sábado, 29 de noviembre de 2008

Bill Evans/George Russell - Living Time (1972)



Ernie Royal, Richard Williams, Snooky Young (tp, flh) Howard Johnson (flh, tu, bcl) Dave Baker, Garnett Brown (tb) Dave Bargeron (tb, tu) John Clark (frh) Jimmy Giuffre, Joe Henderson, Sam Rivers (reeds) Bill Evans (p) Webster Lewis, Ted Saunders (el-p) Sam Brown (g) Eddie Gomez (b) Ron Carter, Herb Geller (el-b) Marty Morell, Tony Williams (d) Marc Belair (d, per)
George Russell (arr, cond)

NYC, May, 1972

*Bill Evans: piano, rhodes electric piano
*Eddie Gomez: acoustic bass
*Marty Morell: drums.
*Snooky Young, Ernie Royal, Richard Williams,Stanton Davis: trumpet
*Snooky Young, Ernie Royal, Richard Williams, Howard Johnson: flugelhorn
*John Clark: french horn
*Howard Johnson, Dave Bargeron: tuba
*Jimmy Guiffre, Sam Rivers: tenor saxophone, flute
*Sam Rivers: obo
*Howard Johnson: bass clatinet
*Ron Carter (on 5,7), Stanley Clark (on 1,2,3),Herb Bushler (on 4,6,8): fender bass
*Sam Brown: bass guitar, electric guitar
*Ted Saunders: electric piano, clavinette
*Webster Lewis: organ, electric piano
*Tony Williams: drums
*Marc Belair: percussion

*01.: Living Time - Event I (3:52)
*02.: Living Time - Event II (8:24)
*03.: Living Time - Event III (2:50)
*04.: Living Time - Event IV (5:32)
*05.: Living Time - Event V (11:56)
*06.: Living Time - Event VI (4:16)
*07.: Living Time - Event VII (2:10)
*08.: Living Time - Event VIII (5:41)

SEE...

"Evans got involved in two projects with large orchestra at this time. The first, in 1972, was the controversial Living Time, conceived and worked out with his friend George Russell. It was Evans himself, in an effort to satisfy Columbia Records' urging for more saleable ideas, who had come up with the idea of an album featuring him with a large ensemble. As had already happened other times in the past, Russell again appeared to be trying to force Evans into formally freer situations, acting out his usual role as “stimulator of the new and unknown” which left Evans more than a little uneasy. Russell's score on this occasion was a daring fusion of rock, informal jazz and modal music where Bill seemed a bit like a fish out of water: “Bill played like he was being pushed into some other level, hit over the head, kicked in the behind,” Russell is quoted as saying, adding, paradoxically, “I love and respect Bill's playing so much that I really couldn't resist the challenge.” The album turned out to be difficult for the average listener as well. Even with the presence of musicians like Jimmy Giuffre, Sam Rivers, Joe Henderson and Ron Carter, the outcome was a complex music which had trouble moving ahead as a result of Russell's need more to scratch his experimental itch than to accommodate the natural feeling of the musicians involved."

(Bill Evans: Ritratto d’artista con pianoforte/Bill Evans: The Pianist as an Artist.Enrico Pieranunzi, Rome 1999, Stampa Alternativa)


Miles Davis Sextet - Jazz At The Plaza (1958)



Players:
Miles Davis: trumpet
John Coltrane: tenor saxophone
Julian "Cannonball" Adderley: alto saxophone
Bill Evans: piano
Paul Chambers: bass
Philly Joe Jones: drums

Track List:
1. If I Were A Bell (8:31)
2. Oleo (10:38)
3. My Funny Valentine (10:18)
4. Straight, No Chaser (10:57)

Recorded At: Perssian Room, Plaza Hotel, NY, September 9, 1958

Bill Evans - Jazzhouse (1969)




Bill Evans (p) Eddie Gomez (b) Marty Morell (d)
"Jazzhus Montmartre", Copenhagen, Denmark, November 24, 1969

1. How Deep Is the Ocean?
2. How My Heart Sings
3. Goodbye
4. Autumn Leaves
5. California, Here I Come
6. A Sleepin' Bee
7. Polka Dots and Moonbeams
8. Stella by Starlight
9. Five (Theme)

Bill Evans - The Last European Concert (1980)



1. Letter to Evan
2. Yet Ne'er Broken
3. Laurie
4. Bill's Hit Tune
5. Knit for Mary F.
6. The Days of Wine and Roses
7. Your Story
8. But Beautiful
9. If You Could See Me Now
10. Waltz for Debby
11. Who Can I Turn To
12. Theme from M.A.S.H.
13. Five

Bill Evans (p) Marc Johnson (b) Joe LaBarbera (d)

Bad Hoenningen, West Germany, August 15, 1980


Miles Davis - At Newport (1958)




Músicos / Personnel:
Miles Davis (trumpet)
Cannonnball Adderley (alto sax)
John Coltrane (tenor sax)
Bill Evans (piano)
Paul Chambers (bass)
Jimmy Cobb (drums)

Grabado 3 Julio, 1958.

Temas / Tracks:
1. Introduction by Willis Conover (2:16)
2. Ah-Leu-Cha (5:52)
3. Straight, No Chaser (8:47)
4. Fran-Dance (7:13)
5. Two Bass Hit (4:10)
6. Bye Bye Blackbird (9:10)
7. The Theme (2:48)

The Gary McFarland Orchesta with Bill Evans - (1963)



1. REFLECTIONS IN THE PARK
2. NIGHT IMAGES
3. TREE PATTERNS
4. PEACH TREE
5. MISPLACED COWPOKE
6. A MOMENT ALONE

Phil Woods (cl) Spencer Sinatra (as, fl) Julian Barber, Allan Goldberg (vla) Aaron Juvelier, Joseph Tekula (vlc) Gary McFarland (vib, arr, cond) Bill Evans (p) Jim Hall (g) Richard Davis (b) Ed Shaughnessy (d)

Webster Hall, NYC, January 24, 1963 or December 18, 1962

Bill Evans Trio with Symphony Orchestra - (1966)



Claus Ogerman - Arreglos y dirección orquestal

Bill Evans - Piano
Chuck Israels - Bass
Larry Bunker - Drums
Grady Tate - Drums

  1. Goyescas (Guys in Love), pieces (6) in 2 books for piano, H. 64 La maja y el ruiseñior
    Composed by Enrique Granados
    Conducted by Claus Ogermann

  2. Sonata for flute & keyboard in E flat major, BWV 1031 Sicilienne
    Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach
    Conducted by Claus Ogermann

  3. Prelude for piano in D flat major, Op. 11/15
    Composed by Alexander Scriabin
    Conducted by Claus Ogermann

  4. Time Remembered
    Composed by Bill Evans
    Conducted by Claus Ogermann

  5. Pavane, for orchestra & chorus ad lib in F sharp minor, Op. 50
    Composed by Gabriel Faure
    Conducted by Claus Ogermann

  6. Concerto for Jazz Piano & Orchestra Elegia (Elegy)
    Composed by Claus Ogermann
    Conducted by Claus Ogermann

  7. My Bells
    Composed by Bill Evans
    Conducted by Claus Ogermann

  8. Prelude for piano No. 20 in C minor, Op. 28/20, CT. 185
    Composed by Fryderyk Chopin
    Conducted by Claus Ogermann
SEE...

