Jazz Articles about Bill Evans

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 ...

Bill Evans: You Must Believe In Spring

by Chris M. Slawecki
May 21, 2004

After more than a decade as one of the pianist's most sympathetic bassists, this was Eddie Gomez's last recording with Evans, a trio set with drummer Eliot Zigmund recorded in 1977 and released after Evans' death in 1980.Evans never stopped searching for new ideas. He might be faulted for repeatedly looking for them in the same tunes, but this program is quite varied, including Johnny Mandel's “Suicide is Painless" (the theme from M.A.S.H. ); Michel Legrand's title track; ...

Bill Evans: New Jazz Conceptions

by David Rickert
May 14, 2004

The first album by any given artist is not likely to be their best, for obvious reasons: most are still developing a style and honing their craft. This 1956 session, Bill Evans’ first as a leader, is no different. The introverted pianist had to be virtually forced into recording as a leader, but these early explorations launched one of the most acclaimed and influential careers in the history of jazz. However, these are, at heart, exactly that: early explorations. Even ...

Bill Evans: Consecration: The Final Recordings Part 2 [Box Set]

by Samuel Chell
May 4, 2004

I had assumed that these recordings fit into the category of “he plays well under the circumstances." Forget the qualifiers. Listening to this set and the previously released The Last Waltz is a bit like sharing the experience of the wild-eyed poet who has returned from feasting on the milk of paradise in Coleridge's “Kubla Khan." After tasting such nectar, nothing henceforward can satisfy the palette. So if the two sets (16 discs) comprising Evans' last stand seem extravagant in ...

Three Classic Riverside Reissues

by Charlie B. Dahan
April 28, 2004

Three classic Riverside recordings have been recently reissued: Bill Evans' solo debut New Jazz Conceptions , Cannonball Adderley and Milt Jackson's Things Are Getting Better and Chet Baker's Chet Baker Plays The Best of Lerner and Loewe. While only the Adderley/Jackson and Evans' reissues contain bonus tracks, all three have been remastered using 20-bit K2 super encoding and include excellent and insightful liner notes from the original release by Orrin Keepnews who either produced or co-produced each of these recordings ...