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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Glass mastered double CD in deluxe gatefold packaging with artwork by Jaime Zuverza.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Apura! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $12 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

1.
Apura! 05:44
2.
3.
4.
5.
Totoo Yan 06:58
6.
Siyanga Pala 03:20
7.
8.
Resist 11:53
9.
FDT 05:08
10.
Harana 16:15
11.
Refugee 10:17
12.
Warriors 08:15
13.
Player Piano 04:53
14.
Balikbayan 02:30
15.

about

It is intended with the utmost respect that this album is entitled Apura!, which in the Filipino language Tagalog translates to “Very Urgent” (the name of an epochal record by the Blue Notes, the pioneering South African jazz sextet of which drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo was the heartbeat). The musicians of Louis and Trevor Watts’s generation cast a tremendous shadow over the legacy of improvised music. It’s not difficult to romanticize the era in which these musicians first made their marks, exercising a creative daring and artistic ingenuity that was transformative in scope. For individuals like Louis, who spent so much of his youth fighting the injustices of the South African Apartheid regime, the raging music of the last century took on a kind of political urgency that reflected very real, very personal consequences.

Regardless of the era, it is (I feel) imperative that musicians generate art that is suffused with the powers of life and the convictions of the heart. It is my tremendous honor, then, to offer this recording, which pairs the heroic performances of masters Moholo-Moholo and Watts with the incandescent energy of Alexander Hawkins and my deeply-felt contributions. This is, I believe, Louis and Trevor’s first time on official record together since the 1980s.

As a musician/activist who has spent the better part of his adult life toiling away in the Northern California Bay Area, the music of the Brotherhood of Breath, the Blue Notes, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Amalgam, etc. has offered both inspiration and a way forward. This recording is meant to both honor the past and access its spirit, channeling the legacy of the last century’s free improvisation to find a way past the injustices of the modern day.

My Aunt, Miriam Defensor Santiago, was a longtime progressive public servant in the Philippines, a country browbeaten by rampant corruption and staggering inequity. I look to her example, and the example of my collaborators here, as a way to envision a world where the creative spirit and aspirational performance can battle evil and triumph.

- Karl Evangelista, 2019

credits

released May 22, 2020

Karl A.D. Evangelista - guitar
Alexander Hawkins - piano
Louis Moholo-Moholo - drums
Trevor Watts - alto and soprano saxophones

Recorded October 14-15, 2018 by Benedic Lamdin at Fish Factory Studios, Willesden, London, England.
Mixed by Karl A.D. Evangelista
Mastered by Myles Boisen

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12 & 15 composed by Karl Evangelista (Grexsounds/ASCAP), Alexander Hawkins (PRS), Louis Moholo-Moholo (Ogun Publishing Co.), & Trevor Watts (PRS)
Tracks 4, 7, 11, 13, & 14 composed by Karl Evangelista (Grexsounds/ASCAP), Alexander Hawkins (PRS), & Louis Moholo-Moholo (Ogun Publishing Co.)
Tracks 6 & 10 composed by Karl Evangelista (Grexsounds/ASCAP), Louis Moholo-Moholo (Ogun Publishing Co.), & Trevor Watts (PRS)

Layout & Cover Art by Jaime Zuverza

For Miriam Defensor Santiago

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Karl Evangelista's Apura San Francisco, California

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