I hope that you’ll be able to join me for great fun this Thursday night at the 12 South Taproom.  Cobb’s Mob! will be performing an array of my material and a couple of standards.  I’ve also got a special surprise arrangement for those of you who watched cartoons in the late 1980′s.

So please come support – great music and it’s FREE!

Cobb’s Mob! 9 pm at the 12 South Taproom featuring:

Matthew White, trumpet

Adam Agati, guitar

Michael Rinne, bass

Bob Mater, drums

Hope to see you there.

-evan

If you’re looking for a place to rid yourself of a Sunday morning hangover, come out to the Green Hills Whole Foods where I’ll be playing duets with Jonathan Epley from 11 – 1.

And last but not least, my quintet Cobb’s Mob! will be performing at Cafe CoCo once again at 8pm this Sunday night.  I’m excited about the lineup and the tunes we’ve got prepared.  As always, it’s completely free, so I hope that you can come out and support jazz in Nashville.  The quintet will feature:

Oscar Utterstrom, trombone

Jonathan Epley, guitar

Mike Rinne, bass

John Alvey, drums

see ya at the gig

- evan

I got to play two more concerts with the Nashville Jazz Orchestra: one downtown at the Nashville Convention Center where I covered  alto saxophone and flute, and then tenor saxophone and clarinet at this past Thursday night’s “Writer’s Night” at the Blair School of Music.  The saxophone section had some serious shredding to do in Bruce Dudley’s arrangement of Parisian Thoroughfare.

Sax soli

…and I got a chance to wail on the debut of a Jim Williamson tune.

Cutting changes

Spent a little time doing studio work.  I laid down some oboe and clarinet tracks for the hip local band The New Whole Usuals.  I also recorded a couple of tunes with a jazz quartet for the Generations Jazz Competition.  We didn’t make it to the finals, but an ensemble of my friends Ken Fowser, Behn Gillece, and Adam Cote did.  I was proud of the work my quartet did though – below I posted our version of an original tune of mine.

Don’t Hold Your Breath

Download audio file (dont-hold-your-breath-take-3.mp3)

Jonathan Epley, guitar;  Mike Rinne, bass;  John Alvey, drums

This past month also provided me with a couple surprise last-minute gigs: at Sambuca in the quartet of Ralph Pace Jr, as well as provide horn support to local heart throbs Pico versus the Island Trees at the Mercy Lounge.

I have an array of events coming up in May as well.  On Thursday the 7th I’ll be joining a slew of Nashville’s most talented players in a group titled the Nashville Writers Ensemble at Nashville’s Community Music School: W.O. Smith. The ensemble will feature one of my original tunes and includes Bob Mater, Joe Davidian, and Oscar Utterstrom, among others.

On Sunday May 10th I’ll be leading the Cafe CoCo Jazz Jam Session at 4:30.  If you’re around be sure to stop by and bring an instrument.  I’ve also got some dates coming up with blues man Justin Conn, and even a performance with an ABBA tribute band.

Did I mention that it’s wedding season?  I’ve been playing some events with the Pat Patrick Bands this month, and next month I will be attending the weddings of two old friends.

Hope to see you at the gig/ceremony

-evan

Sunday March 29th at Cafe CoCo

two sets of originals and standards starting at 8pm.  Free!

Featuring:

EC, woodwinds

Joe Gross, trumpet

Jonathan Epley, guitar

Russell Wright, bass

John Alvey, drums

Gallery One of Nashville is to present a chamber music recital on the 11th of March, 2009, at 7pm. The recital will feature violinist Sean Neukom, cellist Alicia Storin, and Oboist Evan Cobb. The design of the program is to highlight employment of color and texture in music. First on the program is Sonata for Violin and Cello by Maurice Ravel. While this work utilizes the typical subtlety and contour of Ravel, it also hinges on the use of dissonance, vivacious rhythmic patterns, and Gypsy bravura found throughout the composer’s later works. Second, Mr. Neukom will parry with the virtuosic gauntlet of Eugène Ysaÿe’s Solo Sonata No. 1, Op. 27. Finally, Mr. Cobb will join the duo for a world premiere of Trio for Violin, Cello, and Oboe commissioned from Nashville composer Alyssa Weinberg, sure to be a stunning conclusion to a colorful recital. During the recital, artist Lori-Gene will lend her talent to the evening by capturing the performers on canvas. The recital is free and open to the public and is suitable for children, adults, amateur, and professional musicians alike.

