Bill Evans, Everybody Digs Bill Evans (Riverside Records, orig. released 1958)
Now I know we're in the late stages of the compact disc era. I know that the upcoming generation (punks!) regard music as a thing to be kept in small digitized fragments on a handheld device, and that the idea of the long-playing album as viable work of art seems antique.
But some of us still like CDs. (Well, yes, vinyl is better for its big cover art and its crackly warm sound, but even I've moved past that level of technological nostalgia.)
This one is a keeper, a comforting landmark from my favorite period in jazz (1945-1965). It's the first great album by one of jazz music's revered pianists. Evans was a poet, an impressionistic master, a genius of hanging chords and wide open spaces and exquisite voicings. This disc is worth having just for the famous "Peace Piece," a spontaneous improvisation that Evans performed (with the tapes running, thankfully) while trying to figure out an introduction to Leonard Bernstein's "Some Other Time," included here as a bonus track. In other places, Evans swings with the trio (filled out by his Miles Davis Sextet bandmates Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums), but it's the solo piano moments that get me. Listen to "Lucky To Be Me," which Evans presents in heartbreakingly ironic terms here, and see if you can leave unmoved.
3 comments:
You know what? I might really purchase this CD...
...to use it as a coaster.
Just kidding. ;)
You rotten kids!
Your description makes me want to hear the CD. There's so much great old jazz available on CD these days, and really cheap. I used to pick up an occasional 78 hanging out at flea markets in the Netherlands. (Actually, I'm waiting for some modern punk band to someday bring out a grammophone single - that would be cool).
Thanks for your comment at Indeterminacy. I'm glad you found something you enjoyed. I'm on a short hiatus because the blog was taking so much time but I hope to start in June on a weekly basis.
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