Brad Mehldau on Bill Evans

[sgcim]

Fast forward nine minutes into this to hear the Bradster's opinion of Bill Evans.<iframe width="474" height="54" frameborder="0" src="http://www.studio360.org/widgets/ondemand_player/#file=%2Faudio%2Fxspf%2F106894%2F;containerClass=studio360"></iframe>

[robertoart]

Very candid.

Mal Waldron heh

That's sock'in it to em.

[CraigP]

I thought, at least in his early days, that Mehldau had an Evans influence, although I haven't listened to any of his recent output. I'm curious what musicians think, based on their technical knowledge.

[sgcim]

The amazing thing was that then he said that he was more influenced by the Miles Davis Group(!).

Who was responsible for the sound of the Miles Davis group if not Bill Evans? Miles even said that Bill was his favorite pianist, and he specially hired him to change the sound of the group. Even Herbie Hancock admitted (probably under threat of waterboarding?)that "that guy" (as the Bradster called him), Bill Evans had a strong influence on him.

This goes under the heading of re-writing jazz history by the darlings of DOWNBEAST; Pat Metheney, the Bradster, Ornette, etc... because they're obviously the greatest living jazz musicians (my DownBeast tells me so) and Bill Evans was just some washed up cocktail pianist, who should have stuck to playing piano bars...

[JSngry]

Don't know about all that, but I always thought that the Bill Evans influence on Herbie Hancock was but one of many, and that whatever common ground they had in Impressionism soon (very soon) split off into two distinct paths, Herbie's being the more exploratory harmonically.

Hell, I even remember a review of a Miles gig ca. 1963 or so where the reviewer said that Herbie Hancock was becoming "jazz's first Impressionistic pianist" or some such. THAT was hyperbole, to put it mildly, but by the time Herbie started playing with Miles, he was playing stuff that Bill Evans would not have played, for whatever reason, and it just went on from there.I really can't imagine Bill Evans on, say, "Orbits", never mind "Black Comedy".

Not that I need to, or that Bill Evans needed to. But this whole thing of "influence" turning into "ownership of voice" is something to which I can not subscribe...as is Down Beat these days.

Edited February 27, 2013 by JSngry

[robertoart]

Don't know about all that, but I always thought that the Bill Evans influence on Herbie Hancock was but one of many, and that whatever common ground they had in Impressionism soon (very soon) split off into two distinct paths, Herbie's being the more exploratory harmonically.

Hell, I even remember a review of a Miles gig ca. 1963 or so where the reviewer said that Herbie Hancock was becoming "jazz's first Impressionistic pianist" or some such. THAT was hyperbole, to put it mildly, but by the time Herbie started playing with Miles, he was playing stuff that Bill Evans would not have played, for whatever reason, and it just went on from there.I really can't imagine Bill Evans on, say, "Orbits", never mind "Black Comedy".

Not that I need to, or that Bill Evans needed to. But this whole thing of "influence" turning into "ownership of voice" is something to which I can not subscribe...as is Down Beat these days.

Would you elaborate on "influence" turning into "ownership of voice" a little?

I am interested in what you are saying here, but would appreciate you fleshing it out a bit. If you care to.

[JSngry]

Wouldn't care to elaborate too much, no, but there's a tendency by some people (and they're everywhere, not just here) to look at "influences" and then turn that around into "hey, you'd never be who you are today without XYZ", which, yeah, ok, but really? It's like a clingy parent who expects to take crdit for their kid becoming an astronaut because the parent bought the kid model rockets. LOTS of kids build model rockets, and lots of kids learn a lot from their parents, but they got that astronaut gig because of who they became after learning how to build a model rocket, dig? Call it the fan equivalent of the Maury Wilson syndrome.

Bill Evans had a voice, sure, and he created a niche, definitely. But a lot of people - a lot of people - heard it, dealt with it, and incorporated it into everything else they had heard and incorporated and then moved on.