"(...)the album of Evans' trio with the symphony orchestra directed by Claus Ogerman. The bright idea of having a jazz trio perform selections from the European classical repertoire, rearranged for the occasion, was touted with triumphant promotional declarations by its author Creed Taylor. It seemed that the impossible had been done and the jazz/classical opposition had been overcome. In reality, the experiment, in this instance, was an unhappy one. Paradoxically, it was not in the explicit blend of the two musical languages where Evans produced his best, but rather when his classical background unconsciously melded with his capacity to improvise and with his acute sensibility for shaping music. [emphasis mine]. Therefore, this performance, once again designed for commercial purposes, ends up sounding like an example of late Third Stream with all the limits of authenticity that afflicted its worst works. The orchestral treatment, and especially Ogerman's formal concept, was without depth or imagination, and even Evans' exquisite My Bells suffered considerable damage.”
(Bill Evans: Ritratto d’artista con pianoforte/Bill Evans: The Pianist as an Artist.Enrico Pieranunzi, Rome 1999, Stampa Alternativa)

Blue in green - (1974)



Personnel:
Bill Evans, piano
Eddie Gomez, bass
Marty Morell, drums

Vivo grabado a Camp Fortune, Hull, Canada in August 1974.

Tracks:
1. One For Helen (B.Evans) 6:13
2. The Two Lonely People (Evans-Hall) 7:03
3. What Are You Doing For The Rest Of Your Life (Legrand- Bergman) 4:38
4. So What (M.Davis) 6:47
5. Very Early (B.Evans) 5:32
6. If You could See Me Now (T.Dameron) 3:53
7. 34 Skidoo (B.Evans) 7:33
8. Blue In Green (Evans-Davis) 3:40
9. T.T.T. - Twelve Tone Tune (B.Evans) 5:29

I will Say Goodbye - (1977)



Temas / Tracks:
1. I Will Say Goodbye
2. Dolphin Dance
3. Seascape
4. Peau Douce
5. Nobody Else But Me
6. I Will Say Goodbye (Take 2)
7. The Opener
8. Quiet Light
9. A House Is Not A Home
10. Orson's Theme

Bill Evans (piano); Eddie Gomez (bass); Eliot Zigmund (drums).

SEE...

"I Will Say Goodbye
Evans believed in "simple" music; but simplicity, of course, not necessarily at the expense of beauty, and it was precisely that which he demonstrated a couple of years later. Beauty has to do with a deeper and somehow mysterious dimension - a something that Bill possessed, and thanks to which he had captured, especially in the 1950s and 60s, the hearts and minds of musicians and jazz lovers all over the world. In May of 1977 Evans recorded his last album for the Fantasy label, I Will Say Goodbye, with Gomez and the sensitive Zigmund on the drums. The album's title track, written by Michel Legrand, as well as Johnny Mandel's tender Seascape, are both film score tunes which, in Evans' hands, become compelling, intimate Mendelssohn-like "songs without words.”
Here Evans revives the classical piano modules of Brahms and Chopin, Debussy and Scriabin, whom he had known and loved in his childhood and later in his college years in Louisiana. He treats these melodic lines, evoking images of separations ("goodbye") and seascapes, with a touch that unearths a rich range of color and nuance that had been lost in his years with Gomez and Morell. Here he greatly refines the classical technique of playing three or four notes with the right hand, making their upper voice "sing".

All this is made possible also by Zigmund's sensibility and capacity to listen to and play with Evans, avoiding the error of other drummer's of playing "with the bass", thus leaving the piano isolated. Zigmund follows the emotional and sound "curve" of the pianist and, in this way, restores to the trio the breath that has long been missing.
Another big film hit tune People, written by Jules Styne and made popular by Barbara Streisand, had been used by Evans a couple of years earlier for his solo album Alone Again. That performance had marked a moment in which Evans seems to have declared his belief more in interpretation than in improvisation as the primary vehicle for his musical communication. The melody of People is played for more than thirteen minutes in various keys and becomes a sort of "theme and variations" in which Evans shows the many possibilities for dealing with a simple song on piano. His use of the left hand playing arpeggio-lines as a kind of "contrapuntal" accompaniment to the right is characteristic here. This device goes beyond just simply confirming or tracing the harmonic path of the piece, and is able to create a second "voice" dialoguing with the right hand and, at times, functioning as protagonist.

Throughout the entire length of the performance, the original melody is never abandoned. John Wasserman, who wrote the liner notes for this album, rightly observes, “one would have to be a fool or a genius to pick such songs, songs that have been played with a repetition past counting. The fool would choose them because they are familiar and one with nothing to say must be satisfied with quoting others. The genius chooses them for the challenge; for the untapped potential lying underneath the facade. It requires supreme confidence and fundamental humility in addition to an innate sense of beauty. His music, complex and simple at the same time, is like stop-action photography - the learning, the understanding, the feelings of a lifetime compressed into three minutes, or five, or seven.”
The material that Evans chose for both Alone Again and I Will Say Goodbye, was almost always very easy on the ear, mostly evoking melancholy, nostalgia for something lost, something which had perhaps never existed, or else had always been unattainable. Very often, as has already been said, these were songs from films which spoke of lost, impossible or troubled love, or of the travails of couples and the unending search for happiness. Russian tradition is full of story-telling and fables, and we must not forget that Evans origins were half Russian. It is no surprise, therefore, that he was orienting himself more and more towards musical stories written to accompany picture stories. Improvisation as such seemed no longer to interest him very much. Far from the extreme harmonic quest of a Coltrane, extraneous also to the contemporary jazz/rock revolution with its new rhythms and sound, Evans was heading in a musical direction that no one but he was attracted to in those years."
(Bill Evans: Ritratto d’artista con pianoforte/Bill Evans: The Pianist as an Artist.Enrico Pieranunzi, Rome 1999, Stampa Alternativa)(thanks http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com !!!)



Bill Evans trio y Stan Getz - But Beautiful (1974)




  1. Grandfather`s Waltz
  2. Stan`s Blues
  3. But Beautiful
  4. Emily
  5. Lover Man
  6. Funkallero
  7. Peacocks, The
  8. You and the Night and the Music
  9. See-Saw
  10. Two Lonely People, The
Personnel: Bill Evans (piano); Stan Getz (tenor saxophone); Eddie Gomez (bass); Marty Morell (drums).

Bill Evans Trio - Since We Met (1974)



1.: Since We Met

2.: Midnight Mood

3.: See Saw

4.: Sareen Jurer

5.: Time Remembered

6.: Turn Out The Stars

7. : But Beautiful

Personnel:

Bill, with Eddie Gomez bass y Marty Morell drums

Bill Evans - The Complete Fantasy Recordings - (1973-1979)



Artist:Bill Evans

Recording Date:Jan 20, 1973-May 13, 1979

Tracks (7 cd´s)

