Indeed, it's because he never did much else for years and years that he could play like that. Being merely a moderately competent jazz musician takes a LOT of work, so any of the top players (Miles, Trane, Diz, Lee - anyone) spent a LOT of time and put in massive amounts of work to make it sound effortless. When I perform or people see me with my bass in tow, they often remark: I wish I'd kept playing the __________ (fill in the instrument they stopped playing after junior high school)... And I think: no you don't! If you did, you'd still be playing. What you mean is you wish you could play well and perform in front of people without having put in any work over years and years. It doesn't work that way!
The track list is: 0:00 - Very Early 4:56 - Stella By Starlight 9:17 - If You Could See Me Now 13:57 - Autumn Leaves 18:23 - Time Remembered 22:11 - Nardis 27:19 - Five At the Oslo Munch Museum, October 1966. Eddie Gomez, Alex Riel, Bill Evans. 30:35 - Re: Person I Knew 36:25 - Days of Wine and Roses At the Molde Jazz Festival, August 1980. Marc Johnson, Joe La Barbera, Bill Evans.
I used to question Bill Evans playing, the clarity, the crispness, even the harmonics, but I admit to be totally off base. Of course, I was around high school age at the time. Evans is one of the absolute best jazz pianists ever. His music gives me chills.
Judging from the comments of jazz musicians I've known, Bill Evans was the most influential jazz pianist & harmonist of mid- to late-20th century jazz.
Bill evans go far further the concept of jazz he was a great force and a creator in music!His right place in the music history would be among Back Mozart and Chopin!
Christoph Neubronner - the 1st tune was a Bill Evans original called Very Early - I've heard that Bill wrote it at about 17 - 18 years. It's one of my favourites so I only play it on special occasions.
This 2-part video starts with an early Bill Evans trio, probably recorded around 1970. After 30 minutes that ends and is followed by a much later Evans trio, probably recorded around 1980, that continues through the 2nd file. Listen all the way to the end: both trios' skill and inventiveness are consistently high and there is a 10-minute interview with Bill at the end of the 2nd file as they pack up to leave for the airport. Thanks for sharing these historic performances!
Eddie Gomez gets my heart in such a state of feeling jazz that the best time to play along with my third leg doing the keyboard is with coffee in my left foot and my eyes indicating thematic indications of what I want Bill and Alex Riel, hard at work on the brushes and you who know the brushes, realize they are too primitivecool because the classical began from my fingertips beginning on the "catfat" strings and going down to where I could get the air vibrato without wood. What great days1DVD
Bill Evans man...chills....I don't care if you're a hippy burnout- if you cannot get into this I do not know WHAT you are on.... still Scott LaFaro rules the most
RE: LaFaro and Gomez. Lafaro was only with Evans for a year and one half at a time when the trio was working maybe one to two gigs per two weeks. Gomez worked with Bill for 11 years at a time when the trio was very busy doing long tours lasting as long as a month. Chuck was just a placeholder bassist waiting for someone who could handle Bill's music to the degree established by Scotty.
"Catfat" on my fingertips was essential in those days and while playing I felt the classical era sometimes, upon my desire, going to metallic, but I preferred the catgut as it was smoother and most precious in my playing; in my mind - of course, which is the definition of classical to jazz in trio form going from the double upright bass going from the finger tips of my hands going solely from the skin straight to the power of whatever amplification the BASS man, me, got off on together with 2..
An ULTIMATE EXAMPLE OF HAUGHTY on display here with my friendS EDDIE AND BILL, while waiting to play with Alex as a brush man. PRIMITIVECOOL UTIMATE FOR YOU THIS MORNING...
For Bill Evans RU-vid Posts For those that are always looking for something new about Bill Evans, I invite you to visit the following: Bill Evans Virtual Museum Project ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lV3jdOpX7vg.html Let your computer take you on a stroll through a virtual museum featuring Bill’s record covers, awards, and other memorabilia. Bill Evans - Retrospective ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YqxaggKP2oA.html A documentary presentation lecture where Bill Evans graduated with music, photos, and interviews, and concludes with Bill discussing his life at the university and goals he set for himself. The original lecture was given by Ron Nethercutt, retired professor at Southeastern Louisiana University. Ron recorded Bill’s concert there on November 6th, ten months before Evans’ passing. The lecture has been edited by Rob Rijneke. Rob also has a wonderful website which can be found at: www.billevans.nl
If you would like to learn more about Bill Evans, you may view my 27 minute video: "Bill Evans: Retrospective" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YqxaggKP2oA.html
15:22 I just bust loose with showing you how the ultimate of primitivecool doubleuprightbass may set you apart from all others except Bill, the LEADER, and we both thought alike, so I miss him so and don't read books, just listen to the man when studying this genius of what what does it to me. Maybe not you, but yes to me. Goodbye BLUE MONDAY-HELLO to Breakfast of Champions, by Kevin Michael Callihan, Sr. Esq. [Died Jan. 10, 2001] and moved on to philosophy of metafiction primitivecool creativ
"White jazz for whites. Sounds white, is white. Has to be Bill Evans!" Everyone of every color plays like Bill Evans now in some way. Don't confuse Jazz with Jazzy...two different things altogether. No jazz musician that I know thinks along racial lines. There are plenty of ways to swing. Today is the anniversary of Bill's death, and I guarantee you musicians all over this world are thinking about him, and what he brought to jazz. There are not too many people who can legitimately claim to have changed the harmonic approach to the music, and Evans certainly could have made that claim. Except he was too focused on playing truthfully to concern himself with self-congratulation. The best artists I know are the most humble, always questioning their value instead of shouting it out.
