Island Hopping by Gabriel Evan Orchestra
The Gabriel Evan Orchestra’s third album Island Hopping is a lively and appealing celebration of Caribbean jazz, a subgenre rooted in Africa and transported to America via early 19th century New Orleans. Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms and melody infused the “Latin tinge” dubbed essential to proper jazz by pioneering composer Jelly Roll Morton, and would influence and inform the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. Island Hopping pays loving, but not overly reverential homage to the form with a pleasing set of covers interspersed with a couple Evans originals.
The album alternates between exuberant up-tempo numbers and tranquil slower songs, with Evan's vibrant, sometimes whimsical soprano sax assuming center stage. Melody frequently upstages rhythm, best heard on the high-spirited keyboard and guitar improvisation on the original “Boychick Calypso” and the buoyantly tropical melody and rhythm of “Rhum”. Most affecting of the slower songs, the laid-back “Habana Hammock” was written to bring comfort and optimism during the darkest nadir of the Covid epidemic. Island Hoppingreverberates with effervescent cheer, making it a worth summer companion and a mood-altering godsend on a cold winter’s day.