1 Mornin' Glory [live] Gentry 5:46
2 Up With the Lark [live] Kern, Robin 6:46
3 Yesterday I Heard the Rain [live] Lees, Manzanero 6:32
4 My Romance [live] Hart, Rodgers 8:40
5 When Autumn Comes [live] Fischer 6:03
6 T.T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune Two) [live] Evans 6:34
7 Hullo Bolinas [live] Swallow 4:00
8 Gloria's Step [live] LaFaro 7:12
9 On Green Dolphin Street [live] Kaper, Washington 6:45
10 Up With the Lark [live] Kern, Robin 6:41
11 Quiet Now [live] Zeitlin 4:56
12 Gloria's Step [live] LaFaro 6:51
13 When in Rome [live] Coleman, Leigh 3:23
14 It Amazes Me [live] Coleman, Leigh 2:28
15 Since We Met [live] Evans 8:50
16 Midnight Mood [live] Raleigh, Zawinul 6:52
17 See-Saw [live] Coleman 6:50
18 Elsa [live] Zindars 7:14
19 Sareen Jurer [live] Zindars 6:38
20 Time Remembered [live] Evans 5:26
21 Turn Out the Stars [live] Evans 5:07
22 But Beautiful [live] Burke, VanHeusen 6:21
23 Re: Person I Knew [live] Evans 5:17
24 Sugar Plum [live] Evans 8:11
25 Alfie [live] Bacharach, David 4:54
26 T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune) [live] Evans 5:15
27 Dolphin Dance/Very Early [live/excerpt] Hancock 7:20
28 34 Skidoo [live] Evans 6:06
29 Emily [live] Mandel, Mercer 5:12
30 Are You All the Things [live] Evans 6:20
31 Invitation Kaper, Webster 6:28
32 Blue Serge Ellington 5:06
33 Show-Type Tune Evans 4:04
34 The Nature of Things Rochlin 3:22
35 Are You All the Things Evans 4:59
36 A Face Without a Name Ogerman 5:35
37 Falling Grace Swallow 4:28
38 Hi Lili, Hi Lo (For Ellaine) Deutsch, Kaper 7:16
39 Gone With the Wind Magidson, Wrubel 5:31
40 Saudade Do Brasil Jobim 5:40
41 My Foolish Heart Washington, Young 4:47
42 The Touch of Your Lips Noble 3:54
43 Some Other Time Bernstein, Comden, Green 4:40
44 When in Rome Coleman, Leigh 2:53
45 We'll Be Together Again Fischer, Laine 4:36
46 Young and Foolish Hague, Horwitt 3:51
47 Waltz for Debby Evans, Lees 4:02
48 But Beautiful Burke, VanHeusen 3:34
49 Days of Wine and Roses Mancini, Mercer 2:20
50 Elsa [live] Zindars 7:23
51 Milano [live] Lewis 4:38
52 Venutian Rhythm Dance [live] Stevens 4:25
53 Django [live] Lewis 6:10
54 But Beautiful [live] Burke, VanHeusen 3:42
55 Minha (All Mine) [live] Hime 4:09
56 Driftin' [live] Haerle 5:10
57 I Love You [live] Porter 6:34
58 The Summer Knows [live] Bergman, Bergman, Legrand 3:22
59 In a Sentimental Mood [live] Ellington, Kurtz, Mills 5:58
60 The Touch of Your Lips Noble 7:01
61 In Your Own Sweet Way Brubeck 8:53
62 Make Someone Happy Comden, Green, Styne 7:08
63 All of You Porter 4:57
64 What Kind of Fool Am I? Bricusse, Newley 6:02
65 People Merrill, Styne 13:33
66 Since We Met Evans 3:39
67 But Not for Me/Isn't It Romantic/The Opener Evans, Gershwin, Gershwin ... 5:11
Composed by: Evans, Gershwin, Gershwin, Hart, Rodgers
68 Sweet Dulcinea Wheeler 6:02
69 Martina Legrand, Marnay, Shaper 8:12
70 Second Time Around Cahn, VanHeusen 3:41
71 A Child Is Born Jones, Wilder 7:30
72 Bass Face Burrell 10:04
73 Nobody Else But Me Hammerstein, Kern 7:27
74 Sugar Plum [live/#] Evans 6:28
75 Time Remembered [live/#] Evans 5:33
76 34 Skidoo [live/#] Evans 7:10
77 T.T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune Two) [live/#] Evans 6:34
78 Turn Out the Stars [live/#] Evans 5:01
79 Someday My Prince Will Come [live/#] Churchill, Morey 7:08
80 Minha (All Mine) [live/#] Hime 3:46
81 All of You [live/#] Porter 8:09
82 Waltz for Debby [live/#] Evans, Lees 5:32
83 Eiderdown Swallow 8:16
84 Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye Porter 3:28
85 Pensativa Fischer 5:35
86 Speak Low Nash, Weill 6:30
87 When I Fall in Love Heyman, Young 4:16
88 Night and Day Porter 6:03
89 I Will Say Goodbye Legrand 3:26
90 Dolphin Dance Hancock 6:00
91 Seascape Mandel 5:20
92 Peau Douce Swallow 4:14
93 Nobody Else But Me Hammerstein, Kern 5:03
94 I Will Say Goodbye [Take 2] Legrand 4:45
95 The Opener Evans 6:09
96 Quiet Light Zindars 2:26
97 A House Is Not a Home Bacharach, David 4:36
98 Orson's Theme Legrand 3:46
99 Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz Interview [live] 58:08
100 Kaleidoscope (Theme) [live] McPartland :23
101 Waltz for Debby [live] Evans, Lees 1:33
102 All of You [live] Porter 2:19
103 In Your Own Sweet Way [live] Brubeck 5:02
104 The Touch of Your Lips [live] Noble 4:59
105 Reflections in D [live] Ellington 4:36
106 I Love You [live] Porter 4:10
107 Days of Wine and Roses [live] Mancini, Mercer 3:17
108 This Is All I Ask [live] Jenkins 4:01
109 While We're Young [live] Engvick, Wilder 4:28

Bill Evans - A Simple Matter Of Conviction (1966)



Músicos / Personnel:
Bill Evans, piano
Eddie Gomez, bass
Shelly Manne, drums

Temas / Tracks:
1. Simple Matter Of Conviction (B.Evans) 3:17
2. Stella By Starlight (Young-Washington) 4:09
3. Unless It's You (B.Evans) 3:41
4. Laura (Mercer-Raksin) 4:17
5. My Melancholy Baby (Burnett-Norton) 5:14
6. I'm Getting Sentimental Over You (Washington-Bassman) 4:11
7. Star Eyes (Raye-DePaul) 4:56
8. Only Child (B.Evans) 4:02
9. These Things Called Changes (B.Evans) 3:34

SEE...

"Within a few months Israels' place was taken by 21-year-old Puerto Rican bass player Eddie Gomez. He was playing with the Gerry Mulligan group opposite Evans' trio at the Village Vanguard when he caught Bill's eye. Enormously gifted technically - an authentic virtuoso on his instrument - Gomez would stay with Evans for eleven years proving himself, in many ways, an ideal partner and the first real heir to Scott LaFaro. Gomez, in fact, continued and extended LaFaro's insights and contributed to making the bass an instrument "equal" to other melodic instruments in its expressive potential.

In October of 1966 they made their first studio recording, A Simple Matter of Conviction. The drummer on that occasion was the great Shelly Manne who, four years earlier, had recorded Empathy alongside Evans [both LPs have been combined on one disc as Verve 837 757 2]. This encounter would not be repeated, as witnessed by Evans' difficulty filling in the deep void left by Motian. So for yet another couple of years a variety of musicians were to take the drummer's seat - Philly Joe Jones, Arnold Wise and Jack DeJohnette - until at the end of 1968 Marry Morell would become the third permanent member of the trio.
In reality, the problem of a drummer that was not easy to resolve for a pianist like him. He was perfectly aware of the volume problems that a drummer, discreet as he may be, could pose to his music. His ideal "group" was a duet with the bass, but he knew that to achieve a certain effect a drummer was necessary. As would come out in an interview he did in 1972 for the French magazine Jazz Hot, his biggest problem with drummers was their difficulty in lowering the tension and volume of their drumming once they had intensified it - a defect which, as Evans pointed out, robbed the performance of its "breath" and weighed it down unnecessarily.

