'1, \

A Quarter1y Publication Dedicated to Jazz Pianist

Bill Evans

Board ,of Advisors:

Wen'8n BtIlnhardt

Chuck Israsls I I

Pfier H~ l.arsen

Ron Nethercutt

Spring 1993

I:SSN # 1056-4'179

to be coneacted on these releases and paid a royalty on aU sales, similar to any release made while E'VOUlS was alive. I urge Francis Dreyfus~ or his reprcsentativl1 to can or fax LFE

and I will fax the addresses and phone numbers of Marc and

.. :..~ ..... _". y now, all of you have adjusted to Jee ifhe doesn't a1ready have them.

receiving the publication QUarteI1)'. ., Anew jazzplblica1ioobas:ina.t:k:i.tse1f1mown. CafjfomraJau.

Four issues a Transcriprinn on page 32' NOw.1'1re West CoostJ(1!Z WarJd~ a 27

year ma), nor pige O1OIllhly publication wiIh cmpha-

se em Ii ke sls on 1he west coast jazz 8COle. The

much but it annual. subsc:ripticD ~ varies from

.. , '. - _ .' ~:;;:j:n~~ ". _ == f' r~+r---- ~~eyto~~!Z

busy. I m.tendto ~ep' my commn- if f t riE it btF r tetOnd. and Disoover. The ~ is

meat of printing a transcription in California Ja.zz Now, P'.O. Box

every-issue. Your commonts on IDe 31742. Oakland, CA 94tJi04. 7742.

eomentof LFE are v-afued and always solicited. • With the bfrili of a new publication. an elder one ceases

• .LFE needs to correct a misunderstanding. Bill Evans' operations. The 5-6/1992 (Vol. 136 and 137) issue of Jau.

widow. Nenene Evans. was neve.rseparatcd from him as FOFiIJ1l (English Language Edition) was the last, Editor Pawel

stated m. a previous issue. Brodowski will be coooentratIDg solely on the Polish Edition

• Pianist David Benoit's new CD, urt'el' To Eva~ (ORP which has now become a. monthly.

9687) is number 3 on Billboord M.agazine top jazz album • The mention oftbe B111 Ev:am Conservatory 10 be estrb-

chart far the week ending February 27, 1993. Also according to Jaa.iz Magazine the same CD is number.:5 in their "top 40 jazz ahplay list" I'm looking "forward to reviewing it in these pages,

., In the last issue I reviewed two' newreleases irom the Dreyfus Line, a Ftmch ,cc.mpahy headed by Francis Dreyfus.., as be.ing authorized by the BHl6vans Estate. They indeed are, but. by talking ro Joe I...aiBaibem teccndy. I learned that the Dr¢yfus Une released those CDs without the knowledge of~ and withQutpaying royaJties to Joe LaBarbe.ra or Marc Johnson. I hope this was jiustan oversight. Evans often stated the importance of hissidemen, The word "sidemen" doesn't db justice to the role of the bassist and drummer in the BiH Evans' Trios. especlallytbe last one, They were aM equal partners in tbe mnsk-tooI:dngwith Evans as the shapm;g farce. To say anyrbing less shows a total ignorance of what their roles in the trios WelB all about. Mate and Joe deserve

News

Win Hlnkle, Edltor

© 1993 LEITER'FROM EVANS i

Vol. 4, NQI. 3" Price: $5.00

In this, I ss,u.e:

NfJ'WS " II!' '"' ., • • • • iii • • • II !!' ., • iI iI. 1

CMl'Bctions ....!II..Ii... II! • • iii ". 3

Lel:lers • • !' • JII iI '" II' • ..ii • II III • 'I" • ill. 3

Article: Bill Evan .. ,. Poet. • • • • . • •• 5 Book Review: WBst Cosst Jazz. .... 7 25th I:A.J.E. Conference •••••.•• 8 Inferv;sw with PMi 01 "PeriJs Scope" .9 Inmrview wilh Herb wOng. • . • • • .' • 11 Interview with JoycfI Collins r. • • • • 15 "Come Rain or Come Shine ~ • • • . • • 21 Interview with mdmber 01 SiWs tamily • 22

Interview ~ Win Hinkle-part two. . . 27'

O,rlgins of "Sugar Plum" .' • • • 30

.. S.ugar Plum" Transcription' • . • • 32

• I happened to be MOWSing in one of those bargain boek-

Th9 tHllmr/publis,fter, write,s, end lJ'H)m,bers of tht B'Oard of Advisors 01 LETTER ,FROM EVANS h.ve never knowingly fmdOBsd or

promoted Bny il'egal.wio or virJeo recordings.

