Paul Wesley "Doc" Evans was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 cornet

Cornet

The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...

ist.

Evans was the son of a Methodist minister. He learned piano and drums as a child, and played saxophone in high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

. He graduated from Carleton College

Carleton College

Carleton College is an independent non-sectarian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. The college enrolls 1,958 undergraduate students, and employs 198 full-time faculty members. In 2012 U.S...

 with a B.A. in English, and played with the Carleton Collegians dance band there. He gave up saxophone in the late 1920s for cornet, and played Dixieland jazz

Dixieland Jazz

Dixieland Jazz was a Canadian music television series which aired on CBC Television in 1954.-Premise:The series host was Trump Davidson, a cornet player. He also hosted a radio music series on CBC's Trans-Canada Network.-Scheduling:...

 regularly in Minneapolis at that time.

Evans continued to play through the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, turning down offers to play outside of the Midwest. In 1947 he recorded for Disc Records, and led the band that played for the opening of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

's Jazz Limited club. He stayed in Chicago until 1952, and then embarked on nationwide tours, recording frequently along the way (particularly for Audiophile Records

Audiophile Records

Audiophile Records Audiophile Records was a record label founded by Ewing D. Nunn . Between 1947 and 1969, when Nunn sold the company, Audiophile produced nearly 100 albums most of which were traditional jazz. Ewing was an audio enthusiast and inventor...

).

He returned to Minneapolis and continued playing jazz up until his last recordings in 1975. He also founded the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra and conducted it until his death.

In 1999, a yearly Doc Evans Jazz Festival was founded in Minnesota.