A Bill Evans “Career Retrospective” from Craft

Jazz pianist Bill Evans on the cover of the new On a Friday Evening album (from the Amazon.com Web page for that album)

This coming Friday Craft Records will release a major anthology of performances by jazz pianist Bill Evans. The full title of the new five-CD collection is Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956–1980). As expected Amazon.com has already created a Web page for this offering and is currently processing pre-orders. The first four CDs amount to a survey of past recordings, but the fifth amounts to a “premiere” release of a concert date in Vancouver. The nine tracks were recorded on June 20, 1975 by Reice Hamel at Oil Can Harry’s with Evans leading a trio, whose other members were Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums. This CD will also be released as a single entitled On a Friday Evening, which has its own Amazon.com Web page for processing pre-orders.

As a collector, I have to confess that my thirst for Evans albums has been unquenchable. As a result, my collection has no “single” CDs; but I have no idea how comprehensive the multi-CD releases are. As a result, I was not surprised that Concord turned up a new concert recording; nor was I surprised that there were a few tracks on the first four CDs that could not be traced back to my current holdings. That said, when it comes to getting one’s head around Evans’ inventiveness, quantity is practically a prerequisite for quality. One may quickly grow attached to more familiar tunes, such as “Waltz for Debby” or Miles Davis’ “Nardis;” but much of the joy of listening to Evans involves how he keeps coming up with new ways to approach even his most familiar subjects.

The first four CDs of Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans are divided into three categories. The first two CDs have the subtitle Trialogues. Over the course of their 27 tracks, one is reminded of just how many different trio partners Evans had over the course of his career. The title of the third CD is Monologues, which is just a tad misleading, since in includes overdubbed tracks from Conversations With Myself, Further Conversations With Myself, and New Conversations. The fourth CD is entitled Dialogues & Confluences, and it provides a rich account of the many other partnerships in which Evans engaged over the course of his recording sessions. The names that show up on these thirteen tracks are, as they say, too numerous to mention.

All of this amounts to a generous sampler of currently available Evans recordings. My guess is that, for those that are not already rabidly hooked on Evans, this content will be sufficient, particularly when it involves first becoming acquainted with Evans’ style and inventiveness. The accompanying booklet accounts for the albums on which all of the tracks first appeared. This should be sufficient for those ready to “dig deeper” after getting to know this anthology.

Here in San Francisco it is not that easy to find a good source for jazz on the radio. As a result, I have turned to the Jazz channel in the Music Choice offerings provided by my cable source. Sadly, Evans has not gotten very much representation on that channel, where there seems to be a strong preference for the recent over the “classic.” I am hoping that Music Choice will add the entire new release to its library, rather than just On a Friday Evening. Their serves will then be able to provide a new generation of listeners with Evans tracks that are as engaging as they are mind-bending.