To that end, Mehldau's comments seem a little snarky, but so does everything about Mehldau. They also seem not unreasonable, either, becuase, seriously, sould you imagine Bill Evans playing with the Plugged Nickel band? Really? You can also ask if you can imagine the Plugged Nickel band playing the way they played w/o Bill Evans spending those six months in Miles' band, and the answer is probably not exactly like that, but there was enough other stuff happening before during and immediately after that they'd most likely have been in a place similar to where they were with or without Bill Evans.

Which is not to say that Bill Evans was not "important", he was. But he was in no way the Great Father In The Sky to all that came after him in Miles' bands. That's just silly.

You know who else Herbie claimed as influences? Robert Farnon & Nelson Riddle. So...yeah,

[robertoart]

Wouldn't care to elaborate too much, no, but there's a tendency by some people (and they're everywhere, not just here) to look at "influences" and then turn that around into "hey, you'd never be who you are today without XYZ", which, yeah, ok, but really? It's like a clingy parent who expects to take crdit for their kid becoming an astronaut because the parent bought the kid model rockets. LOTS of kids build model rockets, and lots of kids learn a lot from their parents, but they got that astronaut gig because of who they became after learning how to build a model rocket, dig? Call it the fan equivalent of the Maury Wilson syndrome.

Bill Evans had a voice, sure, and he created a niche, definitely. But a lot of people - a lot of people - heard it, dealt with it, and incorporated it into everything else they had heard and incorporated and then moved on.

To that end, Mehldau's comments seem a little snarky, but so does everything about Mehldau. They also seem not unreasonable, either, becuase, seriously, sould you imagine Bill Evans playing with the Plugged Nickel band? Really? You can also ask if you can imagine the Plugged Nickel band playing the way they played w/o Bill Evans spending those six months in Miles' band, and the answer is probably not exactly like that, but there was enough other stuff happening before during and immediately after that they'd most likely have been in a place similar to where they were with or without Bill Evans.

Which is not to say that Bill Evans was not "important", he was. But he was in no way the Great Father In The Sky to all that came after him in Miles' bands. That's just silly.

You know who else Herbie claimed as influences? Robert Farnon & Nelson Riddle. So...yeah,

Well that's quite an elaboration

In that I'm more clear on what you were getting at.

It's also fairly obvious when you hear someone who has modelled their playing on a past great. In fact, it might be even 'harder' in some ways to sound 'like a chip off the old block', than to actually be your own man/woman. In as much as, the myopia of a 'one player' obsession, would seem to be an almost impossible act to maintain in this day and age. As opposed to the Charlie Parker era, per say, where almost the opposite was true.

[Larry Kart]

You know who else Herbie claimed as influences? Robert Farnon & Nelson Riddle. So...yeah,

Don't forget Herbie's Chicago mentor Chris Anderson, who probably was the filter for Herbie's interest in Farnon and Riddle (Herbie may even have said that in an interview; Anderson was drenched in the world of film and vocal scoring). In any case, Anderson's trio recordings for Jazzland and VeeJay need to be heard with that in mind as well as for their own lovely virtues.

[skeith]

If Evans isn't an influence on the Bradster, then why is the Bradster doin' heroin? Just askin'

[robertoart]

If Evans isn't an influence on the Bradster, then why is the Bradster doin' heroin? Just askin'

Do big name, mainstream, 'on the cover of Downbeat' musicians still do 'heroin'.

Wow, must have those 'middle class 21stC blues'.

[CJ Shearn]

That's a battle he beat, the heroin thing. Anyway I love his trio, though I haven't heard the last two studio albums.

[robertoart]

If Evans isn't an influence on the Bradster, then why is the Bradster doin' heroin? Just askin'

This post is still here.

The moderator must be making a cofee.

Wynton is using too.

[skeith]

If Evans isn't an influence on the Bradster, then why is the Bradster doin' heroin? Just askin'

This post is still here.

The moderator must be making a cofee.

Wynton is using too.

Freelancer,

Brad's past use of heroin - apparently he no longer does it - is no secret to anyone who has even a minimal familiarity with the guy. He has talked about it in interviews.

