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Bill Evans with Eddie Gomez and Jack DeJohnette: Some Other Time: The Lost Session From the Black Forest
by Karl Ackermann
It plays out like a tale of espionage. In Bremen, Germany, more than five-thousand miles from his Los Angeles home, American producer Zev Feldman, has a chance meeting with the son of a late German jazz producer. In a parking lot, the German plays a single track of music on his car stereo; a forgotten recording from tapes almost fifty years old. Feldman, upon hearing more of the tapes, decides he needs to get this out to the world. It ...
Continue ReadingThe Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings
by C. Andrew Hovan
So the story goes, Tony Bennett and Bill Evans first met each other at The White House back in 1962. President Kennedy was throwing a jazz party and the singer and pianist crossed paths backstage. Fast forward some thirteen years later and the pair would come together for the first of two albums to highlight their ways with a standard. Billed simply as The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album and released by Fantasy Records back in 1975, the pair's debut has ...
Continue ReadingBill Evans: Sublime Sideman
by Nathan Holaway
We already know what a tremendous voice Bill Evans has had in jazz history, and most of the major jazz pianists that he has influenced. Most jazz aficionados know most of the tunes Evans has composed and most of the tunes that were in his ever-changing repertoire. But, a subject that hardly gets enough attention concerning Evans are his superlative skills as a consummate sideman. What we're discussing are two totally separate categories. It takes a certain kind of mentality ...
Continue ReadingThe Ten Best Live Jazz Recordings (1953-65)
by C. Michael Bailey
Having recently completed a survey of the Best Live Rock Albums, I have learned a couple of valuable things. One is a list of this sort should be presented in descending order starting with number 10 and descending to number 1. Second, it is better to poll a group for their opinions and develop the list from an analytical (or pseudoanalytical) evaluation of the results. This is how the Top Ten Best Live Jazz Recordings (1953-65) were selected. I polled ...
Continue ReadingBill Evans
by Mark Sabbatini
Arguably the greatest jazz pianist of the 1960s and '70s, Bill Evans is generally acknowledged as the most influential pianist since Bud Powell and a primary influence on players such as Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea. Evans co-wrote Kind Of Blue with Miles Davis and some consider the pianist's Sunday At The Village Vanguard the best piano trio album ever. Evans is also credited with advancing harmonic and voicing structures, and pioneering modern trio format elements such as giving sidemen ...
Continue ReadingBill Evans: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961
by C. Andrew Hovan
Those of us who are diehard jazz collectors often loathe answering questions from neophytes as to a good starting place for building a jazz collection. Nonetheless, a short go-to list would probably include the iconic live sessions of Bill Evans and his trio captured on tape by Riverside Records back in June of 1961. For sheer improvisational genius and telepathic group interplay, these recordings can't be beat. Furthermore, the sonic magic that teleports you to your own personal table at ...
Continue ReadingBill Evans, Bob Brookmeyer: The Ivory Hunters
by Maurizio Zerbo
Solo nel jazz accadono simili incontri, dove le regole vengono stravolte. È il caso di questa seduta discografica del 1959, che vede entrare in sala di incisione un quartetto guidato da un pianista ed un trombonista. Grazie all'idea estemporanea del produttore, Bob Brookmeyer viene invitato a sedersi al pianoforte e ne discende un percorso davvero ragguardevole. Il trombonista aveva già inciso un disco dove si era cimentato anche al pianoforte, qui mimeticamente orientato verso una cifra ...
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