one is going to try and dazzle you with some clever Charlie Parker lick, moody dissonance, or glitzy technique.

(Originally published on the Arts Fuse, December 1, 2024.)