Bill Evans Trio - On A Friday Evening (2021) [Hi-Res FLAC]

 

Newly discovered live performance by Bill Evans Trio, featuring Eddie Gomez - bass & Eliot Zigmund - drums. The previously unreleased concert took place on June 20, 1975, at Oil Can Harry's, Vancouver, BC. Captured for radio host Gary Barclay, it was aired on his popular CHQM jazz show. For nearly half a century, the tapes lay forgotten - until now. Thanks to audio restoration by Plangent Processes & mastering by Paul Blakemore, it sounds just as fresh today as it did in 1975. 

1 - Sareen Jurer (Live At Oil Can Harry's / 1975)

2 - Sugar Plum (Live At Oil Can Harry's / 1975)

3 - The Two Lonely People (Live At Oil Can Harry's / 1975)

4 - T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune) (Live At Oil Can Harry's / 1975)

5 - Quiet Now (Live At Oil Can Harry's / 1975)

6 - Up With The Lark (Live At Oil Can Harry's / 1975)

7 - How Deep Is The Ocean (Live At Oil Can Harry's / 1975)

8 - Blue Serge (Live At Oil Can Harry's / 1975)

9 - Nardis (Live At Oil Can Harry's / 1975)

Bill Evans Trio - Turn Out the Stars : The Final Village Vanguard Recordings (6 CD, 1996) [FLAC]

  

New York City's legendary jazz club the Village Vanguard was the setting for Evans's musical triumphs in the early 1960's, and it's ironic it was the scene of his last triumphs. This six-disc set was recorded there in June 1980--Evans would pass away three months hence. Accompanied by bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera, Evans gives several of his classic tunes definitive readings. The interplay between these three is astonishing, the audio quality is overall superb, and Evans plays often with what can only be called quiet fire. TURN OUT THE STARS proves he left this world at the top of his game.



Recorded live at the Village Vanguard just months before Evans' sudden death in September, 1980, this material was originally earmarked for an album later that year. However, it remained unissued until 1996 when the compilers discovered Evans' handwritten notes concerning the aborted release.

Listening to these performances with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera, one is struck by how little Evans' overall style had changed in the twenty-four years since his 1956 debut: luxuriously-phrased piano lines, almost horn-like in their length and melodicism, which never lapse into mere vapid prettiness (even on tunes as slick as Paul Simon's "I Do It For Your Love") due to their cerebral, near-abstract quality. Johnson and LaBarbera are an intuitive unit, responding with ease and grace to their leader's occasional flights of fancy.

 

Bill Evans - The Complete Fantasy Recordings [9 CD, 1989]

 

Bill Evans' Fantasy recordings of 1973-1979 have often been underrated in favor of his earlier work but, as this remarkable nine-CD set continually shows, the influential pianist continued to grow as a musician through the years while holding on to his original conception and distinctive sound. The collection has all of the 98 selections recorded at Evans' 11 Fantasy sessions, including nine numbers from a previously unreleased 1976 concert with his trio. In addition, Evans' appearance on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio program is tacked on as a bonus and it is actually among McPartland's finest shows, a fascinating hour of discussion and music with Evans. Nearly all of the performances on this box (which includes duets with bassist Eddie Gomez and singer Tony Bennett, trio outings with Gomez and either Marty Morell or Eliot Zigmund on drums, and a couple of quintet sets with the likes of tenors Harold Land and Warne Marsh, altoist Lee Konitz, guitarist Kenny Burrell, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Philly Joe Jones) is available individually on CD but Bill Evans' more passionate collectors will certainly want this definitive box. The only minus is Gene Lees' typically self-serving liner notes; he always seems to love to write about himself.

 

 

VA - Golden Jazz Box: The Six Best Albums From The Six Best Jazzmen (6 CD, 2015) [FLAC]

 

Son of the Blues, Jazz is one of the deepest expressions in music. With improvisation as its foundation, the genre includes multiple artists that are embedded in gold letters in the history of popular music. Golden Jazz Box is a celebration of that legacy, presenting the 6 best albums of each one of the genre's biggest icons: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans and Duke Ellington.

Golden Jazz Box works as a true musical encyclopedia, the definitive collection of these wonderful singers in one six-CD box. Golden Jazz Box is a fantastic album, suitable for any moment and mood and an opportunity to get closer to these timeless artists.