A Simple Matter Of Conviction introduced two new and exciting original compositions: Only Child and Unless It’s You (Orbit). The latter is built on an extraordinary harmonic progression that seems truly to have no end, to "go into orbit", every once in a while returning hesitantly to itself, to then spin off again. A piece that perfectly incarnates Evans' idea of harmony as an expansion from and return to the tonic. At the end of October '66 Evans made his second tour in Scandinavia, bringing only Eddie Gomez with him. He resolved his doubts concerning a drummer in the person of the young and promising Dane Alex Riel, performing alongside the Swedish singer Monica Zetterlund, with whom he had already recorded a very prestigious album a couple of years earlier."

(Bill Evans: Ritratto d’artista con pianoforte/Bill Evans: The Pianist as an Artist.Enrico Pieranunzi, Rome 1999, Stampa Alternativa)

The Bill Evans Trio - Moon Beams (1962)



The Bill Evans Trio - 1962

Bill Evans piano
Chuck Israels bass
Paul Motian drums

1: Re: Person I Knew
2: Polka Dots And Moonbeams
3: I Fall In Love Too Easily
4: Stairway To The Stars
5: If You Could See Me Now
6: It Might As Well Be Spring
7: In Love In Vain
8: Very Early

Bill Evans - The Sideman Years (1955-1957)



Track Listing:
--------------
01 - Kimona My House 03:38
02 - Like Someone In Love 05:18
03 - Ev'ry Night About This Time 02:49
04 - I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good 04:37
05 - Mother Of Earl 04:33
06 - Indian Summer 07:09
07 - Deep Purple 01:52
08 - Aeolian Drinkin' Song 06:05
09 - 'Round About Midnight 03:23
10 - Vanilla Frosting On A Beef Pie 03:56
11 - You Stepped Out Of A Dream 04:42
12 - How High The Moon 03:59
13 - Idol Of The Files 05:48
14 - Ogling Ogre 03:44
15 - Love Letters 05:07
16 - Avid Admirer 04:59

# 1 - 3: Bill Evans, piano: Dick Garcia, guitar; Camille Morin,
drums. New York City, 1955
# 4 - 6: Bill Evans, piano; Eddie Costa, vibes; Joe Puma, guitar;
Oscar Pettiford, bass; Paul Motian, drums. New York, 1956
# 7 - 10: Tony Scott, clarinet; Bill Evans, piano; Les Grinage,
bass; Lennie McBrowne, drum. New York City, July 6, 1956
# 11 - 16: Jimmy Knepper, trombone; Gene Quill, alto sax; Bill
Evans, piano; Teddy Kotick, bass; Dannie Richmond, drums. New York
City, September 1957.

Waltz for Debby - (1961)



Bill Evans Trio: Bill Evans (piano); Scott LaFaro (bass); Paul Motian (drums).
Recorded live at the Village Vanguard, New York, New York on June 25, 1961. Originally released on Riverside (9399).

1. My Foolish Heart
2. Waltz for Debby (Take 2)
3. Waltz for Debby (Take 1)
4. Detour Ahead (Take 2)
5. Detour Ahead (Take 1)
6. My Romance (Take 1)
7. My Romance (Take 2)
8. Some Other Time
9. Milestones
10. Porgy (I Loves You, Porgy)

Bill Evans Trio - Live in Buenos Aires (1979)



Temas

CD I :
1.Stella by Starlight
2.Laurie
3.Theme from M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless)
4.Turn Out the Stars
5.I Do It for Your Love
6.My Romance
7.Letter to Evan

CD II :
1.I Loves You, Porgy
2.Up With the Lark
3.Minha (All Mine)
4.Someday My Prince Will Come
5.If You Could See Me Now
6.Nardis

viernes, 28 de noviembre de 2008

Bill Evans - Half Moon Bay (1973)



Personal:
Bill Evans Trio:
Bill Evans (piano);
Eddie Gomez (bass);
Marty Morell (drums).

Tracks:
1.Introductions
2.Waltz For Debby
3.Sareen Jurer
4.Very Early
5.Autumn Leaves
6.What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life
7.Quiet Now
8.Who Can I Turn To
9.Elsa
10.Someday My Prince Will Come

Bill Evans - Jazz 625 (1965)



Bill Evans Trio, I - Jazz 625 (Vap [J] VPVR 60757)
Bill Evans (p) Chuck Israels (b) Larry Bunker (d)

'Jazz 625', London, England, March 19, 1965

Opening
Five (theme)
Elsa
Summertime
Come Rain Or Come Shine
My Foolish Heart
Re: Person I Knew
Israel
Five (theme)

Bill Evans Trio, II - Jazz 625 (Vap [J] VPVR 60765)
same session
'Jazz 625', London, England, March 19, 1965
Five (theme)
How My Heart Sings
Nardis
Who Can I Turn To?
Someday My Prince Will Come
How Deep Is The Ocean?
Waltz For Debby

Bill Evans - The Tokyo Concert (1973)



Personnel:
Bill Evans, piano
Eddie Gomez, bass
Marty Morell, drums

Vivo grabado en el Yubin Chokin Hall, Tokyo, Japan en 20 Enero, 1973.

Tracks:
1. Mornin' Glory 5:17
2. Up With the Lark 6:36
3. Yesterday I Heard the Rain 6:24
4. My Romance 8:32
5. When Autumn Comes 5:54
6. T.T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune Two) 6:22
7. Hullo Bolinas 3:46
8. Gloria's Step 7:07
9. On Green Dolphin Street 6:38

Bill Evans - Affinity (with Toots Thielemans) (1978)



Personnel: Bill Evans (acoustic & electric keyboards); Larry Schneider (soprano & tenor saxophones, alto flute); Toots Thielemans (harmonica); Marc Johnson (acoustic bass); Eliot Zigmund (drums).

1 I Do It For Your Love
2 Sno' Peas
3 This Is All I Ask
4 The Days Of Wine And Roses
5 Jesus' Last Ballad
6 Tomato Kiss
7 The Other Side Of Midnight
8 Blue And Green
9 Body & Soul

SEE...

"Affinity Near the end of 1977, at more or less the same time, Zigmund and Gomez - who had been with Evans for eleven years - quit the trio. Evans was left with the job of forming a completely new group. He played for about a year with the trusty Philly Joe Jones on drums, alternating different bass players, until an old college friend called his attention to a young bass player playing at the time with the Woody Herman orchestra, and who he thought had “something special that Bill would like.” Marc Johnson, the 24-year-old son of a pianist, had grown up listening to Bill Evans records. He had studied cello for a while before taking up the bass, and this, along with a truly unique musical sensibility, gave his playing that "vocal" appeal that Evans had always set such high store by in his own music and in that of his partners. The two finally met, after a certain hit-and-miss period of trying to hook up, and their first gig together was at the Village Vanguard. "Before we even finished the first number, I got the feeling immediately that this was the guy."
Evans had recently recorded another solo album New Conversations [Warner Bros. 2-3177] on which he made use of the same over-dubbing technique already employed on two previous albums, this time extending it to the electric piano. This album contains his first recorded version of Reflections in D which is played right through once without any over-dubbing - a piece which was to become one of his standards in this last brief stretch of musical activity. It was an old improvisation by Ellington in one of his rare trio recording sessions in the early 1950s which, in Evans' hands, sheds its somewhat decorative character and is turned into a piano essay of the highest order, both in terms of its formal construction as well as its haunting charm.
In July of 1978 Evans went off on a European tour. The Johnson/Jones combination worked well, regardless of some imbalances between the boisterous drummer and the refined young bass player whose true value and potential began to shine through. Johnson, gifted with an instinctive, genuine capacity for interplay, proved to be tuned in to Evans and also had a lot of his own things to say when soloing. The three performed at various European festivals (among which Umbria Jazz and Montreux), playing at times with guest musicians such as Lee Konitz and Kenny Burrell.

