Evergreen (Canceled World)

The Delegation is a project of young phenom Gabriel Zucker that mixes jazz, classical, electronica, rock, and more into a new sound that lives up to ESP-Disk's classic catchphrase, "You never heard such sounds in your life!" This improvising group came together at the 2013 Banff Jazz and Creative Music Workshop and was soon commissioned by the American Composers Forum; the result is the twelve-movement work on this two-disc set, which was premiered at the Jazz Gallery in New York City in 2014 and earned ASCAP's Morton Gould Young Composers Award.
 

Personnel

Gabriel Zucker - piano, compositions, lyrics, electronics, voice; Adam O'Farrill - trumpet; Eric Trudel - tenor saxophone; Jacob Teichroew - tenor saxophone, clarinet; Bryan Qu - tenor saxophone; Mark Chung - violin; Ron Lawrence - viola; Eric Allen - cello; Artemisz Polonyi - voice; Lorena del Mar - voice; Bam Bam Rodriguez - bass; Gabriel Globus-Hoenich - drums;David Su - additional electronics

Track Listing

CD 1:  
01. Always Know / I'll Follow You (Resistible I)  
02. Headlight Imprecise (Summaries I)  
03. In the Audience (Disregard I)  
04. Bare (Evergreen I)  
05. Too Resistible / Roof (Resistible II) 
06. were alone / Knowledge Clown (Evergreen II) 

CD 2:  
07. The End  
08. Recover (Disregard II)  
09. 3.5 Rotations (Evergreen III)  
10. Growing Old (Evergreen IV) / Flow Like Wine (Canceled I)  
11. Talk in Undertones (Resistible III)  
12. Yellow Paint (Summaries II) / End of Time (Canceled II) 

Press Quotes re: Evergreen:

★★★★½ “...a fascinating form of sonic installation blending wild improvisation, classical strings, disciplined unison passages and untrammeled solo excursions.” — Carlo Wolff, Downbeat

“In Zucker’s almost confrontational writing I find the vision of one who is hugely expressive. Here is a young man with a profound sense of tone and colour and how it can be wrought from diverse instrumentation to be affectingly ‘cantorial,’ expressive and hugely symphonic too.” — Raul da Gama, World Music Report

★★★★ “Evergreen (Canceled World) totally lives up to its larger-than-life sweep and scope.” — Dave Wayne, All About Jazz

“Evergreen is a rewarding example of what Brooklyn has to offer avant garde jazz-rock and demonstrates that ESP-Disk’ hasn’t lost its adventurous spirit.” — Alex Henderson, New York City Jazz Record

Acclaim for Gabriel Zucker: 

"...suavely combined a symphony orchestra and a jazz band, beginning with a haunting orchestral hush and passing a gentle theme through the jazz soloists. It was a nocturne out of early Bernstein or introspective Sinatra." - Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times re:Universal at Midnight's Carnegie Hall premiere

Bach Society Prize of the Yale Music Department for being "a pianist who has excelled in solo, concerto and chamber music genres, a jazz pianist who has sustained a creative and virtuosic activity during his time at Yale, and a composer who has intensified his ambitious endeavor to find a synthesis between his art music and jazz interests."

Musicians: Delegation / Gabriel Zucker