Bill Evans ...

“Jazz music has always been a place where anything is possible.”

Bill Evans #Jazz pic.twitter.com/vhzYxqRhus

— Mark W. (@DurhamWASP) March 3, 2019

Bill Evans & Chet Baker - The Legendary Sessions

The Legendary Sessions of Bill Evans & Chet Baker, recorded in 1959 New York.

Personnel:

Bill Evans (p) Chet Baker (tr) Zoot Sims (asax) Pepper Adams (bsax) Herbie Mann (tsax) Kenny Burrell (gr) Paul Chambers (b) Philly Joe Jones (dr)

Released: February 2010

Recorded:Dec. 30, 1958 (1-3, 5-7, 10) & January 19, 1959 (4, 8, 9) July 22, 1959 (11-14) & July 21, 1959 (15) New York

Label: American Jazz Classics 99 005 0:00 "Alone Together" 6:56 "How High The Moon" 10:33 "It Neve Entered My Mind" 15:11 "'Tis Autumn" 20:29 "If You Could See Me Now" 25:47 "September Song" 28:54 "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" 33:26 "Time on My Hands" 37:58 "You and the Night and the Music" 42:06 "Early Morning Mood" 51:08 "Show Me" 57:36 "I Talk to the Trees" 1:03:28 "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" 1:08:03 "I Could Have Danced All Night" 1:11:43 "Almost Like Being in Love" Never have two musicians seemed so alike in temperament yet differed so much in their approach to making music as Chet Baker and Bill Evans. While both were peerless masters of their instruments and shared a rich, evocatively lyrical playing style that bordered beguilingly on the introspective, Baker and Evans were polar opposites when it came to the discipline of performance. Though both were heroin addicts, the musically-trained Evans never let it interfere with his meticulously precise flights of invention while the self-taught Baker became increasingly erratic and inconsistent. They ventured into a recording studio together on just three occasions. Michael Quinn of bbc.co.uk The sessions dates are identified as Dec. 1958, plus January and July 1959. Both featured artists are in top musical form. Their interpretations of these jazz standards are exceptional. The backing musicians are truly the gold standard of jazz recording artists. All these individuals are legendary jazz icons with very successful solo careers. The ensemble includes Herbie Mann, Pepper Adams, Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers, Connie Kay and Philly Joe Jones. All these artists turn in stellar performances. However, I have to single out Pepper Adams on baritone sax who really shines on these selections. The production values and mix are spot on, courtesy of Orrin Keepnews. The entire project maintains a leisurely tempo and a rich melodic and moody interpretation of these classic compositions. Richard C. Ferris of amazon.com

Bill Evans videos from 1972

At JazzWax, a Friday post on two Bill Evans videos from 1972. The year was a turning point for Evans. His hair was long and his playing was more commanding and sorrowful... https://t.co/uM2RmTxEHp pic.twitter.com/elJ3qidC70

— Marc Myers (@JazzWax) February 9, 2018

Bill Evans & Chet Baker - The Legendary Sessions

The Legendary Sessions of Bill Evans & Chet Baker recorded in 1959 New York.

Personnel: Bill Evans (p) Chet Baker (tr) Zoot Sims (asax) Pepper Adams (bsax) Herbie Mann (tsax) Kenny Burrell (gr) Paul Chambers (b) Philly Joe Jones (dr)