I was being flip about him denying what many perceive as a definite Bill Evans influence on his music and I was making a silly aside about the influence on his personal life.

Sorry if I offended you or any of his fans.

[robertoart]

If Evans isn't an influence on the Bradster, then why is the Bradster doin' heroin? Just askin'

This post is still here.

The moderator must be making a cofee.

Wynton is using too.

Freelancer,

Brad's past use of heroin - apparently he no longer does it - is no secret to anyone who has even a minimal familiarity with the guy. He has talked about it in interviews.

I was being flip about him denying what many perceive as a definite Bill Evans influence on his music and I was making a silly aside about the influence on his personal life.

Sorry if I offended you or any of his fans.

Thanks skeith.

No you didn't offend me.

I really don't know much about Mehldau, beyond the Metheny collaboration, or some of his stuff with Bernstein.

I'm not really a contemporary Piano Qrt. kind of listener. And don't take an active interest in reading Mehldau interviews in the the way I might with Metheny, Martino or David Murray perhaps.

So my ignorance here is to the fore.

It does prove confronting in a way, however, as the contemporary, super-academic University generation players seem so removed from the drug culture of the past. Perhaps I think of Mehldau in the same breath as Metheny who is so square and wholesome .

Don't worry about me, it's still hard for me to accept Scofield and Martino were drug fuelled crazy men for a long time

And I never got over the fact that as a Fifteen year old aspiring guitarist I read the old looking bald headed guy that played chord melody guitar (Joe Pass) was once incarcerated Heroin addict.

I hope anyone that has had battles with drugs overcomes them.

Then again, like that cynical old man Lou Donaldson says, 'if they are still making it...they're probably all still takin it.'

[JSngry]

There's plenty of "Post-Evans" pianists who have developed their own things and who can be - and probably are - influences on their own. Just as there are some pre-Evans & concurrent-with-Evans pianists about whom the same can be said.

Just because a guy plays a cluster-voiced minor 9th chord or moves his lines in tight block chords with a little interior movement doesn't necessarily mean that he's genuflecting at the altar of Bill Evans, if you know what I mean.

The citing of Mal Waldron by Mehldau was not ill-advised, nor would have been Hancock, Corea, Paul Bley/Keith Jarrett, Tristano (the REAL composer of "Watermelon Man"!!!), or even McCoy (seems like all anybody associates with McCoy these days is bangy-vampy quartal chords, but that's just wrong. Go back and listen to Inception & Reaching Fourth).

Evans certainly was a man who crystallized a certain confluence of things that were "in the air" at a certain time, but he was not the only one feeling them, nor was he the only one to act on them, nor was his route the only feasible route to go forth from that particular juncture.

And thinking of Miles - he was into Ahmad Jamal so much, and then he wanted Evans, and I think in both cases you gotta look at those affections from a harmonic standpoint, factor in Gil Evans, and realize that Miles was into a certain harmonic quality from the very beginning until the very end. Even when Miles was playing R&B-based pop music, the chords were always more than "basic" jazz chords. So I think it might be safe to consider the possibility that Miles got Evans in the bad to further Miles' own designs rather than to think that Miles hired Evans because Miles "needed" what Bill Evans was bringing because he couldn't get to it himself, or something like that.

Hell, Gil was Evans enough for Miles, as time would show.

Edited February 28, 2013 by JSngry

[JSngry]

You know who else Herbie claimed as influences? Robert Farnon & Nelson Riddle. So...yeah,

Don't forget Herbie's Chicago mentor Chris Anderson, who probably was the filter for Herbie's interest in Farnon and Riddle (Herbie may even have said that in an interview; Anderson was drenched in the world of film and vocal scoring). In any case, Anderson's trio recordings for Jazzland and VeeJay need to be heard with that in mind as well as for their own lovely virtues.