,.0

t

DISCLAIMER

project~ me creation of a "European. Cen:letofJau" which will coordinate aJl activities concenUn.g Jazz Music (edilion. pr0- duetion, concerts hall" jazz dubs. books tecords, fihn and video lilnaries, artist management. jazz reaching depanment~ etc.) I suppose you know some persons involved in this project (Francis Dreyfus, Francis Pa.udmsl.

Coocttning myself. I was contacted to create the ja~ tt.acl:Iiog deparo:n~t and .I :recently asked Ne.neneEvam for authorization to name it me Bill Evans M.usic Academy to pay

ttibute to Bill's memory. .

This departmem will dispense a high level nruslc Education (my friend Wm-m. &um.aldt, and othen;baV'c assured me their ,coUaoorarlon), nevertIlelesg, thereajization of 1:00 global project is dependent 'on the agreement of the .ParisTown Counclt Only they can provide an appropriate building, downtown for the E.CJ.

.For these reascns, I don'1: dllnk the E.C.J will be operadonal in ,the near future, perhaps it will never exist, bllit it is a wonderful hope for Fa:nch Dmsicians ,and the jazz community. Anyway. I wiU write <ell' fax you the details as the proJec.t evelves,

Cordially.

BemaI:-d MaW)'

Pam·

Letter from, E~ns, Spring 1.993

stare outlets that Jiue-r'the exits of the U.S,A. intetstate big.hway systcnt and eneeonrered a great photo of a young B,m Evans witb.saxophonist Hat McKusick. It was on page 66, o.f a: picture album called Nights in Birdla~d,JQV. Photographs 1954-1960 by Carole Reiff (a ~ide Book, Simon and Schuster, mc., ISBN: 0-671-63281-1. (A cropped version appears here.) The outlet was retailing the book for $2.20. a real bargain. Tho wholesale price is probably .half that - a good business oppotturHty for j.az;~ retailers out there. I cont,emplatod buying up a bunch fortesale but I jmit don.'t have the stamm~, to get into another jau bllSincss venture. I'm reminded of theriddlc - (question) "'00 yon know bow to make a million dollars in the jazz club busime:ssT' (answer) "Stan with three m.illion,"

Oorrections and Cl,arifi cations

Readers m:ay have noticed that the ediror's review of Live In Europe, Vol. J from QuaI:iwn Records on ili.e EPM ~!lbc[ was not tlre 'first to .appear in. LFE. Ken .Dryden reviewedther CD in the Sept:¢m.berJOcto'aer 1900 issue. No 'harm done. LFE often prints m:ultiple. reviews.

Dryden didn"t like Ted Gioia's book West CQQSt Jazz as mach as Jack Beck did so he has offered a more critical l'Cview in this issue.. Dryden takes Gioia to bsk for his treatment. of Dave Bmbeck. I'm not ap:udculady fervent Brobock. fan but irs m.~r-esting reading.

£FE apologizes for misspelling the name of Praneis Paudras,

Letters

DeatWin,

Some people he·re, in Paris. have conceived an :ambitious

The Art Pepper Society ~ or,ganismg secretary ~ Tabasea Pet.e Webb" editor of The Ne'H?sPepper newsletter.

Tabasco Pete Webb,. "Los Altos" 34c 'Den'grove Park, Cant,erbury Kent eT2 OPY., ENGLANID Tel .. 022,711234'2

Mr.Hinlde;

Please send, me your Lerrer From Evans for a year. I fOlUld a copy at the Tower'Rerotd S,tote in Sacramento the. other dar and was plea:sandy surprised .I hope YQucan ccncentrateon the music and person. I beard Marian McPartland and Arturo Sandoval discussing "ern Evans chords" en .. Autumtl Leaves" on Piano Jaa, last week. PCIhaps youcould do sOlfiething on BUrs kit hand patterns (or right) ot whatever.

lrcally enjoyed your' wterview with fHIllnY Rowles. I finaUy found a lead sheet OIl his "Peacocks" in ,;i fake book this week butdidn't want to 00,. the whole $39.95 bookjus.t to get H.

