Biography by Richard S. Ginell
With
the passage of time, Bill Evans has become an entire school unto
himself for pianists and a singular mood unto himself for listeners.
There is no more influential jazz-oriented pianist -- only McCoy Tyner
exerts nearly as much pull among younger players and journeymen -- and
Evans has left his mark on such noted players as Herbie Hancock, Keith
Jarrett, Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau. Borrowing heavily from the
impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, Evans brought a new, introverted,
relaxed, lyrical, European classical sensibility into jazz -- and that
seems to have attracted a lot of young conservatory-trained pianists
who follow his chord voicings to the letter in clubs and on stages
everywhere. Indeed, classical pianists like Jean-Yves Thibaudet have
recorded note-for-note transcriptions of Evans' performances, bringing
out the direct lineage with classical composers. In interviews, Evans
often stressed that pianists should thoroughly learn technique and
harmony so that they can put their inspiration to maximum use. Since he
already had those tools in hand, he worked very hard on his touch,
getting the special, refined tone that he wanted out of a piano. He
also tried to democratize the role of the bassist and drummer in his
succession of piano trios, encouraging greater contrapuntal interplay.
Bespectacled,
shy, soft-spoken, and vulnerable, Evans was not a good fit into the
rough-and-tumble music business. In part to shield himself from the
outside world, he turned to drugs -- first heroin, and later, cocaine
-- which undoubtedly shortened his life. In interviews, though, he
sounds thoroughly in control, completely aware of what he wanted from
his art, and colleagues report that he displayed a wicked sense of
humor. Nowadays, Evans seems to be immune from criticism, but there was
a time when he was accused of not being able to swing, or pilloried for
an "effete" approach to jazz that was alien to its African sources.
However, there are plenty of Evans recordings which show that he could
indeed flash the technique and swing as hard as anyone when he wanted
to, especially early in his career. He simply chose a different path
for himself, one entirely reflective of his inward personality -- and
that's what seems to touch listeners inside and outside jazz the most.
Indeed, the cult for Evans' recordings is big enough to justify the
existence of six large, expensive boxed sets of his output: four from
Fantasy's archives, one from Warner Bros., and the biggest one from
Verve. A newcomer, though, would be better-advised to sample Evans in
smaller doses. Since the bulk of his recordings were made with the same
piano-bass-drums instrumentation, and his career was not marked by
dramatic shifts in style, prolonged listening to hours upon hours of
his trio recordings can lead to monotony (after all, you can even
overdose on Bach, as great as he was).
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 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). In
any case, Kind of Blue -- now the biggest-selling acoustic jazz album
of all time -- contains perhaps the most moving performances of Evans'
life.
Evans returned to the scene as a leader in December 1958
with the album Everybody Digs Bill Evans, which included the famous
"Peace Piece," a haunting vamp for solo piano that sounds like a
long-lost Satie Gymnopedie. Evans' first working trio turned out to be
his most celebrated, combining forces with the astounding young bassist
Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian in three-way telepathic
trialogues. With this group, Evans became a star -- and there was even
talk about a recording with Davis involving the entire trio. Sadly,
only ten days after a landmark live session at the Village Vanguard in
June 1961, LaFaro was killed in an auto accident -- and the shattered
Evans went into seclusion for almost a year. He re-emerged the
following spring with Chuck Israels as his bassist, and he would go on
to record duets with guitarist Jim Hall and a swinging quintet session,
Interplay, with Hall and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.
Upon
signing with Verve in 1962, Evans was encouraged by producer Creed
Taylor to continue to record in more varied formats: with Gary
McFarland's big band, the full-orchestra arrangements of Claus Ogerman,
co-star Stan Getz, a reunion with Hall. The most remarkable of these
experiments was Conversations With Myself, a session where Evans
overdubbed second and third piano parts onto the first; this eventually
led to two sequels in that fashion. 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. Mostly,
though, Evans would record a wealth of material with a series of trios.
Through his working trios would pass such players as bassists LaFaro
(1959-1961), Israels (1962-1965), Gary Peacock (1963), Teddy Kotick
(1966), Eddie Gomez (1966-1977), and Marc Johnson (1978-1980); and
drummers Motian (1959-1962), Larry Bunker (1962-1965), Arnie Wise
(1966, 1968), Joe Hunt (1967), Philly Joe Jones (1967, 1977-1978), Jack
DeJohnette (1968), John Dentz (1968), Marty Morell (1968-1975), Eliot
Zigmund (1975-1977), and Joe La Barbera (1978-1980). After Verve, Evans
would record for Columbia (1971-1972), Fantasy (1973-1977), and Warner
Bros. (1977-1980). The final trio with Johnson and La Barbera has been
considered the best since the LaFaro-Motian team -- Evans thought so
himself -- and their brief time together has been exhaustively
documented on CDs.
Though Evans' health was rapidly
deteriorating, aggravated by cocaine addiction, the recordings from his
last months display a renewed vitality. Even on The Last Waltz,
recorded as late as a week before his death from a hemorrhaging ulcer
and bronchial pneumonia, there is no audible hint of physical
infirmity. After Evans' death, a flood of unreleased recordings from
commercial and private sources has elevated interest in this pianist to
an insatiable level.
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