Arc

Although it is being offered for sale only a year after its predecessor, Climbing the Gates, jazz pianist Falkner Evans' third album, Arc, is actually his first to be recorded in four years, since Climbing the Gates was recorded in 2002, but not released until 2006. In the interim, Evans' piano trio has undergone one personnel change, with bassist Cecil McBee giving way to Belden Bullock; Matt Wilson remains on drums. But the approach is much the same. Arc contains nine tracks, five of which are Evans' originals, with two tunes by jazz masters and two pop standards. The least impressive of the performances come with John Coltrane's "Central Park West" and Wayne Shorter's "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum," perhaps because they have had to be rearranged for piano-bass-drums after having been composed by reed players, or perhaps because the musicians are more restrained in interpreting the work of musicians they revere. They don't have that problem with the evergreen "Come Rain or Come Shine," which is given a vigorous reading, or with "Lost in the Stars," which is actually a moving Evans piano solo at the album's end. As a composer himself, Evans constructs good showcases for his playing and that of his bandmates, particularly on the rollicking opening tune, "Regatta" and its follow-up, "Singing Darkness," which finds Bullock playing a slinky bassline. Evans has played rock and even country in his long career, but three albums in he seems to have found his best place as a jazz musician.