After the recital, I’ll be headed to Windows Off the Cumberland where I’m playing in a jazz quartet led by the fine saxophonist and head of MTSU’s jazz department, Don Aliquo.

- evan

- evan

The Evan Cobb Quintet:

Cobb’s Mob!

Sunday, January 25th

8pm at Cafe Coco. 

Free!

Playing Originals and Arrangements with the help of:

Joe Gross, trumpet

Jonathan Epley, guitar

Jonathan Wires, bass

Kyle Burnham, drums

In Your Own Sweet Way
Download audio file (in-your-own-sweet-way.mp3)

As I furthered my musical studies, I found that I preferred the playing of a number of John Coltrane’s contemporaries to that of Trane. Perhaps this was partly due to the fact that I had already transcribed a lot of Trane’s material from the late 50s, but in college and my time with Buddha’s Belly, I found the material of saxophonists like Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt, and most especially Sonny Rollins to be more magnetizing and more helpful to me as a student. Many detractors of Trane’s playing lament that his style in the mid-1950s, while beautiful and amazing in many ways, was very patterned. Listening to these other players, I discovered things like how to more effectively use standard vocabulary (Stitt), how to weave and connect ideas from chorus to chorus (Getz), and how to make simple ideas swing extremely hard (Rollins).

John Coltrane certainly has one of the most recognized sounds of all tenor saxophonists and jazz musicians. Unlike many of his peers however, John Coltrane was not immediately recognized as a genius. In fact, some early musical embarrassments are what led to him to become obsessed with practicing. Coltrane’s early obsession with practicing is evident in some of the easily spotted patterns that appeared in his solos. Examining Coltrane’s solos on tunes like ‘Lazy Bird’ from Blue Train or ‘Love For Sale’ from the Miles album ’58 Sessions, you can see that there are only a few places where he states a rhythmic idea or theme. Trane primarily relies on scales and diatonic ideas, often repeating himself or only slightly varying something he played earlier.

Lazy Bird
Download audio file (lazy-bird-alternate-take.mp3)

John Coltrane’s effective and virtuosic use of simple diatonic patterns is what led him in the direction of his more unique and complicated patterns. Seeing how effectively he could play with linear patterns, Trane began incorporating the same simple linear ideas into different harmonic patterns, particularly in ascending and descending major thirds. This same sort of patterned soloing is what led him to write the famous (and famously difficult) tunes such as ‘Giant Steps’, ‘Countdown’, ‘26-2’, and others.

Countdown
Download audio file (countdown.mp3)

However, after time Trane himself rejected his patterned approach to practicing and soloing. Abandoning the constraints that he had worked so hard to incorporate into his playing, Trane instead focused on playing freely and modally on tunes with little to no scripted chord changes, such as ‘A Love Supreme,’ ‘Ascension,’ and ‘Kulu Sé Mama.’ This coincided with the time in his life where Trane became deeply spiritual, which he incorporated into his songs and solos, leading to some marathon tunes of over 30 minutes and what some might term “speaking in tongues.” Here is a quote from John during that era in the early 1960s:

“Over all, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and senses in the universe…”

I’ve been thinking so much about Coltrane because this Sunday I am playing in Kyle Burnham’s band in “A Quasi Coltrane Tribute.” The ensemble is focusing on the later, modal tunes of Coltrane like Resolution, Impressions, and India. These tunes are often mistakenly thought of as easy because they are modal – based in one key with little to no chord changes – meaning young players can solo on them with just cursory knowledge of one or two scales. Having been dedicated to playing ‘within the changes’ for the last few years as well as turned off by amateur renditions, I’ve neglected to listen to this material properly in a long time. But delving back into this material has completely inspired me. John Coltrane was functioning at such an amazing musical and spiritual level that it’s very invigorating and uplifting just to hear, let alone attempt.

Resolution
Download audio file (resolution-part-2.mp3)

So I hope you will enjoy me in sharing this great man’s works this coming Sunday, November 30^th at 8:00 inside Café Coco. For those of you who live out of town, I’ll post some highlights on here once I get them.

www.myspace.com/kyleburnham

- evan

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www.nashvillejazz.org