Jazz Articles about Bill Evans

Bill Evans: California Here I Come

by Ollie Bivens
March 3, 2005

Most piano-led jazz trios consist of a bassist and drummer providing rhythmic backing for the leader. With the various trios fronted by Bill Evans, a three way musical conversation occurred among equals. Recorded in '67 and initially issued as a two-LP set in '82, and now reissued on a single CD of 71 minutes, California Here I Come is an example of that dialogue. Not nearly as influential as his groundbreaking early '60s trio with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, ...

Bill Evans: The Best Of Bill Evans

by Mark Sabbatini
January 3, 2005

How does one rate good execution of a flawed concept?The Best Of Bill Evans is the latest in an abundant number of compilations claiming to capture the piano legend's finest work in a disc or two. Such albums almost never capture the range of any landmark performer, especially since most play on multiple labels and much of their material is unavailable for single-label compilations such as this.Also, anyone looking for one Evans album arguably is better ...

Three From Rhapsody Films featuring Bill Evans and Jim Hall

by John Kelman
November 9, 2004

With praise coming from sources as diverse as Dan Morgenstern, Clint Eastwood and Richard Pena, Bruce Rickert's Rhapsody Films is rapidly making a name for itself as an imprint devoted to reissuing some of the more important archival jazz, blues and world music releases, originally only available on video, on DVD format. While some of their titles are currently still only available in VHS, it's but a matter of time before they've digitized their entire collection, and that's good news ...

Bill Evans: 1929-1980

by AAJ Staff
August 27, 2004

Who Was Bill Evans? Bill Evans, one of the most influential and tragic figures of the post-bop jazz piano, was known for his highly nuanced touch, the clarity of the feeling content of his music and his reform of the chord voicing system pianists used. He recorded over fifty albums as leader and received five Grammy awards. He spawned a school of “Bill Evans style" or “Evans inspired" pianists, who include some of the best known artists of our day, ...

Incomparably Quiet: Bill Evans

by Rob Mariani
August 1, 2004

It was another one of those sticky, half-sunny, end-of-summer New York Sunday afternoons at The Village Vanguard. Down in the tiny, odd-shaped cellar space on lower Seventh Avenue, it wasn't the usual mid-sixties crowd of jazz fans. Most of the people weren't there to hear jazz, they were there to see comedian Lenny Bruce. Bruce was at the height of his irreverent, edge-pushing popularity. A lot of jazz lovers enjoyed him because instead of set routines, he riffed. He improvised ...

Pianist Bill Evans: A Retrospective

by Mark Sabbatini
July 31, 2004

Index Introduction Key Recordings Boxed Sets Individual Albums Online Books

Introduction

Arguably the greatest jazz pianist of the 1960s and '70s, Bill Evans is a remarkable study of extraordinary discipline and disorder clashing to form some of the most beautiful music of all time.

He played an equal role with Miles Davis in composing Kind Of Blue , the top-selling jazz album ever, yet the association ...

Remembering Bill Evans

by Scott Pollard
July 31, 2004

Bill Evans (1929-1980) was a musician of the highest caliber. He delved into the art of jazz and took it apart, dissecting it with an appreciation for the music of Ravel and Debussy, a superior command of the piano, and a God-given talent for jazz that was augmented by stints with the greatest musicians of his era, including Miles Davis, John Contrane, and Cannonball Adderly. Evans released his first album as a leader, New Jazz Conceptions, in ...