Upon his return to the USA Evans recorded the splendid Affinity [Warner Bros. 3293] where we find him encountering the marvelous lyrical sound of the phenomenal Belgian harmonica player Toots Thielemans. A successful meeting once again made possible with the help of the skillful Helen Keane; Marc Johnson on bass, Eliot Zigmund on drums and the talented young tenor saxophone player Larry Schneider completed the personnel. Proving not to recognize any distinction between genres, nor to care about where a piece came from when something struck him, Evans selected, among some well-known standards, the beautiful Sno'Peas by pianist Phil Markowitz as well as Paul Simon’s I Do It For Your Love - both very likely on the suggestion of Thielemans (“any time that I come across a tune that I really love and get into, I'll use it regardless,” as Bill once said). Evans' performance here is one of extraordinary poetic value: he and Thielemans establish a solid lyrical understanding fed by great depth and communicative authenticity which rigorously avoids the trap of mannerism.
"
(Bill Evans: Ritratto d’artista con pianoforte/Bill Evans: The Pianist as an Artist.Enrico Pieranunzi, Rome 1999, Stampa Alternativa)(thanks http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com !!!)


















The Village Vanguard sessions - (1961)



1961 CD DISC 1:
1. Spoken Introduction
2. Gloria's Step - (take 1, interrupted)
3. Alice in Wonderland - (take 1)
4. My Foolish Heart
5. All of You - (take 1)
6. Announcement and Intermission
7. My Romance - (take 1)
8. Some Other Time
9. Solar

1961 Songs DISC 2:
1. Gloria's Step - (take 2)
2. My Man's Gone Now
3. All of You - (take 2)
4. Detour Ahead - (take 1)
5. Discussing Repertoire
6. Waltz For Derby - (take 1)
7. Alice in Wonderland - (take 2)
8. Porgy (I Loves You, Porgy)
9. My Romance - (take 2)
10. Milestones

1961 Album DISC 3:
1. Detour Ahead - (take 2)
2. Gloria's Step - (take 3)
3. Waltz For Derby - (take 2)
4. All of You - (take 3)
5. Jade Visions - (take 1)
6. Jade Visions - (take 2)
7. ... A Few Final Bars

Bill Evans - piano
Scott LaFaro - bass
Paul Motian - drums

Bill Evans Trio

Bill Evans (p) Scott LaFaro (b) Paul Motian (d)
"Village Vanguard", NYC, matinee 1, June 25, 1961

Gloria's Step (take 1)Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3

Alice In Wonderland (take 1)Milestone M 9125; Fantasy OJCCD 140-2

My Foolish HeartRiverside RLP 399

All Of You (take 1)Milestone M 9125, MCD 9235-2
* Bill Evans - More From The Vanguard (Milestone M 9125)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)
* Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby (Riverside RLP 399; Fantasy OJC 210, OJCCD 210-2)
= Bill Evans - The Village Vanguard Sessions (Milestone M 47002)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)
* Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard (Fantasy OJCCD 140-2)
* Bill Evans - On Green Dolphin Street (Milestone MCD 9235-2)

Bill Evans Trio

Bill Evans (p) Scott LaFaro (b) Paul Motian (d): same personnel
"Village Vanguard", NYC, matinee 2, June 25, 1961

My Romance (take 1)Riverside RLP 399

Some Other Time-

SolarRiverside RLP 376
* Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby (Riverside RLP 399; Fantasy OJC 210, OJCCD 210-2)
= Bill Evans - The Village Vanguard Sessions (Milestone M 47002)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)
* Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard (Riverside RLP 376; Fantasy OJC 140, OJCCD 140-2)
= Bill Evans Live At The Village Vanguard (Riverside RS 3006)
= Bill Evans - The Village Vanguard Sessions (Milestone M 47002)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)

Bill Evans Trio

Bill Evans (p) Scott LaFaro (b) Paul Motian (d): same personnel
"Village Vanguard", NYC, soiree 1, June 25, 1961

Gloria's Step (take 2)Riverside RLP 376

My Man's Gone Now-

All Of You (take 2)-

Detour Ahead (take 1)Milestone M 9125; Fantasy OJCCD 210-2
* Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard (Riverside RLP 376; Fantasy OJC 140, OJCCD 140-2)
= Bill Evans Live At The Village Vanguard (Riverside RS 3006)
= Bill Evans - The Village Vanguard Sessions (Milestone M 47002)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)
* Bill Evans - More From The Vanguard (Milestone M 9125)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)
* Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby (Fantasy OJCCD 210-2)

Bill Evans Trio

Bill Evans (p) Scott LaFaro (b) Paul Motian (d): same personnel
"Village Vanguard", NYC, soiree 2, June 25, 1961

Waltz For Debby (take 1)Milestone M 9125; Fantasy OJCCD 210-2

Alice In Wonderland (take 2)Riverside RLP 376

(I Loves You,) PorgyMilestone M 47002; Fantasy OJCCD 210-2; Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3

My Romance (take 2)Milestone M 9125; Fantasy OJCCD 210-2

MilestonesRiverside RLP 399
* Bill Evans - More From The Vanguard (Milestone M 9125)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)
* Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard (Riverside RLP 376; Fantasy OJC 140, OJCCD 140-2)
= Bill Evans Live At The Village Vanguard (Riverside RS 3006)
= Bill Evans - The Village Vanguard Sessions (Milestone M 47002)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)
* Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby (Riverside RLP 399; Fantasy OJC 210, OJCCD 210-2)
= Bill Evans - The Village Vanguard Sessions (Milestone M 47002)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)

Bill Evans Trio

Bill Evans (p) Scott LaFaro (b) Paul Motian (d): same personnel
"Village Vanguard", NYC, soiree 3, June 25, 1961

Detour Ahead (take 2)Riverside RLP 399

Gloria's Step (take 3)Milestone M 9125; Fantasy OJCCD 140-2

Waltz For Debby (take 2)Riverside RLP 399

All Of You (take 3)Milestone M 9125; Fantasy OJCCD 140-2

Jade Visions (take 1)-

Jade Visions (take 2)Riverside RLP 376

(...a few final bars)Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3
* Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby (Riverside RLP 399; Fantasy OJC 210, OJCCD 210-2)
= Bill Evans - The Village Vanguard Sessions (Milestone M 47002)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)
* Bill Evans - More From The Vanguard (Milestone M 9125)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)
* Bill Evans - Sunday At The Village Vanguard (Riverside RLP 376; Fantasy OJC 140, OJCCD 140-2)
= Bill Evans Live At The Village Vanguard (Riverside RS 3006)
= Bill Evans - The Village Vanguard Sessions (Milestone M 47002)
= Bill Evans - The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard 1961 (Riverside (J) VICJ 60951/3)

SEE...