Peter J. Andros You are talking about the 1960s, though. Coltrane didn't live long enough to experience meaningful racial integration, but he was influenced profoundly by world culture outside the American black experience. "White" bands "integrated" earlier, but the nature of that integration as as much showbiz as unanimity. Cecil Taylor was an integrator by nature, and it would be taking him out of context to project a persona from the '60s forward. He's still living, and he would undoubtedly speak differently now than I have a colleague, Dianne McIntyre, who did dance work in NYC with Taylor, Max Roach, and a whole community of influential musicians during and after the black civil rights movement. Granted, she is a black artist, but the entire point of her work (and theirs) was to break down those barriers and integrate black artistic influences into the overall American artistic canon. Dianne was traveling the opposite direction, too, juxtaposing ballet and modern dance, and integrating African forms. Babatunde Olatunji, for instance, was a part of that circle, and in some ways an artist as literally African as Olatunji was as removed from American black artists as Evans was to Miles or Cecil Taylor. I do get out...I've been an active musician all my life. We mix it up in the jazz world here, and it's enriching all around. I get what you're saying, but my comment was more directed at the comment someone else made that Bill Evans sounds "white." He actually had quite an influence even on Oscar Peterson, and you can isolate some moments in Peterson's performances that could easily be mistaken for Evans...jazz is one of the best examples of the melting pot effect, for sure.
Bruce Richardson Thanks for your reply. My point is that Coltrane and Taylor (who didn't care much for Evans or his playing) have been mischaracterized by jazz pundits like Nat Hentoff and biographers as being enlightened spiritual souls when their behavior demonstrated they were in fact jealous, self-obsessive musicians with strong racial streaks. Bill Evans was a superb improvisational pianist who encompassed a vast musical understanding thanks to his mother and brother, Harry; and, Miles Davis showed incomparable sound judgement, some compositional arguments between the two aside, providing Bill a platform for his considerable talents. Bill's musical accomplishments speak for themselves!
Peter J. Andros Very correct my man. If you start thinking Bill Evans plays white music for white people you are just thinking too much. Responses to music are more elemental and raw than that. Bill's music is a basic Ray Charles, James Brown, Frank Zappa, or Brahms. All it moves the cerebral cortex. Bill just moves it on longer and deeper levels.
To those that still want to discuss racism relative to Jazz, it's a pity we haven't moved forward. It's really time to stop uttering it and not give it any resonance in the air, thoughts or minds. Jazz music is the great equalizer, because all it wants is to be heard, just emotions expressed beautifully, and the only "colors" to ponder is the mood it creates within us.
It's too hard for you to understand the intellectuality and the feeling of this music or it's too hard for you to accept that Bill Evans, a white man, was the greatest jazz pianist of all times? Here's my advice for you: don't think too much, just relax and enjoy the music!
greatest jazz pianist of all time. ummmm no not to me. I love his music but not my favorite. there is no such thing as greatest. Thats like saying vanilla ice cream is greater than strawberry lol they are totally different.
I admire the ambience of this music but it is uncomfortable to tap time to. It's very cluttered especially in the bright 'tempos' ; the double bass and drumming is over-complex and disjointed. In other words there is a distinct lack of 'groove', a quality Oscar Peterson's trios had in abundance.
i understand that you are jealous cause Bill Evans, a white man, reinvented the jazz. jazz pianists before him became meaningless after he came up with new harmonic concepts, using the extension of the chords, with a trio work and no ego playing, just music. playing a classic jazz repertorie, giving the real feeling to standards and originals. if you want to be racist, i can do it too: most black pianists sounds the same, a lot of ego and no feeling and intellectual play at all. just a lot of meaningless notes and annoying rhythm. you are absolutely wrong about Bill's way of swing. his flow is impecable! he really sounds organic and that's something that just a master of the instrument can do! but Bill went beyond the master, he was a genius, a legend!
most black pianists sounds the same, a lot of ego and no feeling and intellectual play at all. just a lot of meaningless notes and annoying rhythm talk about your ignorant statements. why combat ingnorance with more of it?
Not sure why these WHITE guys need to follow up a racist and ignorant statement from Bill Hicks with their own RACIST and ignorant statements... Pretty pathetic that you people have to steal (aka, reinvent) Jazz, Rock, Rap, etc... But no need to go there... Just sit back and enjoy the beautiful music of Bill Evans. Those of us who are not stupid and racist can enjoy him and Dave Brubeck as much as we enjoy Herbie and Ahmad...