Released: February 2010

Recorded:Dec. 30, 1958 (1-3, 5-7, 10) & January 19, 1959 (4, 8, 9) July 22, 1959 (11-14) & July 21, 1959 (15) New York Label: American Jazz Classics 99 005 0:00 "Alone Together" 6:56 "How High The Moon" 10:33 "It Neve Entered My Mind" 15:11 "'Tis Autumn" 20:29 "If You Could See Me Now" 25:47 "September Song" 28:54 "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" 33:26 "Time on My Hands" 37:58 "You and the Night and the Music" 42:06 "Early Morning Mood" 51:08 "Show Me" 57:36 "I Talk to the Trees" 1:03:28 "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" 1:08:03 "I Could Have Danced All Night" 1:11:43 "Almost Like Being in Love" Never have two musicians seemed so alike in temperament yet differed so much in their approach to making music as Chet Baker and Bill Evans. While both were peerless masters of their instruments and shared a rich, evocatively lyrical playing style that bordered beguilingly on the introspective, Baker and Evans were polar opposites when it came to the discipline of performance. Though both were heroin addicts, the musically-trained Evans never let it interfere with his meticulously precise flights of invention while the self-taught Baker became increasingly erratic and inconsistent. They ventured into a recording studio together on just three occasions. Michael Quinn of bbc.co.uk The sessions dates are identified as Dec. 1958, plus January and July 1959. Both featured artists are in top musical form. Their interpretations of these jazz standards are exceptional. The backing musicians are truly the gold standard of jazz recording artists. All these individuals are legendary jazz icons with very successful solo careers. The ensemble includes Herbie Mann, Pepper Adams, Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers, Connie Kay and Philly Joe Jones. All these artists turn in stellar performances. However, I have to single out Pepper Adams on baritone sax who really shines on these selections. The production values and mix are spot on, courtesy of Orrin Keepnews. The entire project maintains a leisurely tempo and a rich melodic and moody interpretation of these classic compositions.

Bill Evans - On Green Dolphin Street

Published on Jan 1, 2012
On Green Dolphin Street by Bill Evans from On Green Dolphin Street(1959)
Bill Evans(p)
Paul Chambers(b)
Philly Joe Jones(d)

D.A. Pennebaker, Bill Evans, Shorty Rogers ....

This weekend at JazzWax, D.A. Pennebaker, Bill Evans, Shorty Rogers, Cher and more... https://t.co/9kit7NG8Ol pic.twitter.com/sxHren1v4k

— Marc Myers (@JazzWax) 15 de julho de 2017

#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

#BillEvans - Piano Player - "All About Rosie"

Published on Jun 20, 2017
Pianist Bill Evans performing the 3rd Section of composer George Russell's "All About Rosie."

#BillEvans & #ChetBaker - The Legendary Sessions

I added a video to a @YouTube playlist https://t.co/GCNIdsTYQq Bill Evans & Chet Baker - The Legendary Sessions (1959 Album)

— jazzbreak (@JazzBreak1) August 27, 2016

#BillEvans #CarlPerkins #MalWaldron #MaryStallings #AlHibbler

Happy #Jazz B-day Bill Evans, Carl Perkins, Mal Waldron, Mary Stallings & Al Hibbler born 8/16

— A Passion for Jazz!® (@APassion4Jazz) August 16, 2016

#BillEvans - I Do It For Your Love

I added a video to a @YouTube playlist https://t.co/OA7rAt0pnU Bill Evans - I Do It For Your Love

— jazzbreak (@JazzBreak1) August 14, 2016

Bill Evans - On Green Dolphin Street

On Green Dolphin Street by Bill Evans from On Green Dolphin Street(1959)
Bill Evans(p)
Paul Chambers(b)
Philly Joe Jones(d)

"When you teach #Jazz, the most dangerous thing is teach style"

"When you teach #Jazz, the most dangerous thing is teach style" Bill Evans • https://t.co/hhElDbnQxk • pic.twitter.com/jHldQa8l38

— A Passion for Jazz!® (@APassion4Jazz) August 2, 2016

Bill Evans: Sweden, 1970

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

In early 1970, pianist Bill Evans was in Europe on tour with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell. They made stops in Finland, Denmark, Germany and Sweden. In Finland, he visited the home of composer Ilkka Kuusisto, where Evans was filmed by Finnish TV in conversation with his host and his host's guests and performing three songs. For more on this video, go here. 

