Jazz Articles about Bill Evans

Bill Evans: Homecoming

by Douglas Payne
June 1, 1999

It seems virtually every one of piano great Bill Evans's (1929-80) performances were recorded during the last two years of his life, when he had his last - and arguably superior - trio with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera. As more recordings continue to surface, it is evident that this was a most commanding unit.What makes this November 1979 recording, issued here for the time, so special is that the Evans trio was captured upon the ...

Bill Evans: Homecoming

by AAJ Staff
June 1, 1999

“The last two years I was here were perhaps the happiest years of my life.” This was Bill Evans, talking about Southeastern Louisiana College, where he graduated in 1950. You know what happened: he went to New York, had a memorable stay with Miles Davis, and became one of the most influential pianists in jazz. His school also knew; now a university, they gave Bill their first Distinguished Alumnus award in 1969. Ten years later came a special event: a ...

Bill Evans: Piano Player

by Douglas Payne
October 1, 1998

At first it's hard to tell if Piano Player is a quickie compilation or a never-issued recording. But it's a bit of both. It's a hodgepodge, really, consisting of eight never-before released songs enhanced by the Miles Davis quartet's 1958 performance of “My Funny Valentine" and two of five tracks from vibraphonist Dave Pike's excellent 1962 quartet record Pike's Peak (which, like Herbie Mann's Nirvana, also featuring Evans, should be released in its entirety).What makes Piano ...

Bill Evans: Half Moon Bay

by Douglas Payne
October 1, 1998

It's hard to believe pianist Bill Evans (1929-1980) has been gone nearly as many years as his interesting recording career lasted. In that time, Evans's influence has become one of the most pervasive of twentieth century pianists and he endures as one of the most distinctive of jazz practitioners.In addition to the many known and famed recordings Evans made, many more that were taped privately or never issued are now beginning to become available. Half Moon ...

Coleman Hawkins, Bill Evans Trio and Gene Ammons: JVC Audiophile Reissues

by AAJ Staff
January 1, 1998

COLEMAN HAWKINS Good Old Broadway (JVC)BILL EVANS TRIO At Shelly's Manne-Hole (JVC)GENE AMMONS Boss Tenor (JVC)

Fantasy has been pretty good about licensing titles it owns to labels that put out audiophile CDs, including DCC and JVC. The sound quality is superb on these three audiophile versions of titles that originally came out on Riverside and Prestige catalogues and are presently owned by Fantasy.

Toward the end of his life, Coleman Hawkins sunk into an emotional abyss and drank himself ...

Bill Evans: Conversations With Myself

by AAJ Staff
October 1, 1997

Technology and art have always had a tumultuous relationship at best. Advancements in technology have often been greeted by the artistic community by a split response: Some embrace the new technology and experiment with it, reaching out for new forms of expression that were impossible before; others shun the advances, dismissing them and those that use them as poor synthetic substitutions for “real" artistic struggle and creativity.

Today, a great deal of this controversy centers around the use of computers ...

Bill Evans & Jim Hall: Undercurrent

by David Cohen
June 1, 1997

If Undercurrent, the first and superior of two piano / guitar collaborations by Bill Evans and Jim Hall, (the other being Intermodulation produced four years later), were a book and not a record, then the blurbs on the back of the dust jacket might read: “Lush...beautiful...touching" “Filled with almost fugitive nuance and effortless interaction" “Perfection in spiritual and technical communication" Together, throughout the album, Evans and Hall sound like so much more ...