Bill Evans • Treasures: Solo, Trio & Orchestra Recordings from Denmark (1965-1969) Elemental Music 5990544
Evans played on some historic quartet/quintet recordings, including Kind of Blue and The Blues and the Abstract Truth, but I would still argue that his trio sessions on the Riverside and Verve labels are his greatest recorded accomplishments. They supercharged the popularization of the piano trio, influencing essentially every serious jazz pianist who came afterwards. The first LP here turns back the clock, the playing sounding like prime Evans (with Niels-Henning Řrsted Pedersen on bass and Alan Dawson or Alex Riel on drums). Just the first minute of the first cut, "Come Rain or Come Shine," will convince you. Evans opened his Riverside album Portrait in Jazz with it, and Treasures... invites immediate comparison by doing the same. "Waltz for Debby" is also here and just as charmingly played as on the album of the same name. The first side of the second LP is devoted to solo Evans. He released more than one solo recording during the 1960s, if you include the two in the Conversations with Myself series, which feature Evans playing along with a recording of himself. There's no trickery here; each number is abundant with Evans' skill at working out the contours of a tune in a way that's gracefully his own. I was wary of side two, because it features Evans, Eddie Gomez on bass and Marty Morrell on drums with the Royal Danish Symphony Orchestra and Royal Danish Radio Big Band. While it may conjure an "and strings" session on its face, the "orchestral suite," as its called, compiled by trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg, pulls together four Evans compositions, including "Waltz for Debby." It's a lovely marriage, reminding me of the ambition and unity of Sketches of Spain. The final LP returns to trio territory but two different concerts and lineups, one from 1966 (Evans, Gomez and Riel) and the other from 1969 (Evans, Gomez and Morell). In addition to some Evans standards -- "Stella by Starlight," "Autumn Leaves," "Emily" -- there are two very different versions of Miles Davis's "Nardis": one three and a half minutes long, and the other running over eight minutes. For completists who like to compare versions of the same tune, the differences here will be fascinating. For others, they show how the creative process of jazz musicians works: the tune is just a starting point; where it ends is TBD. Zev Feldman, "the jazz detective," has shown an amazing nose for hunting down this material, but this time he had help from Jordi Soley and Carlos Agustín Calembert of Elemental Music. This is Feldman's tenth such release from Bill Evans, with others from Sonny Rollins, Wes Montgomery and similar notables also in his catalogue. The Treasures... recordings were informal and never meant to be released, but the sound is good overall, though a touch distant and soft in places. Bernie Grundman did the mastering from the analog tapes. The pressings, from Memphis Record Pressing, are flat and quiet, in league with the 180-gram LPs coming from the better-known US houses. The sleeve is utilitarian but has attractive graphics; the colorful booklet (which I have seen only in electronic format) is chock-full of interviews, biographical info, tributes and photos. There will be 4000 copies of the set available on Record Store Day, April 22, so be in line early or risk missing out. Someday Zev Feldman will run out of these unknown Bill
Evans sessions to release, and the world will be a less joyful place. I'm serious. The
anticipation of, once or twice a year, attending a Bill Evans concert and hearing new
music from a master is something that gives me joy. Bill Evans continues to live
on through this music, decades after it was recorded, which reaffirms his timeless appeal. |
ne of the
highlights of several recent Record Store Day and RSD Black Friday events has been the
release of a previously unknown recording of pianist and jazz icon Bill Evans. I have
several but not all of these multi-LP sets -- they sell out quickly the day they are
available. On each of these recordings, Evans led a trio -- sometimes his trio, sometimes
one that included musicians he didn't habitually work with -- through a concert recorded
in England or Holland or Argentina. Except for the location, all of that is also the case
with the latest set, Treasures..., although only with two of its three LPs. The
other sides feature Evans solo or with orchestral backing. So this collection is actually
multiple different recordings in one, and the mixture works, leading to some high-level
music no matter which lineup is making it.