Home » Jazz Musicians » Gil Evans

Gil Evans

Gil Evans is an NEA Jazz Master

Ian Ernest Gilmore Green (or Gilmore Ian Rodrigo Green) was born May 13, 1912, in Toronto, Canada, the son of Margaret Julia MacChonechy and a father he never knew. He took the name of his stepfather, and thus became Gil Evans. His stepfather was a miner, whereas his mother took care of the children of rich families, and prepared meals for campsites. Moving wherever work would take them, they went from one North-American mining site to the next, including Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and such Northwestern U.S. states as Idaho, Montana, and Washington. Their child was put in boarding houses, moving from one family to the next, until they finally settled permanently in California, around 1922. Gil went to school in Berkeley, and there, his real musical training began. The father of one of his friends was a jazz fanatic and initiated him to this music. In 1927, he took the two teenagers to see Duke Ellington at the Orpheum theater in San Francisco.

It was a revelation for Gil Evans, who decided to devote his life to this music. That same year, he bought his first record, "No One Else But You," by Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines. At the same time, he started transcribing, from the recordings, the music of such great jazz arrangers as Red Nichols, Duke Ellington, and Don Redman. In 1933, he put together his first group in Stockton, which had six musicians at first, but grew to nine in 1934. The group played arrangements by Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington, all transcribed from the recordings. In 1935, the orchestra was on the same bill at the Palomar Ballroom as the triumphant Benny Goodman, then was hired to play at the Rendez-Vous Ballroom in Balboa Beach, in southern California, where it remained until 1938. Gil Evans was in charge of writing and conducting, and, from time to time, Stan Kenton held the piano chair.

In 1938, Alex Holden, who worked for MCA at that time, offered Gil Evans' orchestra a chance to accompany singer Skinnay Ennis. Gil accepted, keeping his position as arranger. Ennis found work for the group in comedian Bob Hope's well-known radio show for NBC in Hollywood. The manager then called up another arranger to work with the group, Claude Thornhill, who scored a big hit in 1937 with his arrangement of "Loch Lomond" for singer Maxine Sullivan. He and Gil Evans became colleagues and friends, but the two arrangers decided to quit this particular job in 1941. Thornhill had already put together his own orchestra in New York in 1939. This group had begun touring, and found itself, in the summer of 1940, at the Rendez-Vous ballroom in Balboa Beach. In 1941, Thornhill decided to move back to New York, and on March 20, the orchestra began a three-month residency at the Glen Island Casino. Gil Evans joined him as arranger alongside Bill Borden, and on November 17, for the first time in his career, one of his arrangements was recorded. Unfortunately, the U.S. had also gone to war during this time, and the barrage of draft orders compelled Thornhill to disband his orchestra.

Read more

Tags

7
Album Review

The Gil Evans Orchestra: Live At Fabrik

Read "Live At Fabrik" reviewed by Ian Patterson


By the time Gil Evans led the Gil Evans Orchestra at the Hamburg Jazz Festival in 1986, it had been holding down the Monday night slot at Sweet Basil for the previous three years. The majority of the GEO's regular musicians were with him for this performance at Fabrik, a 19th century machine-parts factory converted into a glass-roofed cultural centre in 1971. Not for nothing does the sixteen-piece ensemble sound so organically attuned—to the charts and to each other—on this ...

7
Radio & Podcasts

Big Bands of the 1950s (1950 - 1957)

Read "Big Bands of the 1950s (1950 - 1957)" reviewed by Russell Perry


Woody Herman disbanded the Second Herd in 1949 and, while Stan Kenton and Duke Ellington managed to keep a big band on the road through the 1950s, Count Basie disbanded his band at the start of the decade but assembled a new one in a few years. Generally this was a tough period for large ensembles. This, however, didn't dampen the urge for musicians and composers to hear music in large forms and find ways to make it real. In ...

8
Album Review

Gil Evans: Old Bottle New Wine

Read "Old Bottle New Wine" reviewed by Patrick Burnette


Arranger / pianist Gil Evans did not record extensively as a leader, and he only released a few albums in the “classic" mode established by his collaborations with Miles Davis. New Bottle Old Wine (originally released on Pacific Jazz in 1958) is perhaps the best regarded—due to the vibrant presence of Julian “Cannonball" Adderley as the featured soloist, and the killer line-up of tunes from jazz's past, which Evans transformed into modern, third-stream-leaning music with all the wit of his ...

