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Global Entry

Gabriel Evan’s sophomore album Global Entry is a playful, skillful exploration of pre-war jazz, early chamber jazz, and bug music. With the John Kirby Sextet (Charlie Shavers, arranger) as its primary infuence, the Gabriel Evan Orchestra takes you on musical trip around the world. While bringing a fresh spin on traditional jazz classics, incorporating 1930s Cuban music and even mid-century exotica, Global Entry maintains the Kirby tradition of arranging classical music for jazz band.

A carefully constructed arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers opens the record, paying homage to the arranging style of trumpeter Charlie Shavers, reimagining the languid waltz into a fun, hot swing number, suitable for a Looney Tunes Nutcracker tribute. As a matter of fact, most of this record is suitable as cartoon music - so much so, that GEO’s frst two singles, Rumba Azul and Arabian Nightmare are released as cartoon music videos (Waikiki Wabbit [1943] & Chicken a la King [1937] respectively). Rumba Azul, as well as Rumba Tambah which closes the album, are timeless classics from the Lecuona Cuban Boys, one of the most famous early Caribbean ensembles.

Arabian Nightmare, one of three Charlie Shavers arrangements on the record, is a brilliant take on Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, echoing the haunting Dorian theme of the classic work before springing into swing. Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes is a hip pre-bop arrangement of a 1616 classic by English playwright Ben Jonson. Effervescent Blues, a Shavers original, is a slow swinger with standout solos from Joe Goldberg (clar.), John Zarsky (tmp.) and bluesman “Big” Joe Kennedy (p), before a horn soli brings it on home. Jazz meccas New York City and New Orleans are both represented well too, with Duke Ellington’s red hot Jubilee Stomp, as well as two Gabriel Evan originals. Negotiations of South Williamsburg is a klezmer rollercoaster, featuring clarinetist Joe Goldberg shredding and wailing. South 5th Street, also written while Evan lived in South Williamsburg, is a high-energy, pseudo-Broadway show tune, with a stomping 2 & 4 heartbeat, paying an original tribute to the “biggest little band in the land.”