Affinity

Bill Evans makes people a bit crazy. He is, unquestionably, the most influential white musician in jazz history, and this has, at times, made it difficult to disentangle his symbolic status from his actual musical legacy. Surely this is part of the reason why Brad Mehldau kind of flips out every time someone compares him to Bill Evans, or why the 1961 Village Vanguard recordings are viewed with almost religious adulation ("This is it. The breakthrough. The pinnacle of spontaneous musical communication")^[1], or why Stanley Crouch takes such evident delight in denigrating Evans as a "punk" and "all Debussy" and claims he "didn't understand jazz rhythm."

Evans is too complicated a musician to be reduced to one of the two prevailing stereotypes -- "greatest genius in jazz" (because he "elevated" it by making it more "classical") or "painfully introverted, non-swinging nebbish" (because he was too "classical"). One of the most clear-headed Bill Evans advocates I've encountered is André White, who was one of my teachers at McGill. It's not just that he's spent many years studying the Evans discography -- he's hardly alone there -- but he is also equally accomplished as both pianist and drummer, and as such he has unique and profound insights into Bill's approach to the time and his relationship to rhythm sections over the years.

So I was very happy to see this post over at Peter Hum's blog, Thriving on a Riff, which has extensive commentary from André. There's lots of great stuff there, from his comments on Bill's late-period trio with Philly Joe Jones -- "[Jones] didn't need to adapt his style to play with Bill, and I think that's why some people respond negatively to him, because he plays his way no matter what. I'm sure that's what Bill loved about him" to a qualified defense of Eddie Gomez: "Eddie gets bad-mouthed by a lot of musicians too, because of intonation, and his busy-ness. But really, his style is so unique, and he is such a great improviser that these concerns should be mumbled quietly in the background."

Read the whole thing.

André is the person who persuaded me to listen to late-period Bill Evans with an ear towards the masterful rhythmic displacements embedded into his fluid lines. One of my favorite example of this is Bill's solo on "Nobody Else But Me," from 1977's I Will Say Goodbye. I still don't think I will ever exactly love late-period Bill Evans, but thanks to André I have a much deeper appreciation of its virtues.

Bill Evans is a tangent in Ethan Iverson's recent five-part Tristano epic. Ethan writes:

All In the Mix:  I like to hear a black bass player get in Bill Evans’ way and be a funky counterpoint to his impressionism more than I like to hear Evans with the long line of white virtuoso bassists he would soon specialize in. (Not that I don’t admire Scott LaFaro, Eddie Gomez, and Marc Johnson, but my preferred LaFaro, Gomez, and Johnson records are somehow never with Bill Evans!)  My favorite Evans is the comping he did with Miles Davis and Oliver Nelson with Paul Chambers on bass, my favorite Evans trio record is Everybody Digs Bill Evans with Sam Jones on bass, and my absolute favorite Evans piano solos are on this Half Note date with Garrison on bass.  (Of course, there are white bassists who play more in that tradition, too;  I would have loved to have heard Charlie Haden or Dennis Irwin play with Evans. Teddy Kotick on the very first Evans record sounds great, too.)

In light of this, I'd like to point out an often-overlooked recording featuring Bill Evans with a hard-charging black rhythm section: Charles Mingus's East Coasting (rec. August 1957). Yeah, that's right -- Bill Evans with Mingus and Dannie Richmond! (Clarence Shaw, Jimmy Knepper, and Curtis Porter round out the sextet.) It is fascinating to hear Bill adapt his approach to fit the needs of Mingus's music -- "Guess the piano player on 'West Coast Ghost'" makes a great blindfold test.

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1. I've always been a bit perplexed by this -- to my ears, Portrait In Jazz is clearly a much stronger and more exciting representation of the Evans-LaFaro-Motian trio.

Comments

[rob ewing]

1.

Green Dolphin Street is another often overlooked fantastic Bill Evans record with Chambers and Jones. Very much a swinging record. No watercolors.

[Ethan Iverson]

2.

Nice call on Portrait In Jazz being the definitive Evans-LaFaro-Motian record: Paul Motian has told me that he personally thinks that is the best one!

