Review of John Petters' Swinging Down Memory Lane 2. In the magazine 'Just Jazz', March, 2004
Quotable quotes
James Evans, very experienced for a relative youngster, appears on most tracks on clarinet and tenor saxophone. He is very talented and his ethereal , dreamy style is especially effective on the slower tracks such as his splendid feature number, Laura. On faster numbers however, his adventurous playing sometimes verges on the manic. He puts himself into some devilishly difficult corners at times, only to escape by some deft manoeuvre as though nothing had happened. I like his playing because it is musically interesting - there's a bit of ‘who dares wins' about it too, and it's fun.
Quotable Quotes referring to James' music
Quotes about James' music from Humphrey Lyttleton's ‘Best of Jazz' programme on BBC Radio2
13/5/02
With the Boston Tea Party playing Redcar
...and what an intriguing style'. ‘The words Buddy de Franco meets Pee Wee Russel came to mind as I listened to that.
7/6/04
James' own band Octuple Odyssey playing ‘All Caved In'
‘Here is a little exercise for those who find it hard to listen to a jazz performance unless they have neatly herded it into a neatly labelled escape-proof category. If you succeed in pinning this down to your satisfaction, please don't tell me. I prefer to let the music like this just wash over me while I smile contentedly.'
4/8/03
James' own band Incredible String Four playing ‘I Never Knew'
‘I found the blend of introspection and modern virtuosity a delight throughout a varied repertoire - and what glorious clarinet playing there.'
8/04/05
Playing the track 'Read the Wrinkles' from the CD 'James Evans Octuple Odyssey', subtitled 'Closer to the Sauce'., Humph said:
In jazz criticism and discussion, especially in this country of ours, I’m afraid there’s a tendency to listen to a new piece of music and then search around for something to which one can liken it - like a drunk floundering about looking for a lamppost to cling to. Well. Today, we are better at disguising this unworthy process than we were in the past when the habit was to give a musician a quite arbitrary job description - Britain’s Ben Webster, Buddleigh Salterton’s answer to John Coltrane and so on. I could introduce the music of James Evans by saying that in its originality, flare for voicing, wit and blank refusal to acknowledge the existence of stylistic barriers, it brings to my mind Australian composer John Sangster in his Hobbit Mode. But an even better compliment could be to describe it quite simply as pure quirkily brilliant James Evans , and let you hear it.
He then played the first track on the CD, and said:
I love it! James Evans from his CD Octuple Odyssey subtitled Closer to the Sauce (spelt S_A_U_C_E), and that’s on Raymer Sound. There we heard Evans himself on clarinet, Jonny Boston on tenor sax, Alan Barnes on alto sax, Graham Hughes on trombone, with Eric Webster on banjo well to the fore. That piece, called Read the Wrinkles, barely scratches the surface of the CD's versatility, for that you must buy it to hear familiar sounds put together in a way you never heard before.
13/3/06
Playing the title
track from the String Four CD 'Faster than Dark'
There have been at various times jazz groups that have defied the jazz commentators urge to put the music into neatly defined categories like butterflies on a tray. Regular listeners to the Best of Jazz will have heard from time to time the music of the Anachronic JB of France, a team that was skilled in interpreting modern jazz standards in traditional style. In Britain at this time we have a leader who goes a step further composing and performing his own music in a manner that mixes contrasting idioms in an original and, to my ears, a constantly stimulating way. James Evans, clarinetist and saxophonist, is without doubt a national treasure.
The delightfully eccentric James Evans with Martin Wheatley on banjo, Tom Kincaid, paino and James Ydstie, bass, playing his own composition Faster than Dark. And that’s also the name of the CD. It is available on Raymer Sound.
Quote from November 2006 issue
of Just Jazz - in an interview with Paul Munnery
He was asked ' Do
you see any younger player scoming through?' He replied:
'And
I am enormously impressed with James Evans' Octuple Odyssey. A truly
original style - where else would you hear Alan Barnes with a banjo?
Definitely the way forward, I truly believe. A band of people with
no stupid preconceptions, you see. There aren't many, but the ones
that are there are frighteningly competent.
Quote
from a Brian Mulligan review of Whitley Bay Jazz Festival in the October
2008 issue of Just Jazz
'.....On Thursday, the highly talented
British reed player James Evans was in the Goodman reed section, while
on Sataurday adding his youthful spark to the Clayton team - firing
up Undecided with some exceptionally gutsy tenor before switching
to clarinet and conjuring up the most tasteful bluesy obligato to
Seuffert's tenor in Claytonia. And by Sunday he was
to be found in company with his own Incredible String Band.
Here indeed is a young British jazzer who has the expertise to rival
Seuffert in his ability to play convincingly across a wide stylistic
range........'
