Section from chapter 1963-64: Technology and Spirituality   [ return to introduction ]

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By Mervyn Cooke • 325 illustrations,
82 in full color • 256 pages • 8-1/2 x 8-1/2"
Cloth • ISBN 0-7892-0399-5 • U.S. $45.00
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This expressive sketch of Bill Evans was drawn by Norwegian jazz critic Randi Hultin. [ view larger image ]
Everybody Digs Bill Evans

Bop piano playing quickly ran itself into a stylistic rut when second-rate pianists found themselves unable to achieve the individuality of Thelonious Monk (• p. 154) or Bud Powell. Mechanical, fragmented improvised melodies in the right hand were invariably supported by spiky and seemingly random chords in the left (a type of accompaniment known as "comping"), and it all sounded much the same.

Bill Evans proved himself to be practically the single-handed savior of modern jazz piano when he emerged from working with Charles Mingus and Miles Davis in the late 1950s to establish himself as a strongly individual talent. His interest in modal techniques was demonstrated by the track "Peace Piece" on his album Everybody Digs Bill Evans in 1958, and was intensified the following year by his collaboration with Davis on the seminal project Kind of Blue (• p. 146). Modal techniques, stemming ultimately from Evans’s awareness of the music of classical French composers such as Debussy (• p. 24) and Satie, became part of an unusually rich harmonic vocabulary that allowed him to escape from the clichés of other bop pianists. Arguably his finest work was recorded in 1959-61 with a trio featuring bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. This ensemble, which benefitted from an outstanding instinctive rapport between the three men, was cruelly curtailed by LaFaro’s untimely death (• p. 153).

Evans’s most important and influential attribute was his innate lyricism, which added a vein of sensitivity and expressiveness into jazz at a time when it was most in need of it. Unlike some other cool performers, Evans combined his relaxed musical intimacy with sophisticated compositional and improvisational techniques that never allowed the listener to lapse into complacency. His work was widely emulated in Europe in the 1970s, and had a decisive impact on later American pianists such as Keith Jarrett (• p. 185) and Lyle Mays (• p. 211).