Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you…, Matthew 7:7 (KJV)

In 2001, I took a poll of All About Jazz contributors to determine the Top Ten Best Live Jazz Recordings. This poll corresponded with my previously completed series The Top Ten Best Live Rock Recordings. These two article series have recently been reformatted, archived, and republished as: Best Live Jazz Recordings (1953-65), Best Live Jazz Recordings: The Best of the Rest and Best Live Rock Recordings (1969-79), The Ten Best Live Rock Recordings: The Best of the Rest.

On the jazz side of things, the most cited live jazz recording by AAJ writers at the time was actually a pair of releases: Bill Evans Trio, Sunday at the Village Vanguard (Riverside 9376, 1961) and Bill Evans, Waltz for Debbie (Riverside 9399, 1961), constituting the contemporaneously available afternoon and evening performances of the Bill Evans Trio at New York City’s Village Vanguard, Sunday, June 25, 1961. In my article addressing this performance, I wistfully mused:

All that remains is the hope that one day Fantasy, Inc. will find the lost sides of that early summer afternoon 40 years ago and release a complete recording as they have done for so many other artists, including Evans. We should honor the quiet genius in these songs.

That day has come.

Bill Evans
The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961
Riverside Records
2005

Fantasy Jazz has released, in chronological order, the entire five-set session list from Bill Evans’ June 25th, 1961 date at the Village Vanguard. Included here for the first time is the failed first take of “Gloria’s Step” (sporting a three second break in the recording and a great Scott LaFaro bass solo). The original release history for this music is the typical jazz release mess, with different takes being released on different LPs and or CDs. For a breakdown and analyses of the release history, I point the gentle reader to visit The Bill Evans Web Pages.

Bill Evans and Jazz Piano Since 1945

Bill Evans, with alter ego Bud Powell, defined the art of jazz pianism as performed today. In the same manner that Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins defined post-Swing tenor saxophone, Evans and Powell set the course of jazz piano in the years after World War II. Where Powell represents the muscular, virtuosic, and visceral, Evans represents the lightness of being, possessed of delicate intellect, touch, and spirit.

From the Bud Powell stream come pianists Red Garland, Horace Silver, Phineas Newborn, Elmo Hope, and Keith Jarrett. From the loam of Bill Evans emerged pianists Alan Broadbent, Lynne Arriale, Jessica Williams, James Williams, Fred Hersch, and on and on and on. Evans’ shadow is a long one, stretching well beyond his relatively short life. Evans, the subject of this epistle well represented on compact disc in both the studio and live settings. Fantasy Jazz has provided the documentation of two complete live series of Bill Evans Trio music in the box-set releases:

BILL EVANS: The Secret Sessions Milestone 8MCD-4421-2 (8-CD set)
BILL EVANS Trio: The Last Waltz Milestone 8MCD-4430-2 (8-CD set)
BILL EVANS Trio: Consecration Milestone 8MCD-4436-2 (8-CD set)

The two latter of these three sets being devoted to Evan’s performances at the Keystone Korner Bar, August 31 through September 7, 1980, just seven days prior to Evans’ premature death on September 15, 1980 in New York City from consequences related to his decades-old heroin and cocaine dependencies. While these box sets represent important jazz documents, they, more than likely, cannot approach the importance of what was recorded that warm early Spring Sunday afternoon by three young men elevating the art of the jazz piano trio from cocktail music to classical chamber fair.

The Bill Evans Trio

Philadelphian Paul Motian, the only surviving member of the trio, was 30 years old when he performed with Evans and LaFaro at the Village vanguard in 1961. Motian originally moved to New York in 1955 playing and recording with Thelonious Monk, Lennie Tristano, Coleman Hawkins, Tony Scott, and George Russell before becoming consistently associated with Bill Evans, with whom he would largely spend the next eight years. After leaving Evans in 1963 to play with Paul Bley, Motian freelanced with the likes of Mose Allison, Charles Lloyd, Carla Bley and Charlie Haden before truly hitting his stride with his Electric Bebop Band as well as Masabumi Kikuchi’s Tethered Moon. Motian is a master of understatement and color. He is unobtrusive, allowing the harmony instruments to pad across his brushed rim-shots and ride cymbals. His playing with Evans could be considered “impressionistic” if such an adjective is applicable to jazz drumming.