The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings (2 CD, 2009/FLAC)

The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings is a two-CD box set released in 2009 compiling the two recording sessions by singer Tony Bennett and pianist Bill Evans which produced The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album in 1975 and Together Again in 1976, including twenty alternate takes and two bonus tracks not released on the original albums.

•     Tony Bennett – vocals
•     Bill Evans – piano

Bill Evans Trio & Guests - Live In Nice 1978 (2 CD, 2010/FLAC)

 

This release presents a complete never before released live performance by the great Bill Evans with an unusual trio that never made a studio album (featuring drummer Philly Joe Jones and bassist Marc Johnson).

 
Joining them are Lee Konitz for three amazing quartet tracks, Curtis Fuller (who joins Konitz and the trio for a marvelous quintet version of Lover Man), and Stan Getz and Christian Escoude (who join Fuller and the trio for the finale on All the Things You Are).

 
A rare interview with Evans made right after the Nice concert has also been included on this release, as well as another unissued concert by the same trio taped in Italy a few days later. 

Recorded Live at Le Grande Parade Du Jazz, Nice, France, July 7, 1978.

 

Bill Evans – Behind The Dikes: The 1969 Netherlands Recordings (2 CD, 2021/FLAC)

Zev Feldman, co-president of Resonance Records, seems to have made it his life's mission to present every unreleased note that pianist Bill Evans ever recorded. Live At Art D'Lugoff's Top Of The Gate (2012), Some Other Time (2016), Another Time: The Hilversum Concert (2017), Evans In England (2019) and Live At Ronnie Scott's (2020) represent the Bill Evans discography on the Resonance Records label, all produced by Feldman. And now 2021 finds Feldman teaming with the Elemental Music label, to release yet another long lost live recording by an Evans trio, Behind the Dikes—The 1969 Netherlands Recordings. 

The two disc's worth of music come from a pair of performances in 1969 in the Netherlands. The group was in top form, trotting out a triple handful of tunes that were familiar mainstays in the the Evans repertoire—"Emily," "Stella By Starlight," "Waltz For Debby," "Autumn Leaves" and more. These are presented by three musicians deep in a comfort zone, navigating bright up-tempo tunes and slipping into introspective reveries and breathtakingly beautiful balladry. The two takes on pianist Denny Zeitlin's "Quiet Now" are as lovely as anything this trio ever recorded, and their rendition of "Someday My Prince Will Come" is as bright and propulsive as can be in a celebratory up-tempo groove, with Morell's joyous shuffling and Gomez' assertive headlong heartbeat.

• Bill Evans - piano
• Eddie Gomez - bass
• Marty Morell - drums

with the Metropole Orkest directed by Dolf Van Der Linden (CD2#11,12).

CD1#1-CD2#3 recorded at KRO Studio I, Hilversum on March 26, 1969.
CD2#4-10 recorded at RAI Congrescentrum Amsterdam on November 28, 1969.
CD2#11-12 recorded at Vara Studio 8, HIlversum on March 25, 1969.

Verve Jazz Masters series Vol. 1-10

 

Jazz Masters is a series of mainly single artist compilations released by Polygram/Verve between 1994 and 1996. The compilations collect material that was originally released on Verve or on one of the labels that became part of the Polygram group. The 20th and 60th releases in the series were various artist collections.

VJM 1 - Louis Armstrong

VJM 2 - Count Basie

VJM 3 - Chick Corea

VJM 4 - Duke Ellington

VJM 5 - Bill Evans

VJM 6 - Ella Fitzgerald

VJM 7 - Erroll Garner

VJM 8 - Stan Getz

VJM 9 - Astrud Gilberto

VJM 10 - Dizzy Gillespie

Miles Davis - The Lost Concert (2021/FLAC)

 

The stunning double album ‘The Lost Concert’ from Miles Davis is released for the first time on 28 September 2021, the thirtieth anniversary of his death, on 2CD and digital through Sleepy Night Records. This completes the trilogy from company that brought you the Number One jazz album ‘The Lost Quintet’ followed by ‘The Lost Septet’. This stunning show was captured at La Grande Halle, La Villette, Paris, France on 10 July 1991.

