Ted Poor is a Seattle-based drummer, composer, and producer whose adventurous, soulful playing has vaulted him to the stages of some of today’s most vital artists. Modern Drummer describes his playing as “adventurous, truly dynamic, and forward-thinking.” A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Ted has toured and recorded with renowned artists such as Paul Simon, John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Rufus Wainwright, Pat Metheny, Blake Mills, Madison Cunningham, Lizzy McAlpine, Chris Thile, Cuong Vu, Lucy Dacus, Marcus Mumford, and Kurt Rosenwinkel. Ted is a Professor of Jazz Studies and the Associate Director of the School of Music at the University of Washington in Seattle. His debut album, You Already Know, (Verve/UMG) was released in 2020 to critical acclaim. The album, which is co-produced with Blake Mills, features Andrew D’Angelo, Andrew Bird and Rob Moose. JazzTimes calls the album “profound and moving” and states, “intimate, involving, and lasting, You Already Know balms the senses, wakes them up, slaps them around, and offers positive affirmations.”
During his kaleidoscopic quarter-century as a professional jazz musician, pianist Orrin Evans has become the model of a fiercely independent artist who pushes the envelope in all directions. Evans has ascended to top-of-the-pyramid stature on his instrument, ranked the #1 “Rising Star Pianist” in the 2018 DownBeat Critics Poll. GRAMMY nominations for the albums The Intangible Between and Presence (Smoke Sessions), by Evans’ raucous, risk-friendly Captain Black Big Band, cement his bona fides as a bandleader and composer. A deft tune deconstructor, Evans commands vocabulary across a broad timeline of swinging, blues-infused hardcore jazz and spiritual/avant garde jazz dialects, as well as the Euro-canon, and conveys his stories with the intuitive spontaneity of an ear player. He projects an instantly recognizable sound, sometimes creating flowing rubato tone poems, sometimes embodying the notion that the piano comprises 88 tuned drums.
Curated by Cuong Vu for Nonsequitur’s NonSeq series. Co-presented with Earshot Jazz Festival.