Encountering a New Bill Evans Release

Cover of the album being discussed (from the Amazon.com Web page)

It has been a while since I wrote about an encounter with a Bill Evans album. Unless I am mistaken, the last time I wrote about him was when You Music Believe In Spring was remastered by Craft Recordings in the spring (of course) of 2022. This coming Friday, Elemental Music will release Bill Evans in Norway, an account of a trio concert captured at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Norway. As most readers will probably expect, Amazon.com has already created the Web page for processing pre-orders. The trio that Evans led from the piano consisted of Eddie Gómez on bass and drummer Marty Morell.

The performance captured on this album took place on June 26, 1970. At the time Evans was in a supervised methadone program to recover from a longtime addiction to heroin. The notes by Marc Myers for the tracks acknowledge that Evans knew that songs such as “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?,” “Turn Out the Stars,” and “Quiet Now” would appeal to his Norwegian audience. However, those familiar with past recordings of those tunes will recognize a more spirited rhetoric for these introspective selections. Recovery seems to have brought a new burst of energy to Evans’ style. To be fair, however, much of that energy is shared through Gómez’ virtuosic bass work.

Those familiar with the Evans repertoire are likely to encounter new perspectives on tunes they thought were familiar. For those that are not so familiar, this album will probably make a strong case for why so many of the rest of us do our best to keep up with his recordings! Personally, I could not have been happier to encounter a new opportunity to listen to the thoroughly engaging spontaneity of performance by not only Evans but also his trio partners.