Musician Bill Evans - Essay Example

BILL EVANS (SCRIPT) Good morning/afternoon/evening (as the case may be)! Allow me to speak to you about a musician. He did not enjoy the immense popularity of today’s pop stars, but certainly, his talent deserves the same, if not more, adulation. Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you who I’m talking about. He is none other than the great jazz artist, Bill Evans. Bill Evans was one of the most influential figures of the post-bop jazz piano. He recorded over fifty albums as leader and received five Grammy awards. He spawned a school of "Bill Evans style" or "Evans inspired" pianists, who include some of the best-known artists of our day. His inescapable influence on the very sound of jazz piano has touched virtually everybody of prominence in the field after him—as well as most of his contemporaries, and he remains a monumental model for jazz piano students everywhere, even inspiring a newsletter devoted solely to his music and influence. Speaking of influences, during young Evans’ life, it was Harry—his older brother—who was his first influence. Harry was the first one in the family to take piano lessons, and young Bill began at the piano by mimicking him. It was during this time that the idea of doing something in music that somebody hadnt thought of opened a whole new world to him. This idea became the central one of his musical career. Evans mother was an influence, too. She was an amateur pianist who had piles of old music sheets, which the young Bill read through. gaining breadth and above all speed at sight-reading. This enabled him to explore widely in classical literature, especially 20th century composers. He once remarked, and I quote: "Its just that Ive played such a quantity of piano. Three hours a day in childhood, about six hours a day in college, and at least six hours now. With that, I could afford to develop slowly. Everything Ive learned, Ive learned with feeling being the generating force.” He further added that playing Bach a lot helped him gain control over tone and improved his physical contact with the keyboard. Evans received a music scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana University, and graduated with a degree in piano performance and Music Education in 1950. In college, he discovered the work of Horace Silver, Bud Powell, Nat King Cole, and Lennie Tristano, who was to have a profound influence on him. Later, he took postgraduate studies in composition at the Mannes College of Music in New York, where he also mentored younger music students. As a teacher, personal students of Evans say that he would never spell out anything he did for them. The student would necessarily formulate a unique musical personality different from that of Evans. His teaching approach challenged the student to be as deep and as original as he was. However, his baptism of fire in jazz happened after college when he joined reedman Herbie Fields band. It was in this last position that he learned to accompany horn players. After that, he spent 1951 to 1954 in the army, during which he managed to gig around Chicago. Upon his discharge, he decided to pursue a jazz career and settled in New York. There he worked at nightclubs with the dance band of jazz clarinetist Tony Scott, and guitarist Mundell Lowe. He became known as an exceptional player in musicians circles. In 1956, Mundell Lowe brought Evans to the attention of producer Orrin Keepnews at Riverside Records. At first, they had to convince Evans! The very self-effacing Bill Evans didnt believe he was ready to record, so Keepnews and company had to persuade him to the contrary. The atmosphere in the studio was relaxed. Evans had chosen Paul Motian, his drummer with Tony Scott, and Teddy Kotick, an excellent young bassist, who had already worked with Charlie Parker and Stan Getz. The album entitled “New Jazz Conceptions” was a critical success, winning Evans very positive reviews. However, it only sold 800 copies in a year. In 1958, Miles Davis asked Evans to join his group. Evans stayed for nearly a year, touring and recording. He left Miles’s group in December 1958 and had his second outing as leader. The real classic during this session is his original "Peace Piece,” which became a jazz standard. The tune is based on a succession of scales, which the player extends at will before going onto another scale, a new kind of balance at the time between structured and free. The tune, therefore, would never be played the same way twice. Evans was moving away from the dominant influences of his jazz formation—Bud Powell and Horace Silver—and toward the sound that would characterize his mature years. It testifies to a large amount of exploration and growth in the 26 months between the two recording sessions, including the assimilation of the influence of Lennie Tristanos long flowing lines into his playing. Since the stint with Miles had only benefited Bills reputation, Keepnews decided to title the album Everybody Digs Bill Evans and put testimonials from Davis, George Shearing, Ahmad Jamal and Cannonball Adderley on the cover. Issued in May, 1959, it sold much better than the first one. Evans last decade of recording showed him growing even more as an artist. His 1974 live album, Since We Met, is one of his very best. In 1979, he gave a magnificent concert in Paris, which was later turned into two LP releases on Musician, called simply Paris Concert, Edition I and II. Evans was the main person responsible for reforming jazz voicings on piano. A voicing is the series of notes used to express a chord. Up until that time chords had been expressed either by spelling the chord. Although Bud Powell pioneered shell “voicings” using the so-called roots, Evans abandoned the style almost entirely to develop a system in which the chord is expressed as a quality identity and a color. This is explained in books on jazz piano theory and technique. He was known for his mature style. It has been such a pervasive influence in jazz piano over the past thirty years that in many ways it is almost undetectable. We can speak of his highly nuanced touch, his melodic shapes, and his chord voicings and still be at a distance from the essence of his sound. To clarify this essence, it is useful to isolate and describe the elements of his style. When you listen closely to the recordings of Evans, you hear things not present even in his closest followers, for example, the fine gradation of touch that offers up emotional nuance at a truly surprising level of sensitivity. We know now Evans disliked exercises, avoided playing them. From this perspective, a finger exercise would be an unacceptable short-cut, since it would remove the player from the emotional potential of music by unacceptably isolating technique from feeling. By taking the time to refuse to do this during his entire formation, Evans recreated jazz piano for himself, and by extension for the rest of the field. However, Evans’ personal life was not spared from personal turmoil. He suffered from family problems; he had been sinking into a heroin habit in the late 50s. After he was clean, Evans later signed to Verve for a huge amount. Around this time, 1970, Evans wife committed suicide by throwing herself under a subway train. As a result, he went back on heroin for a while, then got into a treatment program, and stayed away from drugs for almost the last decade in his life. He married again, had a child, who was named Evan. His son became the inspiration for the beautiful tune "Letter to Evan." The marriage did not last, however, and soon he was living by himself in Fort Lee, New Jersey, right across the George Washington Bridge. In 1980, Bill Evans began using cocaine; the fashionable drug which he imagined was "safe." But actually it demands replenishment in the bloodstream every few hours rather than just once a day like heroin, and as a stimulant, it wears you down that much faster At the end of summer of that year, he asked his drummer to drive him to the hospital for severe stomach pains. He calmly directed him to Mount Sinai Hospital, checked in, and died there on the 15th of September. Evans died from a bleeding ulcer, cirrhosis of the liver and bronchial pneumonia. He is buried next to his beloved brother Harry, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In his short life, Bill Evans was a prolific and profoundly creative artist and a genuinely compassionate man, often in the face of his recurring health problem and his restless nature. His rich legacy remains undiminished, and his compositions have enjoyed rediscovery by jazz players and some classical musicians. He brought a new dynamic musical vitality, a surer confidence, fresh energy, and even more aggressive interplay to jazz music. Even twenty-nine years after his passing, Bill Evans’s music continues to influence musicians and composers everywhere and all those who have been deeply touched by his expressive genius and sensitive lyrical artistry. Read More