Oh man - I had no idea he played on "Chet." I missed that memo completely! That boggles the mind. He is now even more of a legend to me, if such a thing is possible. He never imposed his ego on either that masterwork or "Kind Of Blue." He blended in appropriately, skillfully and beautifully on both albums.
'Evans influenced the character Seb in the film La La Land musically and in fashion.' 'La La Land' Costume Designer Explains the Retro Realistic Look of the Film
That may be true, but the film character's persona seemed diametrically opposite to Bill Evans' persona. Bill was on an entirely different intellectual and spiritual level, and the outward expression of his personality was entirely different than the film character's. Bill was motivated by different forces as well.
Maybe I should add that Bill Evans was not in a struggle between the opportunity to play HIS music versus being forced to play something else altogether (as the character in the film). Bill just played according to his musical spirit all through his life.
We will run out of OPs monthly themes in July. U guys have Ideas for the remaining months? Best cover tune? Least favorite LP? Best standard? Best original song? Best hair style? - I'm more a fan of the nebbishy early look than the wolfman late-period
Bill Evans piano work on Kind of Blue is nothing short of amazing. This was the first time I ever heard the man play. I have Some other Time and enjoy what a good relaxing listen. Recommendations for Bill Evans CDs are welcome.
If you love his play on Kind of Blue, you want 'Peace Piece’, too, which is included in the album 'Everybody Digs Bill Evans’. Get the cheapy OJC CD.
Contracting with Columbia Records. LondonJazz: LP REVIEW: Bill Evans – The Bill Evans Album The Great Columbia Jazz Purge: Coleman, Evans, Jarrett, And Mingus
And conversely... That IS jazz. The truth of rhythmic poetry found in Jazz; the poem; the poetic journey above and the piano of Bill Evans. I'm not in the habit of asking for forgiveness... I usually opt for self recognition of my muddled thoughts or actions and moving on; but in this case; Tribute and Yesternow and any others that peruse this...forgive my inane utterance. Upon further immersing myself in; revisiting this thread and coming upon the above posting by Yesternow and the truthful and succinct observation by Tribute, I felt the need to express something... but nothing of any value came to mind. Maybe what would have been preferable, preferable by far; would have simply been a boldly declarative Right On! I won't even use the late hour or my mental exhaustion as an excuse. I'll just accept my muddled thought of the moment and having expressed remorse and begged forgiveness; put on You Must Believe In Spring, sink in, get lost and move on.
I recently acquired an import cd of BE at Ronnie Scotts in August 1980. Magnificent is too inadequate a word.
It used to clearly be Everybody Digs Bill Evans, but I think it switched over to From Left To Right after I made my custom version from The Complete Bill Evans On Verve box set.
Especially since the Keystone was less than 1 mile from where I am sitting now at my office in downtown SF. (There are some photos online if you are interested.) Makes me glad I had the sense to go see Jim Hall at the Village Gate in NYC in 1986/7 and Hank Jones at Bradleys. Both clubs gone; both artists gone too. Sad. Met a lady recently who saw many jazz greats at the Blackhawk here in SF as well. And, I recently discovered that BE played Vancouver many times back in the day. I wonder where....
Time flies. May already and time for: Best solo album! Not really an enthusiast of solo albums so I ask your help here. I know that @Tribute and @yasujiro like those albums... Do "from Left to Right" or "Symbiosis" count as solo ? No ?! Thought so... Here's one of the first and main solo works:
I'm not a big fan of unaccompanied jazz solo recordings myself, I'm with you. That said I'm not very familiar w bill solo material so I'll check it out in honor of the May topic. I know the albums "conversations w myself" are made from layers of overdubs he did alone and was a pretty avant garde idea for a straight ahead jazz record at the time probably? I'm going to check those out first. Are there fans of those albums here?
As I recall Bill had two full albums of piano solos, Alone on Verve in the mid 60's and Alone (Again) on Fantasy in the mid 70's. And three "Conversations" albums, Conversations With Myself (three pianos), Further Conversations With Myself (two pianos) and New Conversations (includes electric piano). To be honest none of those are among my favorites of his albums but I'll listen again. EDIT: also there were the solo sessions on Riverside around 1962 or 3 that came out posthumously.
In the program with Marian Mcpartland, Evans stated that he preferred to play solo rather than trio setting.
I couldn’t find the quote. Sorry. Start to listen at 17' 20. This whole clip is a must-listen to understand the music of Bill Evans.