“Regarding the interpersonal and artistic relationship between Evans and LaFaro at the time, the pianist appeared even a bit irritated by the bass player's fiery nature. His desire to stay 'clean', and not mess around with dangerous experiments in drugs seemed almost to make Evans jealous: “Scott was in life right up to the hilt, he was intense in experiencing anything but bullshit, not wanting to waste time. He was discriminating about where quality might lie.” Concerning LaFaro's relationship with music, however, Evans added: “He didn't overlook traditional playing, realizing it could contribute a great deal to his ultimate product.”

Paul Motian recalled that the bass player “was practicing and playing all the time. ( ... ) His rate of improvement was so fast.” The great avant-garde pianist Paul Bley was later to observe that -"he was the only bassist in the world at that time who could play the melody to the complex charts.”

Evans himself found it amazing that LaFaro was so capable of intuiting where he was going, where his next thought was going to be. He wondered, “How did he know that I was going there.” LaFaro's explosive combination of talent, health and exuberant, almost defiant, vitality threw Evans off, putting him face to face with his own personal tragedy - his own human failure.

Evans admired the young man but, perhaps, envied a bit that self-confident unhesitating, doubt-free energy that LaFaro expressed both in his life-style and in his music.
The Village Vanguard Sessions well-illustrates the contrast between the iconoclast LaFaro and the introverted, subtly conservative Evans. The young bass player who lived life to the fullest “and tasted it down to the last drop wanted more than anything to take risks” (“I don’t like to look back because the whole point in jazz is doing it now.”) This he does with extraordinary results in All Of You, lingering a long time on a very dissonant minor second, that he "walks" confidently along the piece, refusing to stay consonant with the chord flow; or in Milestones, where LaFaro even succeeds in dragging Evans along on a couple of very daring excursions, from which the pianist withdraws immediately to go back to chiseling out his bewitching neo-Impressionistic harmonies. Also in this piece, the bass player seems deliberately to refuse to "walk" in 4/4 in the footsteps of Motian’s orthodox comping, preferring to depart with a solo line of his own that counterpoints what Evans' is doing with his piano. At the end of the tune, LaFaro fools around rather provocatively with some notes, to the laughter of the crowd, while Evans stays locked himself inside his dark, doubt-filled world.

“I never listen to the words of songs, I am rarely aware of them,” he told Len Lyons in a 1976 interview. Yet it seems somewhat more than a coincidence that the text of Detour Ahead contains expressions like “You fool, you've set off in the wrong direction,” “turn back while there's still time,” and “don’t you see the danger signs.” Detour Ahead, along with My Foolish Heart, My Man’s Gone Now and Porgy, is one of the ballads that Evans chose to play that evening. It is hard to imagine that this was a purely arbitrary choice. In fact, his interpretation of the song is a truly touching interaction with a tune which he had surely heard Billie Holiday sing, lyrics not excluded.
Other roads, with their hidden perils, were waiting to seal Scott LaFaro's tragic fate. At the end of those historic sets, as the three were leaving the Village Vanguard, he had spontaneously expressed with great joy to Motian and Evans, “these two weeks have been exceptional, I've finally made an album I'm happy with!” On the night of July 5 1961, ten days after that magical evening, while going home after a visit to a friend, and having ignored the urgings of pianist-composer Gap Mangione to stay over and leave the next day, he lost control of his Chrysler and went off the road into a tree. Both he and the friend riding with him were killed instantly.

This very gifted and unfortunate musician had, in a very short time, caused a complete revolution in conceptual/technical approach to bass playing. He blazed a new trail for the role of his instrument in small groups, expanding its solo possibilities through the exploitation of its upper register, the production of harmonics, the use of double and triple stops, and so on. Scott LaFaro's tragic death was a shock for Evans. A gray veil of sadness shrouded his already over-complicated existence, that “for several months went in a direction not at all constructive... musically everything seemed to stop. I didn't even play at home.”

Many years later, in 1984, the ever-zealous and thoughtful Orrin Keepnews published other takes from those extraordinary evenings. We find in these the same extremely high artistic level as those performances which even the exacting Evans had considered worthy of publication. These seven rediscovered performances are interesting for several aspects such as, in particular, a greater self-confidence as compared with those on the classic albums originally published from this concert. Perhaps this quality is related to the fact that Detour Ahead, Waltz For Debby, Jade Visions and Alice In Wonderland were revived in their first takes, all of them providing fresher interpretations than the previously published versions. It is as if, in approaching them, the three had experienced that higher intensity of emotion and concentration that almost always happens when you meet up with something that you have not handled for a long time finding it, therefore, somehow "new".

In other cases the opposite happens - as in All Of You, for example. The third take of this tune works better, more vigorous and appealing than the "classic" one, which was the second take played on that day. Here LaFaro's playing is more imaginative, provocative and audacious than ever, and Evans sounds more determined and energetic than usual. While the above-mentioned pieces betray a vague sense of boredom after all, repeating a piece after a very short time can, understandably, create a sense of deja vu causing a lowering of interest and a proportional increase in routine - surprisingly, in All Of You the reverse is true.

A key element in explaining this may be the presence in the audience of some fellow-musicians at the evening concert, who tacitly stimulated the three to perform at their best. In any case, these seven rediscovered pieces take nothing away and, if anything, only add to the magic of that special evening, highlighting, among other things, the enormous amount of propulsive energy that Motian was able to produce. He swings hard, chancing a more articulated multi-rhythmic approach than in the thirteen "classic" pieces. We feel, almost palpably, how that trio was a living organism: “a three-person voice as one voice,” Motian would say.

But now LaFaro was no longer there. That widening of musical horizons that the three had believed they could carry out together those concerts representing a first important leg of the journey - had been rudely interrupted."
(Bill Evans: Ritratto d’artista con pianoforte/Bill Evans: The Pianist as an Artist.Enrico Pieranunzi, Rome 1999, Stampa Alternativa)(thanks http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com !!!)

Explorations - Bill Evans Trio (1961)



Bill Evans (p) Scott LaFaro (b) Paul Motian (d)
NYC, February 2, 1961

IsraelRiverside RLP 351

Haunted Heart-

Beautiful Love (take 2)-

ElsaRiverside R 45462, RLP 351

NardisRiverside RLP 351

How Deep Is The Ocean?Riverside R 45462, RLP 351

I Wish I KnewRiverside RLP 351

Sweet And Lovely-

Beautiful Love (take 1)Fantasy OJCCD 037-2

The Boy Next DoorMilestone M 47034; Fantasy OJCCD 037-2
* Bill Evans - Explorations (Riverside RLP 351; Fantasy OJC 037, OJCCD 037-2)
= Bill Evans - Spring Leaves (Milestone M 47034)
* Bill Evans - Elsa c/w How Deep Is The Ocean? (Riverside R 45462)

SEE...