In Sweden, Evans performed in Stockholm, where the trio was filmed for Swedish television playing Thelonious Monk's 'Round Midnight. While the camera always seems to be in the wrong place (not to mention wasting time panning briefly to unrelated exterior shots), this video is spectacular and features Evans in color for the first time that I'm aware of...

JazzWax note: You'll find 'Round Midnight and two other songs from this Stockholm gig on the DVD Jazz Icons: Bill Evans Live in 1964-'75 here.

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Bill Evans: Some Other Time

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Today marks the release of Bill Evans: Some Other Time(Resonance), a much-anticipated two-CD set that's easily the most important discovery of new Evans studio recordings since 2001 and the issuing of recordings made in 1956 and '57 at Don Elliott's home studio. Over the years, there have been plenty of remarkable discoveries of live Evans recordings—including Live at Art D'Lugoff's Top of The Gate, Live at Lulu White's and The Secret Sessions. But none compare to a full-fledged Evans studio recording session, where the quality of the piano, its tuning and studio miking and acoustics are all controlled for maximum impact. This new Evans album is the historic jazz recording to beat this year.

To be above board, I wrote the new album's main liner notes. But I don't make a dime on sales nor do I have anything to gain by telling you how good this album is, other than to hip you to music that is truly gorgeous. It also should be noted that I only write the liner notes to albums when I truly love the music inside and I pass on the rest. It's a firm rule.

The music on Some Other Time was recorded on June 20, 1968—five days after the same musicians performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The results of that concert appearance appear on Bill Evans At The Montreux Festival(Verve).

The material in the new set is vital for several key reasons: First, it features drummer Jack DeJohnette, who previously had only been heard with Evans and bassist Eddie Gomez on a few recordings, including Montreux and a Secret Sessionslive date at New York's Village Vanguard in August '68. Second, the album provides us with musical information that fleshes out Evans's stylistic transition from his "swinging romantic" years to his "percussive poet" period. Third, Evans, here, recorded at one of Europe's finest studios—MPS in Villingen, Germany. Fourth, we hear Evans in three different configurations: solo, due and trio. And fifth, the sound and poetry are amazing.

While it's unclear why Evans would have recorded alone and just with Gomez when DeJohnette was present, we do know the reason MPS didn't release an album or albums from the tapes: Evans was signed to Verve at the time. Since Evans was well aware of his contractual status and obligation, one can only assume the recording was made exclusively for cash, to document the group privately with the expressed understanding that the results wouldn't be released at the time.

On these 21 tracks, we hear Evans deliver one penetrating interpretation after the next. We also hear Gomez functioning as Evans's pulsating shadow and DeJohnette playing a more distinct conversational role with his shimmering cymbals and restless drums. Both influenced Evans's approach on the keyboard. The song choices also are strong and unusual. We hear powerful versions of Baubles, Bangles and Beads and What Kind of Fool Am I as well as rarities like These Foolish Things, (the first time Evans recorded the song) and It Could Happen to You(which he recorded only once before). [Photo above, from left, Eddie Gomez, Jack DeJohnette and Bill Evans in 1968, courtesy of Resonance Records]

Most of all, there's a relaxed, almost liquid quality about Evans's playing. At MPS Studios in Germany's Black Forest in 1968, we hear Evans performing without pressure for themselves and a few sophisticated fans in the control room rather than employers. A final word in praise of set producer Zev Feldman, who worked tirelessly to bring this project to market using his passion, judgment and determination. We all should be grateful. Applause, as well, for executive producer George Klabin, whose sound restoration with Fran Gala is impeccable. Same goes for John Koenig, the album package editor, and all the others who made this release possible.

Imagine! A new high-end, previously unreleased Bill Evans studio album. Inconceivable, but true.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find the two-CD set of Bill Evans: Some Other Time (Resonance) here. A limited two-LP vinyl version was pressed for Record Day a short time ago and is now selling for upward of $100 on eBay. I'm not sure if vinyl will be available in the future.