I flrst heard of Bill in an article in &quire Magaz.ine back ,about 1958. I think it was by Nat Hentoff I bought Everyi:xJlh Digs album. and. that began a long and very pleasant musical

A Newsletter of the AI Cohn Memoria' Jazz Collection

O'r. L,arry F'isher, Chal.rm,an Music Department

,East Stroudsburg University East St,roudsburg, PA 18301

l.etter from Evan's:~ Spring 1993

tela1ionship (1) ever since. I have aU his albums exeept the sideman sniff and play them a lot - sriU.

I got to see him a fewtimes, The first time was at the Tridefi1 in Sausalito about 1964. Then there wa.'l once at the Jazz Workshop '00 Broadway in S.m FrnncisoJ., a horrible place. The best was at the Both-And on Divisadere in San Fmoclsc:o for two, O1.l1Standing sers..DuWig the break be went to the bax for a coke and a kid handed him some compositions to, look. at. He took them moo the back room and came back in 30 minutes and! handed them. back saying "Thanks", but he "couldn't usethem,"

On anothet trip to San Francisco. I was planning to go see rum blilt he went into the hospitaJ and canceled out. I fi,gured that Iknny Zeitlin. the shrln_k-pianist. saw him and JIlII.t him m.

It was very ~oIdy after liUOthet San Franciscogig that I read about, he was gotle.1 felt so funny for a ooupleofwccks.

I gt'Cw up in Tulsa and heard a sa>ty one time about a gig he did there. lbtte was akid there who play'cd jazz piano. Sonny Gtey ~ who at tOO urging of Stan Keaton, opened his own jau club, (He was so nulSabout Kenton, he named his son K,ent,OB Grey.) Anyway, he got BinK'i come to Tulsa one rime and play at his club. In order to kill time during the day. Bill would get on the city bus and ride an over town taking in tlw sights. BiU kft his expensive camera 00 the bus. However, the driver or someone fonnd itend tracked him down ,and got it back to him, The locaiJ. neWiS-paper used the story to point 'out what wonderful people live in Tulsa.

I miss the 'excitrement of a new Evans record coming out and. discovering some new piece of music that he fOund and t'Ul'ned into a standard. Some of his imitators are pretty good. I ~ike Kirk Lightsey. WarttnBerobM'd~ Rich Behach,Pred Hersch. Michel Petpldani: even old Hatty Connick can do

The Quarterly J,ournal, of the Er'rol,1 Garner Club

• Musical Analysh amI Resesreh

• Imemew,s,fOral Histories · Record Reviews

• Tmn.'i<:riprioos

SUBSCBIPTIONS

U.S.AJelsewhere United KingdomJEurope

(exc::!l"Idingr Europe) $25.00 Annually payable to,!

The Enol Gamer Club c/o Jim Doran P.O.Bo~MJL Pomona, NY 10970 U.S.A.

LIS AnnuaUy payable to:

The Brrol G.anttt Club clo Joanne Ellis

43 Saadriagham Road Petersfield. Hampsblre GU32 lAB. ENGLAND

fair job. We aJlimitatc-tbe secret is know whom to lmitaW. Keep up the good week and try' more of these phone interviews with m.usicians who knew him or played or whateeer, 'Thor,e would seem somereal potenti.a1there.

Than.,

Larry Bi'arlt'i:eid Lod~CA

ps: Bin did a Pia'W Jaa one time with Mmian McP:art1and. Per~ someone could talk Public Radio into making tapes av'ailable? Maybe Marian would do an m.tcmew. too.

LArry. you write a rdee letter and raise some good poin13. To the best oj'my knowled,g-e pianisi/psychiatrist Denny Zeitlin w£s no.t peP..iunaly responsihle for see.i.ng ~hal Emns went tr.l a hospilal after an tngagemelll in Sa" Francisco. The ne.u time 1 talk to Denny. h~r. I will ask ,him about it.