I think that trio is overrated only in the sense that many want to consider the live Vanguard dates comparable to the complete works of William Shakespeare or something.

To this day, most mainstream discussion of Paul Motian highlights his work with Bill Evans, which I think misses the point of one of my favorite musicians. Of course, Paul sounds awesome on that Vanguard music with Evans and LaFaro (incredible cymbal work on the ballads) but it is Paul Motian with Keith Jarrett and his own magnificent bands that has the aggressive, revolutionary, influential, and complete Paul Motian.

However, recently Larry Grenadier was raving about a bootleg of Evans-LaFaro-Motian at Birdland in 1960 which is reportedly the very best of this trio. (I also don’t know the MIngus-Evans-Richmond you cite; I’d better seek it out.)

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All unrepentant improvisors get a free pass from me. Eddie Gomez is, without a doubt, a true badass. I haven’t heard them in a long time but I used to adore how Gomez ruled in several pianoless settings with Bennie Wallace and Dannie Richmond. Nasheet Waits was telling me recently how much he dug playing with Gomez, and Billy Hart loves him too.

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(If I hear another amateur rendition of “Gloria’s Step” I will expire.) Check Scott LaFaro on Hampton Hawes For Real! with Frank Butler. Impossibly swinging. On Ornette! LaFaro is molten ferocity, even playing the head of “W.R.U”(!). Both Jimmy Garrison and LaFaro work out surprisingly well with Ornette, but of course Charlie Haden is really the cat.

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Marc Johnson always sounds good, but the Evans trio records with Joe LaBarbera are a bit hard for me. It’s not Johnson or LaBarbera’s fault: the coked-up piano player is rushing like a madman. (LaBarbera is underrated. I saw him with Hank Jones three years ago and he sounded GREAT.) Johnson on his own records, with John Abercrombie or John Scofield, or even with John Lewis are more my speed. I know every note of Second Sight (Johnson’s “Bass Desires” with Bill Frisell, Scofield, and Peter Erskine) and I am not the only one of my peer group influenced by that powerful record.

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When listening to “Stella By Starlight” off of Miles Davis’ My Funny Valentine tonight I was once again struck by how much Herbie Hancock owes to Bill Evans.

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Something that I should of included in my too-curt Evans’ assessment is how profound I think his rubato accompaniment behind Tony Bennett is. (There are two duo records.) Evans’ harmony here is never “stock”; each chord is created with passion. At times the piano seems lit from within.

[DJA]

3.

Hey Ethan,

Thanks for stopping by! Great commentary, as always.

However, recently Larry Grenadier was raving about a bootleg of Evans-LaFaro-Motian at Birdland in 1960 which is reportedly the very best of this trio.

I did not know that such a thing existed. I will have to seek it out.

I don't think anyone would deny they are some truly beautiful moments on the '61 Vanguard sessions ("Milestones" is killing!) but the exalted status they now enjoy is a bit much. I also don't even think they're a particularly helpful place for young piano players to begin listening to Bill Evans.

I also don’t know the MIngus-Evans-Richmond you cite; I’d better seek it out.

East Coasting is kind of minor Mingus, but it's still an enjoyable record, beyond just the historical curiosity of hearing Bill Evans playing on a Mingus date. "West Coast Ghost" and "Celia" (Mingus's tune, not the Bud Powell tune) are both great. Apparently, Evans was called in as a last-minute sub for Wade Legge -- according to Pettinger, he got the call at 4 AM for a 10 AM session!

[John Kerns]

4.

Rather late joining this discussion, but between Sunday at VV and Portrait in Jazz, I would choose the former, if only because it contains Miles' tune Solar, which is not just bebop, but also 12 bar and so can be considered "blues", and the primary reason Evans gets bashed by Stanley Crouch, Wynton Marsalis, and the rest is that he didn't play blues. (Stolen Moments from Oliver Nelson's Blues & the Abstract Truth is another example of sorts.)

On the other hand, When I Fall in Love from Portrait in Jazz is my single favorite Bill Evans track, so can't go wrong with either.