A possibly heretical statement re Bill Evans' first trio

[Joe]

1) I like the vanguard Sessions a lot; my favorite Evans is still the '56 OJC, the live sessions with Tony Scott, the George Russell (especially the interchanges with Bley); also the half note with Marsh/Konitz.

2) Philly Joe was Evans' favorite drummer, but too unreliable; I got that right from the horse's mouth, as the saying goes

3) The difference between the Miles Davis Sextet and the Miles Davis Quintet was, at last count, one musician.

4) Duke Jordan told me he and Evans used to do duets. The mind boggles, wish someone had recorded.

4) in the end, Bud Powell is God. There is no God before him (or after him).

... The question is: who was the missing link between BP and BE? Andy LaVerne has postulated that it was Sonny Clark.

NYC's No Lark. Clark and Evans both owe something to Tristano, too... and maybe Al Haig. Though, yeah, Bud's influence is sure pervasive (though nobody, to my ears, could ever play with quite his pulse.)

[l p]

in evans' defence, it must be hard for a jazz piano trio not to sound like glorified lounge music. i was always bored when tying to listen to his trios. i like ellington trios, mostly because of the choice of tunes.

i don't think there are any fats waller piano trios. too bad.

Edited November 14, 2014 by l p

[Leeway]

in evans' defence, it must be hard for a jazz piano trio not to sound like glorified lounge music. i was always bored when tying to listen to his trios. i like ellington trios, mostly because of the choice of tunes.

i don't think there are any fats waller piano trios. too bad.

That's likely, but I don't recall Matt Shipp's trios ever sounding like cocktail lounge music. Just grabbing at an example that immediately comes to mind. So it can be done. You might lay the cocktail lounge indictment at Evans' feet (or piano bench); he's had an adverse affect on too many other pianists.

[fasstrack]

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.

[fasstrack]

Put me down as a big fan of the Village Vanguard recordings, though perhaps heretically, I listen to Living Time with George Russell more often.

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

[Larry Kart]

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.

People are who they are, by and large. Evans was not about guts. If pigs had wings...

[JSngry]

...pig's feet would be chicken wings?

[AllenLowe]

just re a prior thing, I always assume Al Haig was an influence on just about all post-bop pianists; but, in the one very long conversation I had with Evans, he was adamant about Haig NOT being an influence. And it is true that the earlier Evans was closer to Tristano. I also hear, in some of the things he did with Cannonbal, a Nat Cole influence (which I did not ask about).

[Steve Reynolds]

Paul Bley is as beautiful sounding as any pianist I've heard yet his music never goes to that place that Leeway is speaking of.

[ctuck1]

just re a prior thing, I always assume Al Haig was an influence on just about all post-bop pianists; but, in the one very long conversation I had with Evans, he was adamant about Haig NOT being an influence. And it is true that the earlier Evans was closer to Tristano. I also hear, in some of the things he did with Cannonbal, a Nat Cole influence (which I did not ask about).

The Pettinger biography says NKC was perhaps Evans' most significant influence.

[Joe]

just re a prior thing, I always assume Al Haig was an influence on just about all post-bop pianists; but, in the one very long conversation I had with Evans, he was adamant about Haig NOT being an influence. And it is true that the earlier Evans was closer to Tristano. I also hear, in some of the things he did with Cannonbal, a Nat Cole influence (which I did not ask about).

The Pettinger biography says NKC was perhaps Evans' most significant influence.

Voicings?

[sgcim]

Let's get real; if you think BE sounded like a cocktail pianist, you're listening to him on a very superficial level.

I've never heard any cocktail pianists sound even remotely like him.

And for that matter, I honestly can't think of any jazz pianists who have the same touch, complexity of melodic invention, motivic development, harmonic sophistication

and continuity of thought BE had.

As a perceptive European audience member said at the Village Vanguard after the BE trio finished a tune, 'Thank Heavens for Bill Evans!'

[Scott Dolan]

Let's get real; if you think BE sounded like a cocktail pianist, you're listening to him on a very superficial level.

Indeed.

That comment is right on par with, "all Jazz sounds the same".

[Teasing the Korean]

Let's get real; if you think BE sounded like a cocktail pianist, you're listening to him on a very superficial level.

