Guest Saxophonist / Clarinetist

Guest Saxophonist / Clarinetist

“[Evan] has a distinctive style on both his chosen instruments, on which he offers appealing sounds, fluent command, and that often elusive thing called swing.”
-NEA Jazz Master, Dan Morgenstern

Evan was born and raised in Vancouver, BC, and is the third generation of a musical family. He began learning the great melodies composed by the original New Orleans Jazzmen such as Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Jelly Roll Morton, at the age of seven from his grandfather, Lloyd Arntzen, who is also a clarinetist.

He has since developed his own expressive voice as a clarinetist, saxophonist and vocalist, which Grammy Award winning jazz writer Ricky Riccardi calls “the very definition of timeless.”

Evan moved to NYC in 2014, and has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Cafe Bohemia, Birdland, Town Hall, Mezzrow, Smalls, Symphony Space, as well as festivals and venues around the world. He has shared the stage with luminaries such as Catherine Russell, Jason Marsalis, Ingrid Jensen, Houston Person, Ken Peplowski, Wycliffe Gordon, and Bria Skonberg.

He relocated to western Massachusetts in 2020, where he has performed at the Springfield Jazz and Roots Festival, Northampton Jazz Festival, and been a featured guest soloist with the Northampton Jazz Workshop and the Vermont Jazz Center Big Band.

Evan has released three albums as a leader, including his most recent, Countermelody, on Dot Time Records. He is also a dedicated educator, in-demand as faculty for camps and workshops such as Django in June an maintaining a virtual private teaching studio with students around the world.