fasstrack

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6296648/herbie-hancock-crack-addict-memoir WTF? I'm surprised as hell. Thought it was a joke at first.

A belated happy New Year to everyone on the board!

14/15

Happy birthday Clark!

Agreed. A great loss.

I guess the board will let me know if I'm beating a dead horse here. I've been listening to Evans since starting this thread and still have things to say. Last night I listened to California Here I Come. It seems like a great idea on paper, with Philly Joe Jones (who Evans idealized). But Bill is pushing so hard it makes for uncomfortable listening. On Gone With the Wind and Round Midnight he sounds almost frenetic. Eddie Gomez's manic soloing doesn't help. It almost foretells the final VV sessions that were recorded and released as Turn Out the Stars. Bill is very edgy on these dates and frequently rushes. I listened to Barry Harris Plays Tadd Dameron before listening to Bill, and, as far as Bill Evans swinging or not---well I could happily pat my foot to Barry.

Neither Evans nor Getz wanted that recording released. Getz had a clause in his contract with Verve wherein no recording could be released without his approval, but they released it anyway without approval years later. That Marian McPartland show was a great example of how together Evans could be talking about his music despite his personal indulgences. Listening to it, it's hard to imagine a coke fiend was talking. He was articulate and played beautifully. It was a great show. If any drug can make you or encourage you to rush, cocaine would be it, and I believe that was BE's drug of choice in those later years when rushing was what he fairly often did. Why "crackpot theory" then? The rushing really was a problem in later years, but it was there earlier---just not as often. He was always a little on top of the beat. Listen to Very Early from Moonbeams. It speeds up, and that was the early sixties. The cocaine probably brought it out more, but the tendency was there.

He thinks that trio was revolutionary.

To get back to my OP: Well, I've come full circle. Listened to Portrait in Jazz yesterday and really enjoyed it. It's more of a traditional piano trio than the VV stuff, but there is interplay between Bill and Scott. The main thing is Bill is playing aggressively and reaching out. He seems to be developing the ideas explored on Everybody Digs Bill Evans, with horn-like lines and double-timing. I'd put this recording high in the Evans canon, despite my earlier comments about the trio. Go figure.

I heard them at the Vanguard on consecutive nights in '79, and they were intense. They played, as I recall, Up With the Lark and Gary's Waltz, among others. They were burning, though the tempos speeded up quite a bit. Yea, BE was a total mess towards the end. Andy LaVerne said he wanted them to let him die in the hospital. They tried to create an image of a clean cut, professorial dude, but he was anything but... The narcissistic side of him came out when he became obsessed with having a son and ditching his prostitute/junkie GF of many years (Elaine, who threw herself under a subway in reaction)for a young blonde who was good breeding material... The funniest example of his ego came out on the live record he made with Getz. Getz called a tune that they didn't rehearse for the concert (I forget what country), and Evans sat on his hands and shook his head when the bass player and drummer tried to keep playing with Getz. Getz was left playing all alone. Where in the world did you hear that Ellaine was a prostitute?

People are who they are, by and large. Evans was not about guts. If pigs had wings... Larry, Evans displayed plenty of guts in the right setting. Listen to Israel and Someday my Prince from the Jazz 625 show I alluded to in the OP. He's employing the same concepts of rhythmic displacement and block chord soloing (and some of the same tunes) as in the VV sessions, only, to my ears, with so much more vitality. I wonder if it was an internal change besides, obviously, one of personnel. 'Gutsy' Evans can also be heard on the title track of A Simple Matter of Conviction and throughout Interplay---to give just a few examples from the '60s. Evans himself resented, in interviews, being pigeonholed as the sensitive ballad player. He said decisively in one that he worked much harder on 'energy, swing, whatever' than the delicacy and moodiness he was said to exclusively mete out. I think great drummers brought this side of him out.

Living Time? LIVING TIME?? That's it. YOU'RE EXCOMMUNICATED!! (;

Just to see if I had been in a weird mood the first time I listened again to the Vanguard sessions and had the same reaction: pretty music with no guts (though Evans' voicings are a thing of beauty). My favorite Evans recordings have great drummers kicking him in the ass (no slam on the excellent time drumming of Paul Motian): Philly Joe on Everybody Digs and Interplay; Jack DeJohnette on Montreux; Shelly Manne on Empathy and A simple Matter of Conviction.

You're right. 'Stilted' is the wrong word. I almost wrote 'stillborn', but that would've been too harsh.

It's received wisdom that the Bill Evans' first trio was something special: innovative, contrapuntal, lyrical. And so it was. When I was very young I was taken by its magic. However, listening now many years later, via youtube to the complete Vanguard recordings I find the music rhythmically stilted, overly precious, overly cerebral. There's little variance in tempo and most of the vitality is coming from Scott LaFaro. In short, it puts me to sleep. Fast forward two or three years to two back to back appearances (also viewed on youtube) of Bill's reconfigured trio with Chuck Israels and Larry Bunker on the British TV show Jazz 625. Different story altogether. The music is much harder swinging, better integrated, and Bill himself sounds much more alive and vital. It's wonderful. It could be that I and my tastes have changed, but I'll put it out to the forum: anyone else have problems with those Vanguard sessions? What say you?

(A day late). Happy birthday Paul!

Amazing. Happy birthday to a great guy.

Thanks for the update.

He blended so beautifully with Tom Harrell and soloed with distinction on Horace Silver's Silver with Strings Plays the Music of the Spheres and Bill Evans' We Will Meet Again. It seems little has been heard of him on record since the 70s. What gives?

Sorry to say not a huge fan. Too much of the pattern playing and he played too loud and nasal for me---even on ballads. He was very good though, just not my taste.

Thank you all!

RIP, Ms. Angelou.

It's one of his best.

Happy Bday, Larry

Now what about the Singers Unlimited? (Speaking of Gene Puerling). They deserve a thread.