MICHELE ROSEWOMAN AND QUINTESSENCE / ORRIN EVANS

MONTCLAIR JAZZ FESTIVAL—SOUNDCHECK SERIES / JULY 14

Michele Rosewoman’s Quintessence and Orrin Evans share this Soundcheck bill as two very different answers to the “modern jazz” question. Rosewoman’s band treats Afro‑Caribbean rhythm and ritual as structural, not cosmetic; the pieces tend to unfold slowly, with grooves and vamps that feel less like backdrops than arguments the band keeps revising on the fly. When it locks, it’s dense, layered, and resistant to background listening. Evans, by contrast, tends to go straight at the audience—pulling gospel harmony, bar-band energy, and blunt swing into a piano language that can turn sentimental or confrontational in a couple of choruses. On a festival program that often leans toward festival‑friendly comfort, this pairing sits closer to the frictional end of the spectrum. It’s not a night of tidy, self‑contained “sets” so much as two working bands showing what their priorities actually are, in public, with nowhere to hide.