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#BillEvans birthday is coming up on August 16th, so I may post a few thoughts over the coming days (and welcome others to add theirs). Evans died on September 15, 1980--leaving a complex, brilliant legacy. Great releases keep coming. A live 2022 release (recorded in 1979), #InnerSpirit, is joyous, often exuberant. Even tracks like Suicide is Painless (Theme from M*A*S*H). The track mirrors Evans' life & death from terrible addictions.
Like many, I became aware of #BillEvans when I listened to #MilesDavis' Kind of Blue. Evans' piano intro on So What was so great. His liner notes also caught my attention--he explained why improvisation is such a demanding art form. I love this version of the Evans Trio playing So What because it's wild & recorded in Canada. Bill Evans could swing hard.
Laurie Verchomin's book, The Big Love: Life & Death with Bill Evans, is funny, sad, touching & scary. Laurie was 22, much younger than Evans, when they met at a bar he was playing in Edmonton in 1979 (she was a waitress). Laurie has almost a Beat sensibility, and comes across as unflinchingly honest about the last year of Evans' life. I met Laurie in 2011 and she had a wild energy. She signed her book 'All is Love.'
#MilesDavis and #BillEvans produced sublime music together. Davis said he planned #KindofBlue around Evans' piano. Evans took some heat for being a white guy in the hippest Black band on the planet. But it was nothing compared to the racism Davis endured. He was assaulted & bloodied by the police in 1959 for having a smoke outside a NYC club where he was playing. Davis' name was on the marquee, he was at the height of his fame & Kind of Blue had just been released.
@WilliamRobert@toad.social#MilesDavis' #KindofBlue is influential--not just because it's the greatest jazz album of all time. Richard Williams 2009 book, The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music, makes the case that Kind of Blue influenced everyone from #theVelvetUnderground to #BrianEno. No doubt the album led to the creation of a whole sub-genre, #ECM. After Kind of Blue, #BillEvans never again recorded with Miles Davis. But Evans was just getting started.
#BillEvans' Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961) is a landmark album. Evans' near-telepathic interplay with bassist #ScottLaFaro and drummer #PaulMotian redefined the art of the trio. LaFaro is dazzling: the fact that he died in a car accident 11 days after the recording elevates the performances to legend. The ambient club noise is poignant; the room is tiny. Devastated by LaFaro's death, Evans didn't play again for months--and possibly never fully recovered.
#BillEvans' Morning Glory is a revelation. Recorded live in Buenos Aires in 1973 (and released in 2022), it captures a moment of political optimism. Combined with a 10 am showtime & the audience's rapturous appreciation for Evans & his trio -- this is a potent brew. By the encores, Evans, bassist Eddie Gomez & drummer Marty Morrell are lit up--as is the audience. Jazz musicians often get more 
in places like Japan, Europe & South America than in the U.S. That's life.