The most famous version of the Bill
Evans trio was this version, featuring Evans’s delicate, precise, emotive piano,
Scott LaFaro’s sensitive, deep-listening bass, and Paul Motian’s drums, at once
creating rhythm and texture, not just timekeeping as most drummers were charged
with at the time. The trio opened up some of the possibilities for how a jazz
trio could be structured, eradicating strict barriers between the solos and the
background, with each player an equal force in the music, not simply the leader
up front with a backing rhythm section and if the style sounds familiar to you,
it’s because this trio made it possible for players from Keith Jarrett to Vince
Guaraldi to take a similar vibe, with a loose rhythm, and impressionistic,
introspective piano chords to create their music.
The Evans/LaFaro/Motian trio
recorded only two studio albums before Scott LaFaro perished in an auto
accident days after the group recorded a pair of live sessions. The live
sessions, released as Sunday at the
Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby
were quickly prepared to pay homage to LaFaro’s brilliance and his legacy, but
for me, as stunning as these albums are, the studio session, recorded a few
months earlier, tops even those high water marks. The album opens with a fast
tune, “Israel,” that stands as one of the finest recordings of the group,
showcasing everything that makes them great – Evans’s startling rhythmic fire
(something his reputation as a melancholy, introspective player sometimes
obscures), LaFaro’s melodic improvisations that create remarkably sympathetic counter-melodies
in perfect synch with Evans’s own improvisations, and Motian’s drumming which,
as noted, tended to fill in the mood space of the piece and stick to its mood,
not mark off the beat like a human metronome. After “Israel” the group moves
into “Haunted Heart” a balance of both the melancholy and lightness that
characterize Evans’s playing, and “Beautiful Love,” another uptempo number that
shows off the interaction of LaFaro and Evans in fine form. What used to be the
first side closes with “Elsa” a much more spacious and introspective work and
shows the group at a level of nearly complete collective creation. Side two
starts with “Nardis” which, after “Israel,” is probably the highlight of the
session and a longtime touchstone for Evans in his career. The middle of the
second half again gets introspective with the lighter “How Deep Is the Ocean”
and “I Wish I Knew,” another piece in the same mood as “Elsa” before closing
with “Sweet and Lovely” an uptempo romp that again shows off both Evans’s rhythmic
fire and proves that he’s not only the melancholy master he’s often portrayed
as.
While both the pair of studio album
and live albums that the group recorded are eminently worthwhile, this one is
the one that, for me, shows off their range and talents the best, gives the lie
to the perception of Evans as a mood-setter for a downbeat evening. And though
he made plenty of music worth hearing throughout his career, this trio remains
the touchstone for everything he did. Start here and then work your way
outward.
- Patrick Brown
No comments:
Post a Comment