Miles Davis was renowned for never revisiting the past, even though many fans, critics and concert promoters always hoped that he would. Then, in July 1991, Miles Davis did return to the past, not once, but twice. The first was two days earlier, when he had played the classic arrangements of Gil Evans from the 1950s and 1960 at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Then, Miles arrived at Paris to play this special gig. It was simply advertised as “Miles and Friends” and neither the audience, nor Miles’ band, had any idea on what they were about to witness.

Playing with Miles was an amazing roll-call of past musical associates from the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s: Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Al Foster, Steve Grossman, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Darryl Jones, John McLaughlin, Jackie McLean, John Scofield and Joe Zawinul. Miles’ band members were Kenny Garrett, Foley, Deron Johnson, Richard Patterson and Ricky Wellman.

Bill Evans - Complete On Verve [18 CD, 1993]

The 18 CDs in this exhaustive set provide a comprehensive picture of Bill Evans from 1962 to 1969, a period when the pianist was both consolidating his fame and sometimes taking his music into untested waters, from unaccompanied piano to symphony orchestra. His work with multitracked solo piano, originally released as Conversations with Myself and the later Further Conversations with Myself, was the most remarkable new format for his introspective music. It gave Evans a way to be all the pianists he could be at once--combining densely chordal, harmonically oblique parts with surprising, rhythmic punctuation and darting, exploratory runs. Two dates with drummer Shelly Manne, in 1962 and 1966, reveal the stimulus Evans could find in a new playing relationship, as does the final disc with flutist Jeremy Steig. Evans also revisited significant earlier musical relationships. The Village Vanguard recordings from 1967 reunite him with the great drummer Philly Joe Jones, whose extroverted, polyrhythmic approach always worked wonderfully with the pianist's more introverted style. Along with the virtuosic young bassist Eddie Gomez, they make up one of the most stimulating of the many trios that Evans led throughout his career. There's also a superb set of duets with guitarist Jim Hall, another of Evans's most closely attuned musical partners. Evans's recordings with a symphony orchestra are marred by conductor Claus Ogermann's ponderous arrangements, and some false starts and multiple takes will appeal only to completists, but there are tremendous musical riches here. The set is packaged in an unfinished metal box designed to rust into an original object, but Evans's own originality is apparent everywhere.

 

 

Bill Evans - The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961 (3 CD, 2005/FLAC)

 

The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961, a three-CD box set released in 2005, marks the first time the entire Bill Evans Trio's complete sets at the Village Vanguard on June 25, 1961 have been released in their entirety (outside of the twelve-disc set containing Evans' complete Riverside recordings). It also marks the first US release of the first take of "Gloria's Step," which is incomplete due to a power failure.

These sets, from which the classic LPs Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby were drawn, were the trio's final live recordings. Bassist Scott LaFaro would die in an automobile accident on July 6.

The album was deemed by the Library of Congress to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" and added to the United States National Recording Registry for the year 2009. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings included the set as part of its suggested "core collection".

• Bill Evans: piano; 
• Scott LaFaro: bass; 
• Paul Motian: drums.

 

Bill Evans - Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans [5 CD, 2021]

 The first-ever career-spanning collection of music from pioneering jazz pianist Bill Evans. 

The five- disc deluxe edition features over 60 tracks that spotlight Evans' Riverside, Milestone, Fantasy, Verve, Warner Bros., and Elektra/Musician catalogs, plus a previously unreleased Bill Evans Trio live concert from 1975. 

Features over 60 tracks that spotlight Evans’ exceptional work as a leader and co-leader, spanning his Riverside, Milestone, Fantasy, Verve, Warner Bros., and Elektra/Musician catalogs.

The Miles Davis Quintet ‎– The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions (4 CD, 2006)

 The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions is a four compact disc box set of recordings by the Miles Davis Quintet released in 2006 by the Concord Music Group. It collates on three discs the entire set of recordings that made up the Prestige Records albums released from 1956 through 1961.

The track "'Round Midnight" was released on the album Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants. The fourth disc contains live material from a television broadcast and in jazz club settings. It peaked at #15 on the Billboard jazz album chart, and was reissued on December 2, 2016, in a smaller compact disc brick packaging.

