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Bill Evans: Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956 - 1980)
by Chris May
Only occasionally do classy looking limited-edition box sets prove to be a triumph of style and substance. Too often they are undermined by cheapskate packaging, over elaborate design, poorly written and researched booklets, inadequate session details or, most egregiously, bizarre (in a bad way) track selections. So it is a more than pleasant surprise when something comes along which succeeds, and succeeds magnificently, on all those fronts. Such an item is Concord Records' Craft imprint's Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: ...
Continue ReadingScott LaFaro: Pieces of Jade
by Stuart Broomer
In his brief career between 1959 and 1961, Scott LaFaro may have done as much to revolutionize the way the bass is played in jazz as Jimmy Blanton, another gifted and tragic figure, had with Duke Ellington 20 years before him. Like Blanton, LaFaro only took up the bass when he entered college and also died very young: Blanton of tuberculosis at 23 in 1942; LaFaro at 25 in a car accident in 1961. LaFaro recognized no ...
Continue ReadingScott LaFaro: Pieces of Jade
by AAJ Italy Staff
Interessante l'intervista a Bill Evans inserita in questo CD: poco più di tredici minuti in cui il pianista affronta, con George Klabin, la scomparsa di Scott LaFaro, avvenuta cinque anni prima. Altrettanto interessante, spesso affascinante la registrazione (assai di fortuna, purtroppo) di una prova di Bill Evans e Scott LaFaro su “My Foolish Heart". Eccellente, invece, la prova di Don Friedman, pianista extraordinaire ma straordinariamente sottovalutato: a lui, infatti, artista profondamente influenzato da Bill Evans, andrebbe intitolata la registrazione, che ...
Continue ReadingJade Visions: The Life And Music Of Scott LaFaro
by Robert Iannapollo
Jade Visions: The Life And Music Of Scott LaFaro Helene LaFaro-Fernandez Hardcover; 322 pages ISBN: 1-57441-273-4 University of North Texas Press 2009 At the outset, I have to own up to bassist Scott LaFaro being a personal hero. Growing up in Geneva, NY, also home to the bassist, it was always a point of pride that this man, a major contributor in changing the role of his ...
Continue ReadingScott LaFaro: Pieces of Jade
by David Rickert
In the six years that he was active in the music industry, Scott LaFaro had a more notable career than many other bassists have in a much larger lifetime. He was a member of the Bill Evans Trio, one of the greatest piano trios of all time, and participated in Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz (Atlantic, 1960), a session he really had no business being a part of. Most importantly, however, he developed an entirely new mode of expression for the ...
Continue ReadingScott LaFaro: Pieces of Jade
by Larry Taylor
Bassist Scott LaFaro was killed in an auto accident in 1961 at only 25, cutting off a career in which he was destined for greatness. Before his death he had already made a name for himself in pianist Bill Evans' groundbreaking trio, which also included drummer Paul Motian. This group was immortalized by its 1961 recording at Village Vanguard, Sunday at The Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debbie, both released by Riverside the same year. These live dates set the ...
Continue ReadingBill Evans: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961
by C. Michael Bailey
The Wish 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 ...
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