JazzWax clip: To give you a sense of the music on the album, here's Baubles, Bangles and Beads...

Baubles, Bangles and Beads

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Bill Evans - Intellect, Emotion, Communication

Bill Evans - Intellect, Emotion, Communication - By Don Nelsen

Steven A. Cerra
Monday, January 25, 2016

December 8, 1960
Downbeat, By DON NELSEN
 “It may distress believers in the jazzman legend, but the truth is that Bill Evans has become one of the most creative modern jazz musicians without benefit of a miserable childhood. With candor, he said:

 "I was very happy and secure until I went into the army. Then I started to feel there was something I should know that I didn't know."

 If the 31-year-old pianist upsets a few cherished illusions about the origins of jazz musicians, he demolishes another held by many jazzman themselves and fondly nurtured by the hippy fringe: that a jazzman must be interested only in jazz.

Evans is no such intellectual provincial. For one thing, he does not believe that jazz—or even music as a whole— necessarily holds the key to the "something" he began searching for in the army. His basic attitude is that music is not the end most jazzmen make it. It is only a means.

 A glance into Evans' library provides an indication of what his mind is up to. The diversity of titles shows how many avenues he has explored to reach his "something"— Freud, Whitehead, Voltaire, Margaret Meade, Santayana, and Mohammed are here, and, of course, Zen. With Zen, is Evans guilty of intellectual fadism, since everyone knows that Kerouac, Ginsberg & Co. holds the American franchise on Oriental philosophy? Evans waved a hand in resignation and said:

 "I was interested in Zen long before the big boom. I found out about it just after I got out of the army in 1954. A friend of mine had met Aldous Huxley while crossing from England, and Huxley told him that Zen was worth investigating. I'd been looking into philosophy generally so I decided to see what Zen had to say. But literature on it was almost impossible to find. Finally, I was able to locate some material at the Philosophical library in Manhattan. Now you can get the stuff in any drugstore.

"Actually, I'm not interested in Zen that much, as a philosophy, nor in joining any movements. I don't pretend to understand it. I just find it comforting. And very similar to jazz. Like jazz, you can't explain it to anyone without losing the experience. It's got to be experienced, because it's feeling, not words. Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling."
 
 Such a manifesto may pain the academicians of jazz, but Evans is no pedant with a B-plus critical faculty. He is an intellectual in the true spirit of the word: an intelligent inquirer. His flights into philosophy and letters spring not from the joy of scholarly exercise but from the fierce need to comprehend himself. It is this need, whipped by surging inner tensions, that has driven him to Plato, Freud, Thomas Merton, and Sartre. It is responsible for his artistry on the one hand and his erudition on the other. The former has enabled him to catheterize his emotions; the latter has given him the opportunity to understand them. Hence his great emphasis on feeling as the basis of art.

 Undoubtedly, the four years he lived in New Orleans and attending Southeastern Louisiana college had much to do with shaping this emphasis. It certainly exerted a powerful influence on his personality and playing. He himself admits it was the happiest period of his life.

 "It was the happiest," he said, "because I had just turned 17, and it was the first time I was on my own. It's an age when everything makes a big impression, and Louisiana impressed me big. Maybe it's the way people live. The tempo and pace is slow, 1 always felt very relaxed and peaceful. Nobody ever pushed you to do this or say that.


 "Perhaps it's due to a little looser feeling about life down there. Things just lope along, and there's a certain inexplicable indifference about the way people face their existence. I remember one time I was working in a little town right near the Mississippi border. Actually, it wasn't a town. It was a roadhouse with a few tourist cabins out back and another roadhouse about a half-mile up the highway. There didn't seem to be much law there. Gambling was open and thriving. I worked at the first place for months, and I never saw any police. Well, the night after I had left to take a job in the saloon up the road, a man walked in and pointed a .45 at another fellow. As I heard it from a friend, all he said was, 'Buddy, I hear you're foolin' aroun' with my wife,' and Bang! That was all. The second guy fell dead. As far as I know, nobody ever gave it another thought, and nothing was ever done.

read more: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com.br/2016/01/bill-evans-intellect-emotion.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+JazzProfiles+(Jazz+Profiles)

Bill Evans: Documentary '96

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

In 1996 a documentary on pianist Bill Evans by Gerard Arnaud, Patrick Sobelman and producer Paul Goldin appeared on the French cultural TV program ARTE. Some of it is in French without subtitles, but there's plenty of talking heads speaking in English. Here's the 1996 documentary...

