Orrin Evans / Orrin Evans Trio
Glenside, PA
Grant amount: $15,000
Performances
Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club. Portsmouth, NH. 10/26/2021
Nova Arts. Keane, NH. 10/27/2021
SPACE Gallery. Portland, ME. 10/29/2021
Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares. Springfield, MA. 10/30/2021
The Falcon. Marlboro, NY. 10/31/2021
About the Artist
The Orrin Evans Trio features Orrin Evans on piano, Luques Curtis on bass, and Mark Whitfield Jr. on drums. For more than two decades, Yamaha-pianist Orrin Evans has made an art form of the unexpected. With more than 25 albums to his credit without ever relying on the support of a major label, Evans has become the model of a fiercely independent artist who’s made a habit of rattling the jazz world’s confining cages. That determination has paid off in accolades like topping the “Rising Star Pianist” category in the 2018 DownBeat Critics Poll and two Grammy nominations.
Luques Curtis was born in 1983 in Hartford, CT. After having formal training on piano and percussion, he found himself wanting to play the bass. He earned a full scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College Of Music in Boston, where he studied with John Lockwood and was also able to work with great musicians such as Gary Burton, Ralph Peterson, Donald Harrison, Christian Scott, and Francisco Mela. Now living in the New York area, Luques has been performing worldwide with Eddie Palmieri, Stefon Harris, Ralph Peterson, Christian Scott, Sean Jones, Orrin Evans, Christian Sands, and others. As a sideman, Luques Curtis has participated in over 100 recordings.
Mark Whitfield Jr was born in March of 1990 in Brooklyn, NY, and raised in Baton Rouge, LA . He was introduced into the world of music by his father, guitarist Mark Whitfield, who could tell from an early age Mark Jr was a drummer in the making. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, in the spring of 2011, Mark moved back to the NYC area, attended Manhattan School of Music for a semester until joining alto saxophonists Myron Walden and Kenny Garrett’s respective bands. Mark has performed with the likes of Orrin Evans, Christian Scott, Wallace Roney, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Aaron Goldberg, Tia Fuller, Charnett Moffett, Brian Jackson, Nicholas Payton, Chico Freeman, Manuel Valera, Wayne Escoffrey, Jeremy Pelt, and more.