Welcome to the Bill Evans thread! There’s so much to talk about that we’ll give him an entire year thread. 2018 is Bill Evans year here at SHF! Please post your opinion about the musician, the artist, the man… The album you are currently listening, your favorite one… Shows you’ve attended… We’ll also have a theme per month: January (starting now December 2017): best album as sideman February: best work unit (duo, trio, ...)March: best live albumApril best studio albumMay best solo albumJune best box set / compilationJuly best composition August, September, November and December – I’ll wait for your suggestions. He deserves a thread as big as his talent.
Great idea. I look forward to this thread on one of my all time favorite pianists. Kind of Blue is certanly one of his great achievements as a sideman and I love that album, I do. However for the sake of variety I will go for his work with George Russell because it revealed a side of Bill one doesn't hear on his own albums. Jazz In The Space Age on the Decca label is my choice for best sideman recording though I'm ignoring another favorite, Chet by Chet Baker. On that title he sticks closer to his usual wonderfully understated style, hence my choice of Jazz In The Space Age. I'm going to spin it tonight and hopefully return with more than "it's great" for a reason.
Well, Kind of Blue is only my favorite Jazz album of all time, so I think I’ll go with that one. Those first notes on So What set the entire mood of the album.
After listening to Jazz In The Space Age I was reminded of the second pianist on the recording, Paul Bley. What I noticed was how easily the two interweaved their ideas without stepping on the other person's playing. It makes me think that was a skill Bill had with his first trio which famously shared the solo spotlight and moved in and out of solos vs comping. The other thing I noticed is that Bill's playing wasn't all that different from his own albums. The difference was obviously the written music of Russell which was kind of out there for the time. For the those who think Bill is a "cocktail" pianist, I would direct them to this album and tell them to listen up and tell me they still believe that. Whether this is Bill's shining moment as a sideman, I'm not sure but it is for me one of his most interesting recordings as a sideman, even though part of that is on George Russell's writing and not necessarily Bill's playing. Still, it shows his curiosity and skills that allowed him to explore some interesting facets of jazz that were truly cutting edge for the time. George Russell was one of the most forward thinking composers in jazz and Bill handled it like the consummate artist we know he was.
Presumably the most distinguished Southeastern Louisiana University graduate in jazz history Can you imagine a cool NYC jazz hepcat spending 4 years in Hammond Louisiana? In the late '40s yet? Ironically enough, Evans credited several music professors there as being major influences on his work, and later said his years in Hammond were the happiest of his life. If you want to pay homage, he's buried at Roselawn cemetery in Baton Rouge: He got a nice spot, right under the tree.
Kind of Blue is the obvious choice as sideman. Although some would argue he was much more than a sideman on that and had as much to do with the writing and arrangements as Miles. Another great one is Modern Art by Art Farmer.
I posted this story in another thread a while ago, but Evans had the tendency to be a bit of a loner. One time in the late '70s, he was playing Jonathan Swift's in Harvard Square. My sister was there to listen to him. During an intermission, she went into the back stairwell and happened upon Evans sitting by himself on the stairs. She started chatting with him and they sort of hit it off. They exchanged addresses and became penpals. They continued to write each other until he passed away.
Evans is understated and always finds the right notes. I just listened to this wonderful recording again, Hubbard is cooking and Dolphy is always a treat.
It leaves a bit hesitation to say that Evans was a sideman of Kind of Blue. Because one of the main conceptions of the album relies on Evans himself. From Wikipedia on Peace Piece. It seems rather persuasive to me that Evans was actually the co-leader of Kind of Blue.
“He plays the piano the way it should be played” (Davis about Bill Evans) If one day I find this post I'll give it a big "like".
I like forward to this thread, because Bill Evans is the guy who opened my ears to classic jazz. Sideman: Kind Of Blue. Oliver Nelson gets second place.
I was saving this "joke" for later... Guess our love for Bill is not the only thing we share. Thanks Yasujiro for your posts.
Yasujiro, whenever I see your posts about Bill I think about Ryo Fukui. He has some very nice tunes, and he shows a lot of love for Bill as well.
We've seen a lot of artists paying tribute to Bill all these years, and there are also great albums. So here's a theme for: August best tribute
This morning I listened to Pike's Peak before work and this evening I played the Herbie Mann album Nirvana that features him with the Bill Evans Trio which was Chuck Israel and Paul Motian in the bass and drum position respectively. I think Yesternow might appreciate Nirvana a bit more than Pike's Peak as it is more in line with what you would have heard from Bill's own recordings at the time. The leader holds back and lets the trio play freedom with plenty of solo space for Bill. The Dave Pike album is decidedly more energetic for sure but I like it well enough though would not pronounce it necessary. Nirvana has a track cowritten by Eric Satie titled Gymnopedie that I really enjoy. I'm not sire of the story around that tune and if ot's jist a tweaking of a Satie song. If anyone knows the details please share. Willow Weep For Me is taken with more of a bluesy sound than I expected for some reason. Tomorrow I'm going to give the Mngus album East Coasting a spin.
Since I didn't post the image I wanted to point out this is the second album I mentioned in post #5 above. It credits Bill Evans and the George Russell Orchestra as coleaders but I've always kept it with Russell's releases. It's on Columbia which Bill was on for a short while. Jazz In The Space Age is quite different than this one.
OK,OK... not the best example of a sideman's work. Collaboration or duo fits best probably. Anyway, one of my first records when I started to search for "more" Evans. And, for me, one of the best record covers in Jazz: Bill Evans / Jim Hall - undercurrents (1962)