A special thanks to Dave Thomas.

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Bill Evans: Last TV Show

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Less than three weeks before his death on Sept. 15, 1980, Bill Evans appeared on the Merv Griffin Show. He came out in a white suit, chatted with Griffin and then played his composition Your Story without improvisation. The show aired on Sept. 23, 1980. Reader Gregory Lee had told me about this appearance some time ago and yesterday emailed to let me know that Rob Rijneke had just put it up on YouTube. Here's Evans on TV on Aug. 23, briefly, followed by Evans playing the same song with his trio a few weeks earlier...

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Bill Evans and Carol Stevens

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Back in January 2014, I interviewed singer Carol Stevens (here and here), who recorded That Satin Doll for Atlantic in 1957. In 1959, she appeared in a TV pilot for a show called After Hours, featuring  Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge among other top New York jazz musicians.

At one point during my interview, I asked Carol who else she performed with in New York:

"Many different pianists. I did several gigs with Bill Evans before he became really well known. He was with Don Elliott at the time. Bill was great. I did a few club dates with him outside of New York. One gig was in Princeton, N.J., and was reviewed in a magazine called Escapade. There was a picture of me and Bill."

Carol and I stay in touch, so I was delighted when I heard from her a couple of weeks ago with a partial PDF of the magazine article in question. A friend had sent her all he could find. I immediately went onto eBay, found the issue and ordered it so I could bring you the full article. First I did a little research:

Though the issue of Escapade is dated August 1958, the gig at Princeton University was a concert held on Saturday, Nov. 29 1957. As noted in Princeton's Town Topics, "Princeton Jaycees Jazz Concert by Don Elliott and His Modern Jazz Group with Carol Stevens as vocalist; McCarter Theatre. Two brand-new numbers. Walkin' and Blue in Boogie will be featured at the third annual Jaycee jazz concert." [Above, Princeton's McCarter Theatre]

This is interesting for Bill Evans fans. Back in 2007, I posted on Evans and Don Elliott's album, Tenderly: An Informal Session (go here). Now that we know there was a Princeton gig in November and probably others, the rehearsal was likely in the fall in advance of their fall tour in the New York area and Evans' appearance on Eddie Costa's Guys and Dolls recording session in January 1958.

At any rate, here are the pages to Escapade, what used to be called a "girlie" magazine (hence the writing style). Following the pages, you'll find Carol's After Hours clip. Hats off to Carol for hipping me (and us) to the issue! Just click to enlarge...

JazzWax tracks: Here's Carol Stevens' That Satin Doll from 1957. And here's Bill Evans with Don Elliott on Tenderly: Informal Session in 1956 and '57.

JazzWax clip: Here's Carol Stevens in 1959 in After Hours...

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Bill Evans Trio

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Two months after appearing on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio show in November 1978, Bill Evans hit the road. Right after the new year, the pianist was in Iowa with his trio—bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe La Barbera—at the Maintenance Shop in Ames. During their run, the trio was taped for Public Television. You can purchase the results on DVD—The Bill Evans Trio, Live in Iowa—at the Fresh Sound site here. [Photo above of Bill Evans by David Redfern]

To my ears, the performance ranks among this trio's finest, with Evans operating more penitently and warmly on the keyboard than usual during this period, despite his carping about the monitor speakers and the piano. Here's Bill Evans Trio, Live in Iowa...

Used with permission by Marc Myers