6
Album Review

Gil Evans: The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix

Read "The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix" reviewed by Sacha O'Grady


Out of all the myriad of tribute albums dedicated to Jimi Hendrix, this would have to be the most authentic and genuine. Evans and Hendrix had spoken on numerous occasions about working together, Jimi having even asked the legendary jazz arranger to teach him how to read and write music, thus liberating the guitarist from the burden of having to record everything on tape. But their friendship might never have happened were it not for producer Alan Douglas, who had ...

220
Album Review

Gil Evans: The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions

Read "The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


How do you summarize the history of jazz on a couple records? Ask Gil Evans. His two records New Bottle Old Wine (1958) and Great Jazz Standards (1959), originally released on World Pacific, have been reissued on one CD entitled The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions. Each of the fifteen tracks is a chapter in the music's history from the start to the years when these recordings were made. From Jelly Roll Morton and W.C. Handy to Monk and Charlie Parker, ...

414
Album Review

Gil Evans: The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions

Read "The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions" reviewed by Greg Camphire


While perhaps best remembered for his landmark Miles Davis collaborations, arranger/bandleader/pianist Gil Evans' work with his own ensembles is notable in its own right. This reissue of The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions combines two crucial Evans albums from 1958 and 1959: New Bottle, Old Wine and Great Jazz Standards. The fifteen overall performances capture Evans' expansive harmonic palette, painted by an all-star ensemble of colorists, offering an advanced reinterpretation of the great jazz tradition that still shines with a modern ...

430
Album Review

Gil Evans: The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions

Read "The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions" reviewed by Norman Weinstein


"Complete" in this case refers to two LPs worth of primo early Gil Evans.The first LP on this disc answers the question of what would have happened if Evans had written a concerto for anyone other than Miles Davis. “New Bottle, Old Wine" is a version of the “Miles Ahead" concerto concept for Cannonball Adderley. And while the adventurous arrangements of “King Porter Stomp" and “Lester Leaps In" exercise Cannonball's skills to the max, this is an attractively happy entertainment, ...

Read more articles
5

Performance / Tour

Steve McQuarry's Mandala Nonet And Orchestra To Perform The Music Of Gil Evans, Sept 30, At SFJAZZ Center's Miner Auditorium

Steve McQuarry's Mandala Nonet And Orchestra To Perform The Music Of Gil Evans, Sept 30, At SFJAZZ Center's Miner Auditorium

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Oakland-based keyboardist-composer Steve McQuarry has long been in love with the unique music of Gil Evans, the late, largely-self-taught Toronto-born composer, arranger, and keyboardist best remembered for his numerous collaborations with Miles Davis. “The whole way he thought about orchestrating using instruments and also pushing those instruments in different ranges is really fascinating,” McQuarry says of Evans. “I remember talking with Maria Schneider about this. She said he would write the trombone parts really high and things like that, which ...

3

Recording

See What People Are Saying About The Gil Evans Project's Lines Of Color

See What People Are Saying About The Gil Evans Project's Lines Of Color

Source: Brian Camelio

The Gil Evans Project's new live album, Lines of Color has won Jazz Magazine's CHOC award and been receiving reviews from jazz publications around the world. See what people are saying about “Lines of Color". “The gorgeous lilt of Evans' still startling original arrangements for horns is preserved, not in the aspic of academia but in the living, breathing performances of a group of New York’s finest musicians such as Evans might have selected himself." —Cormac Larkin, THE IRISH TIMES ...

2

For Sale

Gil Evans Project Live Album, Lines Of Color, Now Available For Download

Gil Evans Project Live Album, Lines Of Color, Now Available For Download

Source: Prawit Austin Siriwat

The Gil Evans Project's live album, Lines of Color, is now available for download from the ArtistShare site and available for pre-order on iTunes. The band was nominated for three Grammy awards in 2013, and their first album, Centennial, won Gil a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement. The ensemble also won two JJA Jazz Awards, record of the year and Large Ensemble of the Year. This new live recording took place May 13-18th, 2014, for the Gil Evans Project’s ...

1

Recording

Gil Evans: Jamaica Jazz

Gil Evans: Jamaica Jazz

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

One of the least-known Gil Evans albums and among his most interesting is Jamaica Jazz. Produced by Creed Taylor when he was at ABC Paramount, Jamaica Jazz was recorded in November and December 1957—between Evans' Gil Evans and Ten (Prestige) and New Bottle, Old Wine (World Pacific). Evans wrote the arrangements for The Don Elliott Octet, with Candido Camero on conga. The East Coast personnel was exceptional and experimental... The November session: Don Elliott (tp,mellophone,vib) Frank Rehak (tb) Jimmy Buffington, ...

