Tuesday, January 20, 2015

#5: Bill Evans at Town Hall

Details: Bill Evans Trio, Bill Evans (1929-1980) at Town Hall, volume 1.  Recorded live Feb. 21, 1966 at Town Hall in New York City.  Verve, 1967. Total time: 53:00.

Here is the first of many Bill Evans albums to come provided I can keep this project going.  My dad's favorite musician by far, Evans was a wonderful,  thoughtful, incisive, precise jazz pianist whose technique and musicianship including melodious legato can almost be called classical.  In fact if I recall correctly he was classically trained.

My father had a zillion Bill Evans albums and I grew up hearing them when my dad would play them.  It's probably not true but I like to imagine my dad in the audience for this performance as he could've been in the area at that time.

Anyway this is only volume 1 of the gig which for some odd reason I never noticed till today.  Will have to look around for vol. 2.

Musically this is Evans at or near his best with wonderful songs including standards like "I Should Care" and "Who Can I Turn To," "Spring Is Here" and "Make Someone Happy," and Evans' own poignant composition in memory of his father who had recently passed away... It sounds almost like Debussy.  "My Foolish Heart" was one of my dad's favorites and that is on here as well.

Lastly will close this entry by recalling my dad taking my brother Michael to see an Evans gig at the old Bunky's nightclub, then located on Regent Street, shortly before Evans' death at just age 51.  Too bad no one recorded that gig; today it'd be all over YouTube and GrooveShark.

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