A llthe piatJists ),ou· mentit:med are' n:at merelY imitators of BiU 1Wans. They are fine players in 'their own r$ght o.nd developed their own particular style. Sure •. they ma}' have tisrtnedto Bill Evans, blitthe state.ment in yo.ur letter is an aw:~implification..

Sonny Gmy is a subscriwr and has bee,n: sa since the beginning qfthe publicatiQII. Thanksfor the i7iformatiQII. He salinas like a likely candidate to be interviewed.

The last time I talked with Marian .McPartland, she told me ,that she WID' working with a record compaJly to release the Bill Evans PiaIW Jau Show on CD. Presently it i..~ m'aU(lble on CD in Bill Evans. The Complete Fantasy Recordings, a nine CD boxed set. 1 have the set and enjoy liste lIi~g to tire show 011 CD w.tthOJjf the hiss a~d audio compression heard Dft the FM radio broadcast. / look forward sf.J11!eday ro heari"g all of Marian 's shows on fhe CD format since mY' local PBS qffiliate refuses to carr)' the show, or allyjauJor that mauer,

For BiU 's left hand te"hnique, check out ,he transcriptions (lI,'aiwble in this plI,biicationand e/$ewhe re.-Ed.

DeuWm.

Th:mk you for seoding recently all the back issues of Letter From EvaJlS. which contained a great dw. of fascinating material. As li. Bill Evans fanatic since I was a teenager in ,the 60's I we,tco.me all writings and infoonatioo. otJ wha,t I mlght caU roy favourite subject. I have a complete collection of ~ recordlin,gs whic:h it has UlJren me a lifetime to aCljillire. Ta.l.lciQg writings on Bill Evans, there is, as you know, no book in ED,glish yet,. and 50 fiR wrumg one. I DO~e from your columns that Don N.elsen and Charles B~ancq ate respectively doing the same. My own e:ffort. wiU be strictly nmsica1. and I intend to avoid getting involved in details of Bill's private fife.

I would like to ask. your pemdss1on. to quote from ,the Ted , O"Reilly interriew. reprinted by yQU in LFE V:oL Z. No.3. I was assessing the early "bootleg" Birdland first trio discs. whkhBill didn't know about, and wolidd like to include a bit of fbe COOVetS3.oon reganimg Bin's reaction to seeing IDe covers for the first time!

Meanwhile I am eoc]oshlg an article from the Musical

Bin Evans, poet Peter Pettinger plays hornaqe

to a great jazz pianist

by Peter Pettinger

(.f1.ftet !tom Evsns~ Spring 1993

..

TImes (1 W'3Iltoo to get it inro .a clagg teal magazine) which may be of Interest, or even as material for LFE. By !he way .lam a elasslcal p,i<Ulist.

I look forward to next issue. I shall ce:tt.alJily renew my subscription.

All best wishes,

Peter Petti.n.gec

Peterbotough, England.

Pel'mi!ssion is gramed. but the in:f1l"1Jiew origi1JQlly aIr peared in Coda magaziilt and dem:am:,e should be obtained from them. Thanks very IIWChfor the anide.lt appemsin this i,ss,ue. -Ed.

Dear Win Hinkle,

I heard aoout yow ut.wsletlelr md otbet infonnatiom. on BiU lEV8lIS. I was: fortunate to meet. <lind tune the piano for BiD.

An article in a BriWh tnaga:z.itne mendom> hiring the Beeseadeefer Grand piano for appearance <It Ro:lU:ilc ScotlS' duo. Over the yeats I have kept I!isteniog to the recerdlngs, and I have nUluaged to employ some of Bill'.s teclmique.s,.in my own piano playing, in my own small way.

Hoping I will hear something from you shortly, Yours slncc:rcly.

John K. Butler

Inndon. England

DearWhI;

In sifting through your lastissue, two things jumped Gut at me: one, yoo called some pianist "v'ely vanllla"; and two'. a ~1jJle later referred to die gte.at Brazllian songwriter as MEwm LIM." What ate you Ialking about? Obviously you have never held a recording or lead sheet of his in your hand,. because you would know tha.t his name, in spi.te of your obsession with thenam.e ~Evans'" is IVAN LINS.