Award / Grant

Composer/Producer/Conductor Ryan Truesdell’s Groundbreaking Project "Centennial: Newly Discovered Works Of Gil Evans" Nominated For Grammy Awards In Three Categories

Composer/Producer/Conductor Ryan Truesdell’s Groundbreaking Project "Centennial: Newly Discovered Works Of Gil Evans" Nominated For Grammy Awards In Three Categories

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications

CD also earned one of France’s highest honors: LES COUPS DE COEUR from the Académie Charles Cros Renowned composer/producer/conductor RYAN TRUESDELL’s highly acclaimed CD CENTENNIAL: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans (ArtistShare) has earned three nominations in the 55th annual GRAMMY Awards. CENTENNIAL has been nominated in the categories of Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, Best Instrumental Arrangement (How About You) and Best Arrangement Featuring a Vocalist (Look To the Rainbow featuring Luciana Souza). “I share these nominations with everyone ...

Video / DVD

Jazzdoc: Gil Evans

Jazzdoc: Gil Evans

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers


17

Interview

Putting Gil Evans in His Place

Putting Gil Evans in His Place

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Gil Evans was a slow arranger. He tended to agonize over charts—at times missing deadlines as he pushed to make bigger impressionistic statements, set off more romantic contrasts or simply wound up entangled in revisions. In some cases, his focus on the music overshadowed the need to keep an eye on the clock. Hal McKusick's and Creed Taylor's separate experiences with Evans are cases in point. But Evans' tortured experiments produced magnificent results, and what wasn't recorded over the years ...

20

Interview

Gil Evans at 100

Gil Evans at 100

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Gil Evans, who enriched the art and craft of jazz arranging, was born 100 years ago today. National Public Radio this morning ended one of its hours on Weekend Edition Sunday with a remembrance of Evans and his work. To listen to it, go here and click on “Listen Now.” Here are three pieces arranged by Evans for an all star orchestra featuring Miles Davis on a 1959 Robert Herridge CBS-TV special. They are from the 1957 Davis album Miles ...

28

Performance / Tour

Producer/Conductor Ryan Truesdell Releases "Centennial: Newly Discovered Works Of Gil Evans" May 17-20 At Jazz Standard

Producer/Conductor Ryan Truesdell Releases "Centennial: Newly Discovered Works Of Gil Evans"  May 17-20 At Jazz Standard

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications

Join producer/conductor Ryan Truesdell as he celebrates the release of his debut CD CENTENNIAL: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans at the Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th Street, NYC for four nights: Thursday, May 17 – Sunday, May 20. Sets at 7:30 and 9:30 every night, with an 11:30 set on Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $25 Thursday and Sunday, $30 Friday and Saturday. Call 212-576-2232. Joining conductor Truesdell for this performance are some 30 top musicians including Lewis Nash, ...

184

Recording

Gil Evans/Laurent Cugny Big Band Lumiere

Gil Evans/Laurent Cugny Big Band Lumiere

Source: Sound Insights by Doug Payne

Shortly after graduating college in 1987, I ventured to New York City with the naïve hope of finding a job. It was a miserable time and a memorably awful experience. My hope was to land a job in advertising. I ended up with a film pass for a great foreign film from a prestigious film distributor based in NYC that couldn't hire me and an interview for a position selling ad space for some TV or radio station, knowing full ...

Frank Macchia
composer / conductor
Maria Schneider
composer / conductor
Oscar Penas
guitar
Scott Reeves
trombone
Thiago de Mello
percussion
Ed Puddick
arranger
Ryan Truesdell
composer / conductor
Fran Vielma
percussion
The Ed Palermo Big Band
band / ensemble / orchestra
Devin Reilly
composer / conductor
Jim Goetsch
saxophone
Nick Lombardelli
multi-instrumentalist
Roberto Spadoni
composer / conductor
Jeff Lopez
bass, electric
Billy Marrows
guitar, electric
Metropolitan Jazz Octet
band / ensemble / orchestra
Zurich Jazz Orchestra
band / ensemble / orchestra
Jacques Bailhé
keyboards
Molly Skuse
vocals
Ines Velasco
composer / conductor

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Live At Fabrik

Jazzline Classics
2022

buy

Old Bottle New Wine

Blue Note Records
2019

buy

The Gil Evans...

RCA Legacy; Columbia/Legacy
2016

buy

The Complete Pacific...

Blue Note Records
2007

buy

Videos

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.