No doubt. And it's funny, when I first read Herbie saying that, I was like, "REALLY?", like, uh, sure Herbie, whatever, but then I started checking out Riddle, the ballads in particular, and there would be all the reharmonization passages on very familiar standards, things that went WAY out of the original chords, and, yeah, ok, I can hear it now, sure can. Farnon's taken me a little longer to get to, just because of availability, but from what I have heard, yeah, I can hear that too. And if Chris Anderson was into that, then I'd have no doubt that Herbie picked up it from him, because Herbie, especially young Herbie, seemed to be one of those guys who would pick up on anything and everything and tinker with it until he could fit it in, one of those type of guys.

Edited February 28, 2013 by JSngry

[John L]

There's plenty of "Post-Evans" pianists who have developed their own things and who can be - and probably are - influences on their own. Just as there are some pre-Evans & concurrent-with-Evans pianists about whom the same can be said.

Just because a guy plays a cluster-voiced minor 9th chord or moves his lines in tight block chords with a little interior movement doesn't necessarily mean that he's genuflecting at the altar of Bill Evans, if you know what I mean.

The citing of Mal Waldron by Mehldau was not ill-advised, nor would have been Hancock, Corea, Paul Bley/Keith Jarrett, Tristano (the REAL composer of "Watermelon Man"!!!), or even McCoy (seems like all anybody associates with McCoy these days is bangy-vampy quartal chords, but that's just wrong. Go back and listen to Inception & Reaching Fourth).

Evans certainly was a man who crystallized a certain confluence of things that were "in the air" at a certain time, but he was not the only one feeling them, nor was he the only one to act on them, nor was his route the only feasible route to go forth from that particular juncture.

And thinking of Miles - he was into Ahmad Jamal so much, and then he wanted Evans, and I think in both cases you gotta look at those affections from a harmonic standpoint, factor in Gil Evans, and realize that Miles was into a certain harmonic quality from the very beginning until the very end. Even when Miles was playing R&B-based pop music, the chords were always more than "basic" jazz chords. So I think it might be safe to consider the possibility that Miles got Evans in the bad to further Miles' own designs rather than to think that Miles hired Evans because Miles "needed" what Bill Evans was bringing because he couldn't get to it himself, or something like that.

Hell, Gil was Evans enough for Miles, as time would show.

Yes, Mehldau is of a generation for which the Evans influence can be indirect - through other pianists. I see no reason not to believe him when he plays down the direct Evans' influence. There are plenty of other places where he can get similar influences.

[JSngry]

Yes, Mehldau is of a generation for which the Evans influence can be indirect - through other pianists. I see no reason not to believe him when he plays down the direct Evans' influence. There are plenty of other places where he can get similar influences.

And other places with more immediate contextually relevancy. Which on the one hand sucks, because it's a drag to hear about how the young guys back in the day didn't really want to hear, say, Coleman Hawkins because he was "old-fashioned", but on the other hand, that's the cost of doing business with trying to form your own Now rather than stepping into somebody else's Present, and I think we've seen by now the cost of excessive reverence of The Ancestors' temporal deeds rather than of their eternal spirit.

Life ain't always nice. but is it supposed to be? Always?

Probably not, eh?

Edited February 28, 2013 by JSngry

[sgcim]

My main issue with the Bradster was his dissing of Evans. I have no problem with him saying BE wasn't a direct influence on him, but he goes a lot further than that.

And Gil Evans, as great as he was, had nothing to do with "Kind of Blue", but BE had everything to do with it. George Russell claimed to have been responsible, but it's been argued that his style of modal writing had nothing in common with the music on KOB.

Speaking of GR and BE, I just came up with a score of "All About Rosie"- maybe I'll give the Bradster a call and see how he stacks up to "that guy's" solo in the last movement...smiley's ain't workin';- )

[JSngry]

Bill Evans deserves full credit for his many contributions to KOB, but the notion of "modality" in jazz (and Miles' music in particular, including his prior work with Gil Evans) was around before KOB, so although I'd not want to understate his importance to the outcome, I wouldn't want to overstate it, either.

The whole thing was sort of a cumulation of a lot of people's ideas about thinking in terms of scales instead of chord progressions (all in the name of greater freedom, which is pretty ironic considering how now it's "common wisdom" to play over changes thinking in terms of scales, good luck finding anybody thinking melody or rhythm first...), and if Evans was the one to crystallize it all in one brilliant moment, I'd not want to say that he actually invented any of it, either. That's just not what I think happened.