• Miles Davis — trumpet
• John Coltrane — tenor saxophone
• Red Garland — piano
• Bill Evans — piano on disc four tracks 7-10
• Paul Chambers — bass
• Philly Joe Jones — drums

Bill Evans Trio - The Last Waltz: The Final Recordings (8 CD, 2000/FLAC)

 The Last Waltz: The Final Recordings is an 8-CD box set live album by jazz pianist Bill Evans with Marc Johnson and Joe LaBarbera recorded during a nine night residency at Keystone Korner in San Francisco in 1980 and released on the Milestone label in 2000.

The Prestige All Stars - Roots (1957/2013/FLAC)

 

Roots is an album by the Prestige All Stars nominally led by trumpeter Idrees Sulieman recorded in 1957 and released on the New Jazz label. More big-band bop with a stellar cast, it includes Cecil Payne, Pepper Adams, and Idrees Sulieman on saxes and Bill Evans on piano.

It features two classic 1957 jam sessions, with trumpeter Idrees Sulieman and bassist Doug Watkins the commom links. The disc leads off with the 27 minute long title track, recorded on December 6th, with all the musicians – Sulieman, Watkins, Pepper Adams, Bill Evans, Louis Hayes and little known trombonist Frank Rehak – getting tons of room to stretch out. The other two numbers, from October 25th and featuring Cecil Payne, Jimmy Cleveland, Tommy Flanagan and Elvin Jones joining Sulieman and Watkins, are more succinct timewise, but overall just as impressive. If you find this now OOP CD as inexpensively as I did, then it should definitely be time to get back to your "Roots."

• Idrees Sulieman - trumpet
• Jimmy Cleveland - trombone
• Frank Rehak - trombone
• Pepper Adams - baritone saxophone
• Cecil Payne - baritone saxophone
• Bill Evans - piano
• Tommy Flanagan - piano
• Doug Watkins - bass
• Louis Hayes - drums
• Elvin Jones - drums

Bill Evans - Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956-1980) [5 CD, 2021/FLAC]

 Bill Evans would have earned his place in the jazz history books if only for his role on Miles Davis’ landmark 1959 set Kind of Blue.  But the pianist-composer and modal jazz innovator recorded over 50 live and studio albums as a leader before his untimely death in 1980 at the age of just 51, leaving behind a legacy of some of the most beautiful jazz ever committed to tape.  In addition to Davis, he also served as a sideman to musicians including Chet Baker, Cannonball Adderley, Charles Mingus, and Lee Konitz.  Now, Craft Recordings is celebrating Evans’ expansive discography with his first ever career-spanning box set.  Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956-1980) is due from the label on June 25.  The thematically-organized 5-CD box set premieres a previously unreleased live set from 1975 recorded at Oil Can Harry’s in Vancouver, British Columbia.  That concert, titled On a Friday Evening, will be issued the same day as a standalone release in 2-LP, CD, and digital formats .

Tony Scott & Bill Evans — A Day In New York (2 CD, 1957) [FLAC]

 

Tony Scott led several small groups of various sizes during the month of November 1957, resulting in three separate LPs being issued by Seeco, Carlton, and Perfect without duplicating any of the 24 tracks. This Fresh Sound two-CD set collects everything recorded during these sessions. Scott's core group features pianist Bill Evans (not long after he was discharged from military service), either Milt Hinton or Henry Grimes on bass, and drummer Paul Motian. In addition to his powerful clarinet, Scott plays a potent baritone sax on six selections. The music includes a few standards, a handful of originals by Scott, and some obscure compositions. Trombonist Jimmy Knepper is a guest on several songs, providing a perfect foil for the leader in a snappy take of "The Lady Is a Tramp," with the soloing on clarinet and baritone saxophonist Sahib Shihab following Knepper. Trumpeter Clark Terry (still with Duke Ellington at the time) blows a very soft solo in a subdued arrangement of "Tenderly." Even though Evans was yet to make his mark as a leader or composer, his "Five" is heard in extended form rather than as a brief signoff as he played on early recording dates of his own. He also solos brilliantly in "There Will Never Be Another You." The title to this collection is a bit misleading, as trustworthy discographies list these sessions as being recorded over several days. Because obtaining each of the originally issued LPs is likely to be very expensive for collectors, this comprehensive CD set is the better alternative.