BILL EVANS LEFT TO RIGHT RAR FULL
BILL EVANS LEFT TO RIGHT RAR PORTABLE
BILL EVANS LEFT TO RIGHT RAR FREE

BILL EVANS LEFT TO RIGHT RAR FREE

Bill Evans played on Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Paul Motian recorded with Bob Brookmeyer and Scott LaFaro recorded at the end of the year with Steve Kuhn and Pete LaRoca, and participated in Free Jazz, Ornette Coleman’s double quartet album. The trio did not record any studio material in 1960, although the three musicians all participated in recording sessions for others. Those two guys brought tears to my eyes.” That deep emotion drew many listeners in the years to come to the music they made together. Motian: “One night Bill played Monk’s ‘Round Midnight so beautifully that Scott responded in a way that I can still hear. I remember playing in the Village Vanguard with Bill and Scott LaFaro with only 4 people in the club, and talking to Max Gordon and saying, ‘Hey, man, can we go home there’s only four people,’ and he says, ‘Oh, no, you’ve still got a table of people and you’ve got to play another set.’” But the trio kept playing, improving and gelling together as a unit.

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Paul Motian recalls: “A lot of gigs we did, we didn’t have full houses and people screaming and clapping when we played. For most jazz audiences they were mostly unknown and many times did not fill the clubs they played at. It was the first trio tour for Bill Evans and it included an engagement at Birdland in support of the Count Basie band. That’s what I was looking for.”Īfter the release of their debut album the trio went on a coast to coast tour during the first months of 1960. It takes a really musical approach, an artistic approach, to know when to be really simple, and when you should break something up.

If the bass player, for example, hears an idea that we wants to answer, why should he just keep playing a background?” Peri’s Scope, named after Bill Evans’ girlfriend Peri is a good example, with a syncopated middle part.Įvans later said about the concept of his trio: “What we tried to do was loosen up everybody’s role so that they were participating more, and with responsibility. Bill Evans wrote in the liner notes for the album: “I’m hoping the trio will grow in the direction of simultaneous improvisation rather than just one guy blowing followed by another guy blowing. Portrait in Jazz broke new grounds for jazz piano trios. They recorded their first album together on December 28th of 1959. Towards the end of the engagement bassist Scott LaFaro joined him and then Paul Motian, both sticking with him for nothing but the pleasure of making music together. During the two-week engagement “I think I went through six bass players and four drummers”. A big dressing room for Benny’s band, and we couldn’t even get a Coke without paying a buck and a quarter.” His drummer and bass player did not want to put up with this arrangement and quit the job. Evans recalled: “They were paying him a tremendous price, chauffeured limousines. That serendipitous event took place during an engagement Evans had at the Basin Street East club, playing the intermission breaks between sets by Benny Goodman who was making a comeback. A few more albums followed, including the better-selling Everybody Digs Bill Evans in 1958, until Evans found the right musicians to form his vision of a jazz trio. Evans was an unknown entity then and the album sold a mere 800 copies in its first year. The resulting album was New Jazz Conceptions and included drummer Paul Motian. And so unfolds the story of one of the most revered recordings in modern jazz, The Bill Evans Trio Live at the Village Vanguard.įive years earlier, in 1956, Keepnews first recorded Bill Evans for Riverside. There is no room for errors, because this is the last day of a two-week engagement by an artist quite reluctant to go into a studio and record new material. They have a full day of recording ahead of them, for Sundays are known to feature the same artist playing two matinee and three evening sets. They have a moment of panic when the power to the tape recorder quits, but luckily it is quickly restored.

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Together with sound engineer Dave Jones they setup the Ampex portable tape machine on a table close to the bandstand. The simple looking room is an ideal spot for jazz performances. For unexplained reasons it has one of the best acoustics for a live setting, making it ideal for capturing on tape jazz artists who are booked to play there. Producer Orrin Keepnews, head of the independent jazz label Riverside, descends the stairs to the basement at 178 7th avenue, a small wedge-shaped room with low ceilings, known to jazz enthusiasts as the Village Vanguard. It is the afternoon of a Sunday in New York City, June 1961. 14 The Bill Evans Trio at the Village Vanguard, 1961.

Bill evans left to right rar