#BillEvans - Piano Player

Sunday, June 25, 2017
by Steven Cerra

Sooner or later, it seemed that many of the major Jazz artists of the 2nd half of the 20th century recorded for Columbia.

Some, like Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and Erroll Garner had extensive catalogues and were with the label for many years while others like Mulligan, Monk and Mingus had only the occasional fling with the label.

Pianist Bill Evans falls into the later category of short-lived stays having spent the majority of his career with Riverside and Verve before moving onto Milestone and Warner Brothers Records later in his career until his death in 1980.

Bill only did two recordings for Columbia: The Bill Evans Album [CK 64963] and Bill Evans - Piano Player [CK 65361] from which this piece derives it names.  The latter, one of the lesser known Evans recordings, was advertised by Sony Music Entertainment when it released the album on CD in 1998 as follows:

Assembled by Evans' veteran producer, multi-Grammy winner. Orrin Keepnews, and with new liner notes by Eddie Gomez, BILL EVANS: PIANO PLAYER will provide ample cause for celebration among his many fans the world over. It's also a first-rate introduction to an artist who continually gains new adherents.

To expand a bit on the last sentence from the Sony media release, it could reasonably be argued, as Orrin Keepnews his first producer at Riverside Records has stated: “that Bill Evans is the most widely influential of all improvising pianists. Certainly he's the most often imitated. Only Bud Powell, the fountainhead of bebop piano (and a major influence on Evans) comparably affected the work of his fellow pianists.

Almost two decades after his death (in 1980 at 51), a small army that numbers the brilliant likes of Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Keith Jarrett has derived some measure of their keyboard approach from Evans' lyrical conception.

At the heart of his crepuscular, introspective style was The Sound —or, more accurately, the touch (and the way he used the piano's sustain pedals) that produced the indelible, crystalline sound. 

For sheer beauty, it is without equal. And jazz players on all instruments have been to one degree or another shaped, or at the very least, profoundly moved, by the inner voicings of his pellucid chords, his free, but in no way cacophonous rhythmic sense, and his deep-song balladry.”

However. Evans' ability to swing was at one time questioned in some quarters. This is, of course, absurd, but if there's anyone left who doubts his proficiency at propelling the beat, proceed to All About Rosie, the introductory track on the CD. 


One of eight previously unreleased numbers in this collection, All About Rosie  from 1957 is an orchestral suite by composer George Russell, one of modern music's keenest minds. In the third section. Evans' right hand unfurls lines that make for a rhythmically impelling, tension-building masterpiece.

read more at: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com.br/2017/06/bill-evans-piano-player.html