As far as Mehldau goes...how far does he go, exactly? Can't say that I've seen him there...but maybe I'm just not looking.

[robertoart]

Yeah, it's not like Mehldau is Matthew Shipp talking about Herbie Hancock

[Raneyjr]

The whole conversation drove off of the Metheny/Mehldau project and it's "potential" precursor, Undercurrents with Hall/Evans. So instead of respect for the record (regardless of inspiration yes or no) it got 'uh... I never listened to that record" (ergo it must not be worth listening to ) and the "overrated" "no influence" on me (Brad) conversation. The pedestal that Evans is on is deserved. Mischaracterizations of influence on Meldhau aside. Why couldn't he just say, "...many people claim that he is my primary influence and it's not true. I know that many other pianists are in fact influenced by him, I just don't happened to be one of them, at least consciously " nuff said. No he has to go about picking apart the whole notion because he's offended that he is somehow "beneath" Evans or "indebted". It's prideful nonsense. I respect Brad's work and development even though I'm not really a fan, but this whole track he has taken just makes me less of a fan if I could be and dislike his whole vibe and ego.

The fact is that the Metheny/Mehldau effort does/will never come close to the timeless stature of Hall/Evans Undercurrents (now 60 years old and still fresh). They will learn that once their mutual admiration society and self-plugging stops. Also damning was Metheny's seeming downgrade of Evans for the purpose of the interview. Given I know and respect him it sort of bothers me. He referred to him as a "good" piano player. Is that why he and Mays dedicated/wrote a song about him. Would countless musicians (including great ones) be inclined to do similar things, make dedication albums, concerts and indicate his stature if he was just "good"? So everybody is under this blue mist and doesn't no the truth that Evans is just a "good piano" player?

C'mon.

Anyway, time wounds all heels

[skeith]

The whole conversation drove off of the Metheny/Mehldau project and it's "potential" precursor, Undercurrents with Hall/Evans. So instead of respect for the record (regardless of inspiration yes or no) it got 'uh... I never listened to that record" (ergo it must not be worth listening to ) and the "overrated" "no influence" on me (Brad) conversation. The pedestal that Evans is on is deserved. Mischaracterizations of influence on Meldhau aside. Why couldn't he just say, "...many people claim that he is my primary influence and it's not true. I know that many other pianists are in fact influenced by him, I just don't happened to be one of them, at least consciously " nuff said. No he has to go about picking apart the whole notion because he's offended that he is somehow "beneath" Evans or "indebted". It's prideful nonsense. I respect Brad's work and development even though I'm not really a fan, but this whole track he has taken just makes me less of a fan if I could be and dislike his whole vibe and ego.

The fact is that the Metheny/Mehldau effort does/will never come close to the timeless stature of Hall/Evans Undercurrents (now 60 years old and still fresh). They will learn that once their mutual admiration society and self-plugging stops. Also damning was Metheny's seeming downgrade of Evans for the purpose of the interview. Given I know and respect him it sort of bothers me. He referred to him as a "good" piano player. Is that why he and Mays dedicated/wrote a song about him. Would countless musicians (including great ones) be inclined to do similar things, make dedication albums, concerts and indicate his stature if he was just "good"? So everybody is under this blue mist and doesn't no the truth that Evans is just a "good piano" player?

C'mon.

Anyway, time wounds all heels

I like what you are saying here. By the way, I think the best Evans/Hall collaboration was "Intermodulation" not "Undercurrent".

[John L]

You guys should give Mehldau a break. As far as I see it, he was just stating a frank and honest opinion. Members of this forum have often stated less than enthusiastic opinions about Bill Evans, Does Brad Mehldau's fame as a jazz pianist mean that he shouldn't have the right to state his? And what he said about Bill Evans was really not that damning. He just indicated that he personally does not understand why Bill Evans gets so much attention relative to other pianists.