Well, I like to enjoy a cocktail while I'm listening to jazz, so in my world, nearly all jazz pianists are cocktail pianists by default.

[JSngry]

What kind of cocktails are we talking about?

[Teasing the Korean]

What kind of cocktails are we talking about?

Well, I tend to go for rum cocktails. I also like many red wines.

But back to the Village Vanguard sessions:

The fact that the clinking of glasses is at least as loud as Paul Motian's drumming makes that album a contender for cocktail lounge music.

[Clunky]

Evans is one of those artists I can enjoy the work of from any period, and from whom I'm always discovering new nuances and strong performances.

My interest in Evans has like a number of posters here has varied considerably over the years. I've a good selection of dates from his earliest to his last. The later including some box sets bought cheaply. The reality is that his VV and early Riversides are only ones that I revisit with any measurable frequency. The VV recordings seem to reveal more and more with each listening - can't be bad!!!

Later day Evans could be reduced to a handful of discs ( California here I come and Paris Concert) without me feeling much loss.

[AllenLowe]

did I miss something? Did someone here compare any of these players to a cocktail pianist? What post?

[Scott Dolan]

See posts 52 and 53.

[fasstrack]

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.

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.

[AllenLowe]

I don't know if Larry remembers, but there is that film of Evans being interviewed by his brother; at one point Evans says, rather disdainfully, something to the effect that he does not like glib piano playing - and then plays something as though illustrating the negative; and the thing he plays is incredibly intense and maybe more effective than his more typical playing. We talked about that in some thread here at one time. It's a very telling illustration.

on the other hand, let us not forget that Evans thought Oscar Peterson was a great pianist. Without getting into the area of judgement, this is still VERY surprising to me.

[Larry Kart]

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.

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.

Gutsiness to me is at once relative (gutsy compared to Horace Silver? Bobby Timmons? Sonny Clark? Eddie Costa? the list could go on and on) and a matter of how a person plays by and large. The recordings you mention are exceptions in BE's body of work IMO and even then they are not that gutsy compared to the playing of Silver et al.

I don't know if Larry remembers, but there is that film of Evans being interviewed by his brother; at one point Evans says, rather disdainfully, something to the effect that he does not like glib piano playing - and then plays something as though illustrating the negative; and the thing he plays is incredibly intense and maybe more effective than his more typical playing. We talked about that in some thread here at one time. It's a very telling illustration.

on the other hand, let us not forget that Evans thought Oscar Peterson was a great pianist. Without getting into the area of judgement, this is still VERY surprising to me.

Yes, I remember that moment in that video but not in photographic (i.e. auditorily precise) detail. I recall having much the same reaction as you did.

[JSngry]

Are ya' like me? When you heard "Little Lulu" for the first time, didja' kinda think, ok, real virtues vs real vices, all at once...this is gonna be somebody else's drama from here on out, take the needle up off the record and put something, anything else on without thinking twice or looking back?

[sgcim]

I don't know if Larry remembers, but there is that film of Evans being interviewed by his brother; at one point Evans says, rather disdainfully, something to the effect that he does not like glib piano playing - and then plays something as though illustrating the negative; and the thing he plays is incredibly intense and maybe more effective than his more typical playing. We talked about that in some thread here at one time. It's a very telling illustration.

on the other hand, let us not forget that Evans thought Oscar Peterson was a great pianist. Without getting into the area of judgement, this is still VERY surprising to me.

That interview was done back in the early 60s, I believe, when Oscar was still playing with the swing, drive and intensity that made him a force of nature, so I could understand BE's admiration.

I don't know what happened to Oscar after that. I can't listen to any Oscar from the Pablo period on.

i spoke online with Evan Evans about his father's music.

He and his father viewed his improvisation as an advanced form of spontaneous composition, on a higher level than jazz- a new form of classical music. No room for glibness...

[AllenLowe]

or as Evans told his wife, "if Evan ever sits down at a piano, put a golf club in his hand."

at this late stage he was not happy in the music business, though a lot of it was classic depression, I think, mixed in with narcissistic tendencies; exacerbated (self medicated?) by drug abuse. He was also fond of playing, during his sets, the MASH theme: Suicide is Painless.

Edited November 15, 2014 by AllenLowe