Appreciating Bill Evans
Jazz’s Most Lyrical Pianist and the Search for Truth and Beauty
I’m sitting in my living room, illuminated by a soft orange glow from the gas fireplace. “Waltz For Debby,” a 1962 album by Bill Evans’ first and arguably greatest trio, sits on the turntable. It begins to spin, and I rest the needle on it. The first stark, poignant notes of “My Foolish Heart” fill the room. I take a sip of cognac. At this delicious instant, all is totally right with the world.
Bill Evans, in the space of 25 years from the late ’50s until his death in 1980, forged a singular style that made him a jazz icon and earned him the respect of listeners, critics and fellow musicians. The slender, bespectacled musician was a familiar presence, bent over his piano in passionate focus, often with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, his fingers weaving a tapestry of shifting harmonies and cascading notes. He recorded more than 50 albums, some of which are among the most celebrated in jazz. Best known for “Kind of Blue,” the seminal modal jazz album which has sold more copies than any other jazz recording, and “Live at the Village Vanguard,” featuring his groundbreaking trio, Evans’ body of work stands as tall as that of any jazz pianist in history.
William John Evans was born in 1929 in Plainfield, New Jersey, two years after his brother…