Explorations [RLP-351; OJCCD 037-2] was recorded on February 2, 1961. The demanding, critical Evans was in no rush to record, something which made Keepnews very anxious. The Riverside label was going through an expansion and image-building phase in which Evans played no small part. Between Portrait in Jazz and Explorations the trio went on the road, playing a few nights at Birdland in the spring of 1960, but Evans carried on with his activity as sideman. By now he was a deluxe contributor to contexts very distant from him, like J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding's quintet, with whom he recorded in the Fall of that same year, or the four-trombone septet led by Winding himself with whom he recorded that December. He was in dire need of funds. He had to do studio work with various groups other than his trio to support his narcotics habit, a problem that over the years was becoming increasingly serious, and which created a constant need for money. His producer's loans were not always enough to get him out of the disastrous situation that his self-destructive side had landed him in. As if in a sort of double-exposure, Bill pursued his musical objectives with great honesty and intellectual lucidity while his private life was deeply marred. The heroin weakened his perception of an outside world that seemed all too tough to him. It was his refuge, but a punishment as well – the price of such a gift.
How Deep is the Ocean

Shy and introverted, “ I've always been basically introspective,” Evans managed his dependency with that same discretion that we find in his music. Nonetheless, it naturally created enormous problems for him in his personal, and especially intimate, relationships. Music became more and more his ivory tower, where he barricaded himself in an attempt to deny internal crisis. He was moving towards a kind of abstracted intellectual vision, rich in religious sentiment, that barely hid his progressive dissociation and internal bewilderment. (“My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul”). Perhaps in this scenario we can find a plausible explanation for Evans' aversion to any sort of musical transgression, even that in which he revealed himself so great a protagonist.

His work of 1960 offers a two pertinent examples on this point: the first was the recording of Jazz In The Space Age with George Russell, who had always believed in and encouraged, more than the pianist himself, Evans' innovative talent. The second one was the recording of Jazz Abstractions, two Third-Stream sets of variations by Günter Schuller (one on a theme by Thelonious Monk and one on a theme by John Lewis). A point of interest in the latter recording was that Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy were part of the group. These two musicians were hatching the total renovation of the formal models that had characterized jazz up to then, but Evans was evidently not particularly moved. He was going his own way, profoundly rooted in the traditional jazz idiom.

While extremely well-versed in 20th century European classical music, and even very knowledgeable about advanced compositional techniques (such as serialism), he was not drawn to experimentation. In Chromatic Universe Part III Russell left room for a two-piano free improvisation: Evans and Paul Bley (a Canadian pianist already part of the avant-garde scene) engaged in a duet with no pre-established layout, threading themselves through the asymmetrical rhythmic background traced by Don Lamond and Milt Hinton. On the surface the occasion could be said to have been a historic one, but in reality the only one who seemed to really believe in it was Bley. Evans showed some uneasiness and struggled to let himself go. A missed opportunity, perhaps, even though the duet offered some very valuable moments.

Evans' expressive world, in any case, was decidedly another, the proof of which would be seen a short time later when he went into the studio to record Explorations (February 1961), his fourth personal album and second recorded with LaFaro and Motian. The album was a further step towards that "trialogue", that three-way colloquy they were looking for. Nardis and Sweet And Lovely, in particular, are remarkable results for these three on their way to emancipation from that worn-out pattern of a pianist in the foreground with bass and drums just comping.
The roles are inverted for a while in Nardis. The theme stated, LaFaro soars into a magnificent solo (maybe this amazing performance had something to do with the fact that just two days earlier he had recorded the Atlantic album Ornette! with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell); Evans backs him with a simple but engagingly voiced melody, its tone permeated with that French Impressionist aura he loved. He is extremely sensitive in adapting to LaFaro's improvisational line, accurately choosing the height of the sounds and alternating open or close harmony to modulate the color of his voicing. When Bill's turn comes up his very colloquial solo proves how maximum results can be achieved with minimum means. His right hand, in fact, plays a few sparing notes loaded with an emotionally dense "specific weight", giving us a clear example of his ability to make the piano “a complete expressive musical medium.” LaFaro then takes up his own individual path, playing in counterpoint to the new melody that Evans is extemporaneously composing and interpreting on the piece's chord changes. Finally, in its coda, Nardis offers us a fleeting memory of the celebrated Prelude in C Sharp Minor, by Rachmaninov, whose marked Russian-ness he had always been very fond of. Beyond everything already said above, and the fact that the version that we are talking about was the first that Evans recorded in trio, Nardis deserves a special digression, which is a little story in itself. As any jazz student or professional jazz player knows, in every jazz tune collection Nardis is generally credited to Miles Davis even though, surprisingly, its composer never recorded it. According to a personal recollection of Evans', referring to a 1958 session with Cannonball Adderley, “Miles came along to the studio with it, and you could see that the guys were struggling with it. Miles wasn't happy with it either but after the date he said that I was the only one to play it in the way that he wanted. I must have helped his royalties over the years, because I have never stopped playing it. It has gone on evolving with every trio I have had!”

Despite this recollection, and also thanks to the information kindly passed along to this writer by the well-known jazz critic Ira Gitler concerning the numerous, dexterous, and sometimes even bold-faced "misappropriations" that Miles was known for (e.g.: Solar), it is highly improbable that Davis really wrote the tune. It is very probable, however, that it was really written by guitarist Chuck Wayne, whose ancestry was Slavic - which would finally clear up the mystery surrounding a piece written in E minor, a very comfortable key for the guitar but a decidedly awkward and unnatural one for the trumpet. Its composer's Slavic roots would also explain the Oriental over tones of a piece that, most likely for this precise reason, had such a compelling impact on Evans in his final period.

To get back to Explorations, Israel and Beautiful Love are, in terms of group work, two important examples of the trio's progress in their desired direction, that of an ever deepening and complex work of "simultaneous improvisation" for three equal partners. In the first of the two selections, as also noted previously with Sweet and Lovely, and perhaps influenced in mood by the ingenious rendition some time earlier by Thelonious Monk, whom it is known that Evans deeply admired, the trio breathes like a living organism. When one of the three starts driving or increasing the sound intensity by means of a stronger musical energy, the other two juxtapose themselves to the new situation. The way Evans does it is to enrich and broaden his voicing, making the piano resound like a full orchestra in which the whole range of frequencies is activated at the same time to flank and enhance LaFaro's energetic outburst.

Aside from this group progress, Explorations offers good examples in another area where Evans was having important artistic results: that of ballad interpreting. The "romantic" aspect of jazz (a term that the pianist wasn't crazy about, at least in its superficial and obvious sense) had been, before Evans, the almost exclusive domain of singers or horn players (Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Davis himself, Chet Baker, Helen Merrill). Never, in the history of jazz, had the piano been used as a vehicle to "sing" stories from the heart [emphasis mine]- or their sad endings either - like a trumpet, sax or human voice had been. Evans was a true revolutionary in this. He changed a solidly established tradition, expanding it to include the piano which, before then, had been thought of either as a percussion instrument or as an "imitator" of the trumpet or sax, the most visible jazz instruments.

Through some of the slow pieces on Explorations, Evans throws open a door to re-embrace the very ancient popular song tradition, making his songs heirs to the 19th century European Lieder. Just as jazz, in the early 60s, was speaking out in a louder voice to a wider audience (John Coltrane's famous quartet was born, in fact, in 1961), Evans was choosing to go in the opposite direction and speak softly, and the conversation was with himself. If anything, he would invite a few, discreet friends to listen. While Coltrane would steep his music in theological query, and come up with a positive and sure response, in How Deep Is The Ocean or in I Wish I Knew, Evans' seems to wonder, without ever getting to a satisfying answer, about Man, about the meaning of existence, about the "unbearable lightness of being".
His musical processes are, of course, technically analyzable. In the first of the two selections, for instance, he never plays the original melody, landing there only at the very end of a sort of (re) compositional journey founded on completely new melodic lines. Warren Bernhardt, pianist and Evans' personal friend, states that despite the fact that he never plays the original melody here, he brings out its “quintessence.” The something that makes How Deep Is The Ocean (as it did Spring Is Here) an extremely significant musical event is to be found, in reality, in silence, in the unspoken - but for this reason spoken in a more penetrating way – “communication by implication.”

