Bill Evans: Classic or Dud?

I also find it helpful to remind myself sometimes that the way his trio is improvising is actually quite deliberately experimental and in that way it might sometimes produce mildly awkward sounding moments. Like there just weren't really piano trios before him, or at least not many, that played in that loose, multi-directional way where no member of the trio is forming a bedrock and all are instead kind of orbiting around an invisible point at different speeds.

yeah it's definitely a different conception of the piano trio -- unlike say, ahmad jamal's trios of the same period, where everyone's working in pretty close tandem. evans' trios seem to be all about pulling things in different directions and seeing where that lands them.

The beginning of his solo on "Flamenco Sketches" are the most beautiful nine notes in all of music.

Flamenco Sketches has an interesting history actually. The germ for it came from Bill Evans's intro to Some Other Time on Everybody Digs Bill Evans. The engineer recorded Bill doing extended improvising on the two-chord figure he used for the intro, and that became Peace Piece, which is also on Everybody Digs Bill Evans. Then Bill Evans and Miles co-wrote Flamenco Sketches based on Peace Piece (to what degree each contributed who knows) and Flamenco Sketches loosely refers to some of the changes in Some Other Time.

some other time is a leonard bernstein song, right? both that and piece peace are so beautiful -- and yeah, lead straight into flamenco sketches. i guess evans gets credit on KoB for that song and blue in green?

i barely play, but it is very relaxing to play the opening to flamenco sketches on the piano.

ah yeah it is Bernstein, and it's from On the Town. For some reason I was thinking it was from South Pacific, but I was mixing it up with This Nearly Was Mine.

this one from the tony bennett album is nice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBrOkNg2iNI

i've been listening to 'the bill evans album' because i happen to have it on vinyl, and although it seems like he took some heat for it, i really like him on fender rhodes.

anyone heard this newish live release. the world is not hurting for live bill evans, i suppose, but it is sounding great this morning
https://search.mog.com/v2/albums/67134671/image.jpeg?size=800
from 1968, a semi-pro recording, but the quality is pretty astounding, like you're in the front row.

I just remembered back in college when I talked shit about how Bill Evans was unswinging to a jazzbo friend, he was like "Nah, that's not the point. You gotta listen to Bill Evans alone in your room with the lights off." OTM.

anyway, been listening to this lately, hadn't heard of it before:

http://blog-imgs-44.fc2.com/j/a/c/jacketjazz/201011121058218e9.jpg

I just remembered back in college when I talked shit about how Bill Evans was unswinging to a jazzbo friend, he was like "Nah, that's not the point. You gotta listen to Bill Evans alone in your room with the lights off." OTM.

― i wish i had a skateboard i could skate away on (Hurting 2),

I think that sense of space is why some players especially Miles Davis liked to play with Bill Evans. He stayed the heck out of the way when we they were soloing but the minimal comp he would be doing would often be quite fitting. It gave the ensemble a bit of air to their sound and not so dense. It's dropping out chord parts then playing the extensions up an octave is part of it.

I think that's actually a good explanation for why Miles stuck with Herbie so long - he combined Evans-style chord voicings and spare comping with an ability to swing much harder (fwiw Evans' comping isn't very spare when he's soloing himself, for whatever reason. Sometimes it borders on cluttered imo).

Feel bad saying it, but while I like Paul Motian fine on the Bill Evans records I don't really in lots of other contexts.

nah I pretty much agree. The only exception I can think of is when he plays with Paul Bley.

Yes! That trio session with Philly Joe and PC is definitely an overlooked one in the larger scope of Bill Evans.

I like to play Living Time for the people that think Bill is predictable and safe.

amazing performance, love youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcMWov0_TAE&feature=youtu.be&t=3m35s

Wow.

Somehow after all these years I only just recently heard Gary's Theme for the first time, wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ybTybmIo8w

i gotta get more late period evans

I posted 'Mornin' Glory' on another thread yesterday and it reminded me I don't have the Tokyo Concert from '73 digitized. So, I'm remedying that right now. Fans of the Gomez/Morell band should definitely get into it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXEMBJ9Tcx0

It's probably in my top five favorite Bill Evans records. Right up there with Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Moonbeams.

Apparently, this was out for Record Store Day. I'm so disillusioned with the whole thing that I didn't even bother looking at the list, but I load up Dusty Groove, and there it is very enticingly right up top.

Has anyone heard this stuff yet?

p4k, but a reasonably sussed review. I'm interested: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21799-some-other-time-the-lost-session-from-the-black-forest/

I guess "though he may not be an especially famous jazz musician" is based on p4k knowing its audience? Like it just means "he's not one of the names you'd necessarily know if you don't listen to much jazz"?

Presumably. He's not Miles, Trane, Bird or Dizz.

That's a good review, and I have that album sitting at home, but these two sentences perfectly encapsulate why Evans has never done anything for me as a leader:

His first studio date as a leader, in 1956, was just a year after Charlie Parker's death, with bebop very much still au courant; his last, in 1979, the year before his death, was the year Chuck Mangione was nominated for a Grammy for the discofied light jazz funk of "Feels So Good." In both of those years, Evans recorded small-group acoustic jazz albums featuring his standard trio, playing a mix of standards and a few originals.

