Bill Evans Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More - AllMusic
Bill Evans Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More - AllMusic
Bill Evans Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More - AllMusic
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Bill Evans
Virtual king of the modern jazz pianists who forged a gentle style of his own from the 1950s on.
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Biography
Bill Evans Biography by Richard S. Ginell
Portrait in Jazz Borrowing heavily from the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel,
pianist Bill Evans brought an introverted, relaxed, and lyrical
classical sensibility into jazz. Along with his keen technical ability
and nuanced sense of harmony, Evans worked to democratize the
role of the bassist and drummer in his succession of piano trios,
encouraging greater contrapuntal interplay. After gaining
widespread attention as a member of Miles Davis' late-'50s group,
Evans garnered further acclaim for his own work, leading a celebrated trio with bassist Scott
LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian and recording classic albums like 1960's Portrait in Jazz,
1961's At the Village Vanguard, and 1962's Waltz for Debby, the latter of which borrowed its
title from the pianist's best-known composition. Following LaFaro's tragic death in 1961,
Evans eventually forged a lasting creative partnership with bassist Eddie Gomez and
continued to perform, working with drummers Jack DeJohnette and Marty Morell. He
earned accolades including Grammy Awards for 1968's At the Montreux Jazz Festival,
1970's Alone, 1971's The Bill Evans Album, and 1979's We Will Meet Again. With the passage
of time, Evans has become an entire school unto himself for pianists and a singular mood for
listeners, leaving his mark on such noted players as Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick
Corea, and Brad Mehldau.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Evans was recruited for Southeastern Louisiana University on
a flute scholarship, where he received a thorough background in theory, played in the
marching band, and also led his football team to a league championship as a quarterback.
Graduating as a piano major in 1950, he started to tour with the Herbie Fields band, but the
draft soon beckoned, and Evans was placed in the Fifth Army Band near Chicago. After three
years in the service, he arrived in New York in 1954, playing in Tony Scott's quartet and
undertaking postgraduate studies at Mannes College, where he encountered composer
George Russell and his modal jazz theories. By 1956, he had already recorded his first album
as a leader for Riverside, New Jazz Conceptions, still enthralled by the bop style of Bud
Powell but also unveiling what was to become his best-known composition, "Waltz for
Debby," which he wrote while still in the Army.
In spring 1958, Evans began an eight-month gig with the Miles Kind of Blue
Davis Sextet, where he exerted a powerful influence upon the
willful yet ever-searching leader. Though Evans left the band that
autumn, exhausted by pressured expectations and anxious to form
his own group, he was deeply involved in the planning and
execution of Davis' epochal Kind of Blue album in 1959,
contributing ideas about mood, structure, and modal
improvisation, and collaborating on several of the compositions. Although the original release
gave composition credit of "Blue in Green" to Davis, Evans claimed he wrote it entirely,
based on two chords suggested by Davis (nowadays, they receive co-credit).
What's New By 1966, Evans had paired with Puerto Rican bassist Eddie Gomez
and formed a trio with drummer Jack DeJohnette. Though short-
lived, the group garnered attention, picking up a Grammy Award
for the 1968 concert album Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz
Festival. That same year, DeJohnette left to be replaced by Marty
Morell. This version of Evans' trio continued to work for a decade,
releasing albums like 1969's What's New and 1971's Grammy-
winning The Bill Evans Album. Evans also picked up a Grammy in 1970 for his solo piano date
Alone.
In his only concession to the emerging jazz-rock scene, Evans dabbled with the Rhodes
electric piano in the 1970s but eventually tired of it, even though inventor Harold Rhodes had
tailored the instrument to Evans' specifications. He recorded further trio sessions with
Gomez and drummer Eliot Zigmund before launching a final trio in the late '70s with bassist
Marc Johnson and drummer Joe La Barbera. Often considered one of the pianist's best
configurations since the LaFaro-Motian team, their brief time together was documented on
1979's Grammy-winning We Will Meet Again, also featuring trumpeter Tom Harrell and
saxophonist Larry Schneider.
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