![]() Soon, Evans had carved an equally impressive celebrity status of his own, issuing a string of seminal recordings that included such great albums as Sunday at the Village Vanguard, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Explorations, Now My Heart Sings!, Undercurrent and Conversations With Myself.Įvans had achieved an iconic status that influenced the generation of jazz pianists who followed in his wake. The following year he worked with Davis again, contributing to the all-time best-seller Kind of Blue. As a fan of iconic jazz pianist Bill Evans, I am particularly delighted by the long-awaited arrival on these shores of Volume 19 published back in 2011, but only recently cleared for the UK market, the collection boasts 24 momentous classics from the catalogue the redefined jazz piano playing…Īsk any jazz aficionado or pianist who their favourite players and influences are, and Bill Evans’ name will undoubtedly appear in the list of the all-time greats.īorn in New Jersey in 1929, Evans was classically trained (and those roots are often among the distinguishing characteristics of his style) before pursuing his love of jazz and rising to fame as a member of the 1958 Miles Davis sextet. With differing licensing rules and rights issues from one country to another however, not all are available beyond the US. Like the entirety of the example, Evans employs syncopation within this theme the upper melodic line not only tends to fall on a weak part of a beat, but is tied to a strong beat, thus displacing the metric accent.Hal Leonard’s outstanding Jazz Piano Solos series of collections, featuring the ace arrangements of Brent Edstrom, has clocked up more than 60 volumes, showcasing music from Berlin to Bossa, from Cocktail to Coltrane. He then allows the melody to fall from A5, G5, and then E5, which leads to the subsequent tonic chord. The sequence continues with oblique motion through a perfect fourth, perfect fifth, major sixth, and reaches its apex at the compound interval of perfect 11th. First, he states a rising major 3rd from G4 to B4. The melody begins on the third beat of the fifth bar of the excerpt. In order to break up the repetitive second motif, Evans uses an ascending figure that centers around the dominant. This propels the piece to the third theme. With a single repeated noted, G4, Evans displaces the simple meter with two triplet groupings followed by two quintuplets. The second motive begins in the fourth bar of this section. He employs this rhythmic play (eighth note-quarter note-eighth note, reminiscent of the Grieg example above) for the remainder of the bar and through the third measure. While the bass line continues to vacillate between the tonic and dominant, Evans manipulates the right hand figures with more syncopation: a quintuplet grouping propels the rhythm forward, which creates a subtle jauntiness as the strong beat is concealed with the tied open-fifths of the E5-B5. However, each statement is varied: the ultimate sixteenth notes of a sextuplet are tied to a quarter note, syncopating the motion the third beat is then tied to the first sixteenth note of a triplet figure, which again offsets the stress of the line on the “and” of beat four of the first measure of this section, Evans uses an open-fifth of C6-G6 as an anticipation that is carried over to the downbeat of the next bar. ![]() Firstly, he continues the use of the perfect fifths in the right hand against the steady accompaniment. 1 – 14Īs we return to “Peace Piece,” take note of how Evans breaks up the next eight measures into three thematic strains. This is evocative of Grieg’s “Klokkeklang” as seen below: Edvard Grieg, “Klokkekland” mm. And, anticipating his answer, I said, “I know what happened to me, but what happened to you?” “The intellectuals got to me,” he said.Īpparently, Bill was able to rebuff the criticism put forth on Grieg by the “intellectuals.” As we continue to examine “Peace Piece,” notice the continued open-5th motion in the right hand. “I went through a phase of pretending I didn’t like Grieg,” I said. I was discussing Grieg with Bill once, specifically the lovely Holberg Suite. ![]() In his article, “The Poet: Bill Evans,” Gene Lees commented:īill managed to blend in his playing sophisticated methods with a trusting youthful emotionality, almost like the music of Grieg.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |