Monday, June 21, 2021

A Concert Performance for an Evangelista Album

Poster for the streamed performance of Apura (courtesy of Karl Evangelista)

On May 22 of last year, Karl Evangelista released his Apura! album to Bandcamp, whose site made it available as a two-CD set or a digital download. The title of the album was a word in the Filipino language Tagalog which translates to “very urgent.” Evangelista led a quartet, whose other members were Alexander Hawkins on piano, Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums, and Trevor Watts on both alto and soprano saxophones. The recording sessions took place on October 14 and 15 of 2018 in London (England) at the Fish Factory Studios in the Willesden district. The motivation behind the composition was a drive to explore the relationship between jazz-based musical improvisation and social transformation in an era of worldwide political upheaval.

At the end of next month, the United States will have its first opportunity to experience Apura in concert. A performance for a limited audience will take place earlier in July, arranged by the Oaktown Jazz Workshops in Oakland; and the video recording of that performance will be available for streaming beginning at 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 31. The video will remain available for streaming for 48 hours. Hawkins will again join Evangelista for the recording session. However, the saxophones will be played by Francis Wong; and the drummer will be special guest artist Andrew Cyrille, a major figure during the emergence of free jazz, who continues to be very active.

Streaming access will be provided by Brown Paper Tickets. Tickets are being sold for $15, and students may purchase tickets for $10. There will also be a service fee for all tickets, which will be purchased through a single Web page. Once the purchase has been completed, ticket-holders will be provided with instructions for accessing the video stream

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