If you judge someone solely on how many decades they pushed forward the boundaries of what their genre can do then a lot of excellent musicians are going to come up short.

Firstly, a lot of his stuff is just flat out gorgeous - I don't care who wrote it or whether it was part of the zeitgeist - there'll always be a place for someone who can take a cover or a standard and make it their own in such a way that it becomes *the* version.

Secondly - yeah by around 63-64 the bulk of his very best work was behind him and he treaded water a bit in the years leading up to his death, but to say, "well, he was only amazing for 7 or 8 years" is hardly a criticism.

Thirdly he was innovative in his own way, obviously he didn't do anything as jarringly new as Ornette Coleman but he did:
* bring a whole new set of harmonic possibilities to jazz via his classical/impressionist influences
* become the bridge between George Russell and Miles Davis that brought modal jazz to the mainstream, including being the uncredited writer for two Kind of Blue songs
* change the concept of the piano trio, making it much more a union of equals rather than piano plus backing rhythm section

looking forward to hearing this new one ... i thought everybody digs bill evans?
i did think leading w/ the idea that evans isn't famous was weird (he's gotta be among the top 5 most well known jazz pianists ever, right?), but it was a good review otherwise.

I mean he's like 50x as famous as Wynton Kelly, the other pianist on that jazz record everyone owns. And it's just a weirdly apologetic thing to do in a music review. It's hard to imagine them doing the same thing with a minor cult rock figure.

I'd figure Bill Evans is more known now for playing on Kind of Blue now than say Stan Getz who probably sold quite a few more records than Evans in their 1950-60s heyday.

It has been around 50 years since that generation of jazz players was at their peak. Time has passed.

regardless! bill evans is great. I find it amazing that this was recorded in 1958.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv2GgV34qIg

I dig NYC Is No Lark. That track is haunted sounding. Pretty unique as it was Evans improvising on top of his own take.

I never checked back in RE: Some Other Time. It's fucking amazing, but everybody already knew that.

Getting back into the Kronos album where they do all Evans tunes. It's completely predictable, but nice. Definitely appreciate hearing Eddie Gomez anytime.

Would have been 91 today. The Stork Club show on WFMU's Drummer stream did a 5.5 hour all-Evans show today (https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/95669) including some chat with Peter Keepnews. I've never done a deep dive into his discography so I didn't know until today that Jack DeJohnette was briefly in his trio, 1968.

indeed!

RE: jack's tenure. he actually was only on one album that was released at the time: at montreux. couple years ago, some previously unissued recordings were released for record store day and i'd honestly say that stuff is way better for the dejohnette band. that stuff completely slays; has a way different feel in comparison to other evans trio stuff of the time.

Decided to spend some time with later Evans recordings - so many I've never explored. Right now focusing on the trio with Eddie Gomez and Marty Morrell, roughly 69-74.

This is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6T5y9APZuI

Love late period Evans.

It's some of my favorite recorded music ever.

man live, I highly recommend this live album from 1973. On some days, there is nothing that can top it for me. Easily the equal of the `61 Village Vanguard stuff — it's just that nobody cared straight ahead about piano trios anymore by that point.

*about straight ahead

Gomez and Morrell were both fantastic. I think they lived in the shadows of LaFaro and Motian, unfortunately, and also the fact that, as you said, they became prominent when no one cared about straight ahead piano trios.

When it comes to Bill Evans I'm more Riverside Recordings 56-63 till the death! Although from that later trio the live in Italy 1969 - Autumn Leaves album is a really good set, probably should check out some more at some point.

I always have been too, but got curious about the later stuff.

man, been listening to that Tokyo set all afternoon and it is a+++, thanks for the rec Austin

it is really nice

awesome. glad you guys are digging it.

One of my problems with Bill Evans (and I mean in the sense of "my problems" not a problem I have with *him*) is that I tend to really sink into and get lost in his music and that's not always ideal when I have work and family responsibilities. Something about it really sucks me under.

he has that effect at times, yes.

fwiw I've also been dabbling around in The Last Waltz - The Final Recordings at Keystone Korner 1980. Even those are excellent, maybe not breaking new ground for Evans but in no way phoning it in either, full of wonderful energy.

that's mostly second sets, as he was playing two per evening. here's the other half. it's just as good.

Found this buried in a 'to-read' list and damn it's good: Steve Silberman writing about his obsession with 'Nardis' https://www.thebeliever.net/broken-time/

A mild warning that it Leans pretty heavily into the 'tragedy of Bill' narrative*, including a pretty graphic description of his death (*pretty hard not to if you're going to tell his story, I guess).

read this on the train today and really enjoyed it, thanks for sharing, also made me miss The Believer in a big way

https://i.imgur.com/GqmEUZ5.jpeg

man. ahmad jamal rocked tf outta similar-looking plaid suits around the same time.

not something just anybody can pull off. maybe it's a piano player thing?