You can find our picks for the Essential Bill Evans titles below:
You can listen to and read about Evans's "Sunday at the
Village Vanguard" at
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Bill Evans, Early On
When pianist Bill Evans began exploring the jazz idiom, the mix of available keyboard heroes stretched from James P. Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith to Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and, in the 1940s, the burgeoning bebop pioneers. Evans, born August 16, 1929, in Plainfield, New Jersey, took from this mix a seemingly irreducible mix of elements. At first, Evans played spirited bop, echoing Bud Powell and showing hints of the soulful, physical intensity of Horace Silver. Before the 1950s were complete, Evans had participated in two groundbreaking musical events: playing with the Miles Davis band on "Kind of Blue" and recording his own modernist-colored classic tune "Peace Piece" on the "Everybody Digs Bill Evans" album.
"Kind of Blue"
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"Everybody Digs Bill Evans"
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It's True: Everybody Digs Bill
It was a brash move in 1958 for Riverside Records, whose biggest star was Thelonious Monk, to name an album "Everybody Digs Bill Evans." What's more, the cover featured different musicians' signatures, signing their approval of Evans. By this time, Evans had played brilliantly on albums by Art Farmer ("Modern Art") and Charles Mingus ("East Coasting"), but he struck aesthetic gold with his own trio, featuring drummer Paul Motian and bassist Scott LaFaro. It was this trio that startled audiences with sheer virtuosity, powered by LaFaro's fleet, dipping bass and the group's combined command of harmony, melody, and rhythm. Evans was unmoored with LaFaro and Motian, playing with so much flair that it seemed he was overrun with ideas. The trio's best-known document, "Sunday at the Village Vanguard," and its lesser-known sequel, "Waltz for Debby" (taken from the same June 1961 concert), caught Evans at an early peak, revealing a fully formed jazz genius barely in his 30s.
"Modern Art"
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"Sunday at the Village Vanguard"
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"Waltz for Debby"
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Tragedy, Seclusion, and Return
Within days of the trio's Village Vanguard concerts, LaFaro died tragically in an automobile accident. Evans slipped away into seclusion, indulging his heroin addiction, a common malady among jazz musicians of the era. The combined impact of drug addiction and seclusion would have a lasting impact on Evans, whose music increasingly reflected his emotional introversion through the 1960s. When he rebounded from the LaFaro tragedy, Evans plowed into solo sets and recorded spectacularly with his favorite guitarist, Jim Hall, on "Undercurrent." The music here ached with austerity even when flush with deep blue colors. Despite the sometimes rich, sometimes stark textures of "Undercurrent," Evans amped the pressure considerably on Cannonball Adderley's "Interplay" just a couple months later, all the while trying out new bassists and drummers who might fit his demands and hitting it off particularly with bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Shelly Manne on "Empathy."
"Undercurrent"
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"Interplay"
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"Empathy/A Simple Matter of Conviction"
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Evans the Survivor
Jazz critic Gene Lees wrote that Evans's career is the musical representation of the longest suicide note in jazz history. If that's so, his departure from Riverside Records and lengthy contract with Verve Records is an odd chapter in the note. Evans's experimental side came out most famously for Verve when the pianist overdubbed himself to make a piano-ensemble CD consisting of himself playing the same tune on multiple overdubbed tracks. It was a first for him--and perhaps for jazz. The resulting LP, "Conversations with Myself," was a sizable success, winning Evans his first Grammy Award. Evans, who by this time had developed a certain mystique, made "Conversations" an extremely innovative (if very calm) document, catching himself in private mode. At the same time, he found himself in numerous large-ensemble recording sessions with composer Gary McFarland and conductor Claus Ogerman. Parallel to these excursions, Evans was engrossed in new trio work, settling on bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Larry Bunker for such magnificent sessions as "Trio '64."
"Conversations with Myself"
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"Further Conversations with Myself"
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"Trio '64"
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Evans in the 1970s: Winning Praise
Evans's playing didn't fit in with the free-jazz movement, playing with an abundance of reserve as record labels began documenting the intensification of jazz. Where Pharoah Sanders and late-period John Coltrane were squall-like forces, Evans pressed on with his delicate, complex harmonies. He remained in the commercial spotlight, winning accolades and recording at an almost breakneck pace. Then came the 1970s, when Evans garnered a mountain of acclaim and several more Grammy Awards. Late in the decade, when Evans formed what's become known as his "second" great trio (this one with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera), he noted that, throughout the '60s, his trios didn't challenge themselves thoroughly. He looked to LaBarbera and Johnson to jump-start a fully breathing, creative jazz trio that would challenge him--and they did.
"We Will Meet Again" (1980)
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"At the Montreux Jazz Festival" (1968)
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"Alone" (1970)
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"But Beautiful" (1974)
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Lightning Strikes Twice and the New Great Trio
Evans's 1970s work stands out for two reasons: "The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album" and the duo's "Together Again," which has just been reissued. Bennett and Evans recorded their first encounter in mid-'75, and they shared something alchemical. Bennett delved rather than swung, finding Evans's dark, harmonic side entirely to his liking. For his part, Evans played up to Bennett, swinging with elegance and feeling. When they reconvened in 1976, the results were no less staggering. Bennett indulged a late-night, metaphysical spin on the tunes, and Evans spun himself into a harmonic froth of emotional brittleness. While Bennett and Evans were terrifically matched, the pianist must have been exponentially more thrilled as the decade closed and his new trio with Marc Johnson and Joe LaBarbera approached the creative power of the LaFaro and Motian trio had in the early '60s. One listen to the six CDs of "Turn Out the Stars: The Last Village Vanguard Recordings" shows the force Evans & Co. generated. He was able again to unharness the flood of music coming through the keyboard, just as Johnson and LaBarbera dug deeply into the many layers of Evans's improvisations and tunes. Alas, it was during a stint with the trio that LaBarbera rushed Evans to a New York hospital while the pianist slipped into unconsciousness. He died September 15, 1980, at the age of 51.
"The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album"
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"Together Again"
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"Turn Out the Stars"
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