Bill Evans Trio: At The Village Vanguard 1961 Revisited

Imagine yourself in Greenwich Village June 25, 1961. You are in attendance at a small pie shaped club called the Village Vanguard run by Max Gordon. This is before it was to be crowned as a jazz holy ground. Sonny Rollins had recorded his famous A Night At The "Village Vanguard" (Blue Note, 1957). John Coltrane would record there in November of 1961 and again in 1966. The spot is a shrine with sessions from legends such as Albert Ayler, Joe Henderson, Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper, and a list of artists too long to detail here.

Back in the summer of 1961, Bill Evans was booked for a two week engagement at the venue. He was yet to become the celebrated artist we now acknowledge. Miles Davis though, recognized his talents, hiring him for his working group and recording the best selling jazz album of all time Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) with Evans at the keyboard. The pianist though moved on from Davis' band later that year to form his own trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, two talented yet at that moment, unknown musicians.

Back to that Sunday in June, which was the end of Evans' two week run. Attendance was sparse at the Village Vanguard, maybe because the young folk singer Bob Dylan was making a name for himself playing in Greenwich Village and would soon be signed to Columbia Records by John Hammond. Nonetheless, you're there to make jazz history. We can hear you in the crowd talking, applauding, and clinking glasses during the trio's set. The background sounds are anything but a distraction. They are intrinsic to the virtual in-person listening experience. This Revisited edition from ezz-thetics returns the full sounds of that afternoon and evening by delivering both of the original releases, Sunday At The Village Vanguard (Riverside 1961) and Waltz For Debby (Riverside, 1962) without partitioned breaks between tracks. This unquestionably recreates the in-person experience.

If you were there, you were part of history. This music is certainly on most jazz connoisseur's desert island picks. The interplay and connection between the pianist, LaFaro, and Motian is sublime. The trio cover two Miles Davis compositions, "Solar" and "Milestones," plus several tracks from the great American songbook. The rendition of "Waltz For Debby," an original composition Evans would play in concert for the next 19 years until his death, is the superior version probably because he would not record it again with LaFaro. The bassist was tragically killed in an automobile accident a couple weeks after this engagement. But then again, you did not know this fact while at the Vanguard, nor did you know you would be a witness to history.

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