His music evokes a profound and unconscious reality where the resonant vibration of the instrument, the relationship between one sound and another, between one melodic fragment and the next, become 'psychic images' - a minimum of sounds containing a maximum in human content.


“The emotional content of his work was unique in his generation. He could take a standard show tune, originally attractive, yet sullied by the accretion over the years of countless trivial associations, and give it a reading which seemed not merely to restore its pristine appeal but simultaneously to embody a truly personal vision, in comparison with which the basic tune seemed but a desultory thought. His (re) compositions - for no other description will suffice - of such material were carried through with immense discretion, as though the component notes of each and every chord had been subjected to prolonged consideration, as though the rhythmic imaginativeness and flexibility involved in the task, the minute gradations of touch and subtle shifts of emphasis, had been evolved with that one interpretation in mind.” (Michael James in the liner notes of the two 1961 Village Vanguard albums)."

(Bill Evans: Ritratto d’artista con pianoforte/Bill Evans: The Pianist as an Artist.Enrico Pieranunzi, Rome 1999, Stampa Alternativa)(thanks http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com !!!)

Bill Evans - Sunday at the village Vanguard (1961)




1. Gloria's Step
2. Gloria's Step
3. My Man's Gone Now
4. Solar
5. Alice in Wonderland
6. Alice in Wonderland
7. All of You
8. All of You
9. Jade Visions
10. Jade Visions

Bill Evans Trio

Bill Evans (p) Scott LaFaro (b) Paul Motian (d)

"Village Vanguard", NYC, matinee 1, June 25, 1961
"Village Vanguard", NYC, matinee 2, June 25, 1961
"Village Vanguard", NYC, soiree 1, June 25, 1961
"Village Vanguard", NYC, soiree 2, June 25, 1961
"Village Vanguard", NYC, soiree 3, June 25, 1961

SEE...

"In the spring of 1961, since the trio was going strong, they decided to risk a live album, notwithstanding all the technical problems associated with this type of recording, which was not so common a practice at that time. The planned date was Sunday, June 25th, the last day of a two-week gig at the Village Vanguard. The trio played five sets that day, two in the afternoon between 4.30 and 6.30, and three in the evening, starting at 9.30. A total of thirteen pieces were recorded, five of which only once, others twice, and only a couple (Gloria's Step and All Of You) three times. Some selections had never been recorded by the trio before; another (LaFaro's Jade Visions), turned into a sort of "public rehearsal". Finally, My Romance and Waltz For Debby, which Evans had recorded unaccompanied on his debut album, were re-packaged for the trio setting.

The trio reached an apex here that they had been working towards for a couple of years. In one of those coincidences not infrequent in the history of jazz, all three seem to be arriving simultaneously at a ripening of their respective and different talents. Their individual creativity and musicality has peaked, the desire and capacity of each to enter the musical spirit of the other, giving birth to a musical miracle.
Although the concert takes place before an audience, the three seem to interact exclusively among themselves and relate only to the music. This contributes to the almost palpable, breath-taking density of these recordings where the musicians follow their itinerary of pure, almost merciless honesty. In the background you hear the chatter and laughter of the audience, but the trio pays no heed. Each of them is totally concentrated on his own sound while carefully listening to that of the others: the inner mechanism of the trio has been carried to its perfect balance. Each of the three completes a little revolution, My Foolish Heart (which Evans records for the first time here) being an excellent example. Here only the melody is played, but the calm sense of humble and participant singing with which Evans interprets Young's song is exalted by the parsimonious interventions of LaFaro, whose profound and resonant notes seem to anxiously await the melody in astonishment, and to dialogue with it. This performance is permeated with the sense of the yet-to-be-discovered, an unknown dimension in which Motian’s role is decisive; in fact, he plays with the melody, making of the delicate contact between his brushes and cymbals emotionally meaningful interjections that closely follow the "little story in music" that Evans is telling.

LaFaro's true creative stature begins to come out on My Romance. In December of the previous year the 25-year-old bass player had played on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz. It was probably that contact to finally assuage his uncertainties about trying out harmonic and rhythmic paths more unconventional than those of recent trends. He literally explodes in Solar, which is, from every point of view, the most innovative result of this historic occasion, After an opening where LaFaro follows in the steps of the melody Evans is playing, the latter begins to improvise an octave-doubled single line. Echoes of Tristano reemerge, but what is most remarkable is that beneath him LaFaro, picks up the theme and gradually exploits some of its chromatic fragments. The bass seems to go off on its own, ignoring the piano and drums, as he hazards some sharp intervals, clambering up harmonies far away from the basic one, with each of the three keeping an eye on the structure of the piece while doing his own thing. Evans contributes to making Davis' piece dramatic by his insistent drilling of its motivic cell, which he extrapolates and makes into the germinating cell of another, extemporaneously composed line. The number ends in a very open and completely unconventional way for the time, after a 12-bar Motian/Evans "trade" in which the pianist boosts the volume of his chord voicing to deal with the increasing sound impact of the drums. This ending seems to pose a question: What comes next? or even What has just happened? It seems to say: "these were only a few of the possibilities that we could have explored; and we'll surely go looking for others next time ….”

Two of the selections played on that very special Sunday at the Village Vanguard [3RCD-4443-2]were LaFaro's contributions, both deviating from the prevailing compositional habits: Jade Visions, which alternates 4/4 and 5/4 meters, and Gloria’s Step, a theme whose first section unfolds over 5 bars. Here he ventures into a very audacious solo, letting the phrasing of his bass "fly' into a vigorous monologue bursting with the desire to go beyond. His instrumental skills are astonishing, he pushes them to the edge, not for mere virtuosity's sake, but in order to have available the widest possible range of sound and tone contrasts (low notes of the instrument responding to high ones, for instance).
LaFaro is the real co-protagonist of this historical recording. His relationship with Evans is telepathic. He inserts himself naturally among the piano's silences and breaths, almost always stubbornly refusing to ‘walk’ as the majority of his colleagues did in those days. Even in All Of You, where he could do it, he breaks up the tempo, thus creating a contrast with Motian. Observing these performances a bit more closely, it is clear that some of the material has to do with Miles Davis, both because they use two of his compositions (Solar and Milestones) and because of some important performances of his (All Of You and Gershwin's My Man’s Gone Now and I Loves You Porgy). All of which is understandable given Evans’ recent association with the trumpeter.

Evans plays My Foolish Heart in A major, a key generally considered “awkward" (it is very probable that LaFaro was no stranger to the choice of this key as a way to exploit the open strings of the bass); and My Man’s Gone Now, which the pianist "sings" with deep nostalgic participation, is played in E minor, the same key as his favorite Nardis - both of which keys Evans would claim to love playing in. Their awkwardness, in reality, could help avoid “mechanical" improvisation, since a less common key forces the ear into the highest concentration. On the other hand a piece played in an easier or more common key could encourage a sort of repetitive automatism that counts on what the hands “already know". We find an illustration of this in Alice In Wonderland where LaFaro seems to be suffering for the rather banal and obvious character of the piece."
(Bill Evans: Ritratto d’artista con pianoforte/Bill Evans: The Pianist as an Artist.Enrico Pieranunzi, Rome 1999, Stampa Alternativa)(thanks http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com !!!)