Sincere1y~

Peggy-Stem

Irvington, NY

J'mguiky 00 aU CBIUItS Peggy. Mast reoder.s whom /\0( ta!JrLd to under.t:tWd what 1 meant by "vanilJa. "1 rouldhave IlSed addilionaJ a4}eclires to des~ .his pelj'ormmv.:e. such as baring. foccid. sleepy; senile, .ere.'fherewas8imply no/ire there. none ofJru soul bei'W ~d to lhe fisttmer.s. You're right. .I'Ve nerer held sheet music-or re~sqfhun Lins' in my hand. Perhaps you onlther readers could help rectify that situation. From hearing .Olhtrs ptlJlWilnO? his ~ 1 made ag~aslOspellUw. You mayfwJ it ink'mting as to why I guessed ~.am" i~ad of ~ h.a.II. ~. '!1w:re is ,Il common name if "8w:" pro~ eM-tOO and 1 knew two people wilh such ~ ~ nropoopk an'the father and son (named for hisgrartdjather) if Uauie IVen:homm .&imsey" the Laurie in the tune ·lmu'ie'"' andajHendqfBiIJ EVOIJSjor the ,last yew qfhis life. Both fI.wI (wl.E-mn are of ~ian derivatiOn and pronmmced the same K'Q)'. "eee~\tJI1." .. E):oe-lWI for R,'QlJ is all America~ None of these is to be co1Jfosed u..'ith Bill E\.WlS· &m; Evan Emns. (pronowu:ed ~ s~pJurril).Rlght ~ail1, 1 amo~d with the name ·Emrtt", He)' P,eggy. howabmtt writi"g another arock for LfE?-U

.Without question,. .BitD Eva.ns, a poet of the piano; was one of

the greatest musicians ever toinUbit this planet, WeU-kn_own, loved and revered for haJf~a-century in jau circles, his ad. s"urdy speaks to us all, Categories ate intievant when ~eer quality is underecnsideretien. Cla:ssicall~ 1l<Iined ou fl~te, violin and piano, he nevcrtheleso made ~ and most specifi· cally diejau piano mo. the medium for his [ife's achievement, This is a plea for his wid.er reeognkion,

Aside frem the considerable legacy 'of tecordings. Icherish memories of "']iv'C" sessions" obsessively aneaded into fhe ~all hours at dIe VUlage Vanguard, New York, and Romiie Scott's, loudon. One might plead insanity in tbls regard. potentiaUy invoking as 11 did, not only the bank-manager's wrath (I counted hot the ,cumulative cesr of a two-week engagement). but also "inv:ita'tiom; to a mugging~ on nightly ttamps home at 3:00 a.m. from Greenwich Village to my midtown hotel. For two mU~ or ,SQ, the swk New York streets proffered no ;tS$istan.ce in the evcnt of an encounter. Whatkind of a mosici!&D. could iMplitethis fmatidstnj thls devotion? 'Only one possessing such engrossm,g beauty of purposeand f'lll1fdJ.ment as BiU Evans.

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far 15 years we hiive provided to the liW.

I ~ ~y«lheflRCStseM(lt'jllldtebesl. prices.

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PageS

The fusttime the "Bill Enos sound'" hit mewason a 1'9:58 ~b, Davis album mown as Jazz Track, and I've been hook!ed ever since, Here, in the illustrious company of his own sextet, Miles squeews out his spare, muted lines exquisitely. Bill. beautlfuUypoised, complements with limpid tone. HiS touch here is immaeu late , and the voicing of de ehords superb. In this and the sub.~uent alb1itnl Kind of Biu«, the- mlliSic is haunting and ageless,

Connoisseurs of Evans,'s, playing have a way of jealously g:uanting it, imagin1ngrhey au the only enesto ba,veexperi~ encedan undisooveredtteasure: ,and I claim '0,0 exception in. this ,curious regard. n Is a strange crail, and must have some.thlng to do with his seeming to cQlIlnlunWate at a very personal Ievel, Perhaps it also stems from. his chataot:eI'. which was qelet, introverted and modest. He was not aglamorous persen, He didn't ;see:m to be pl!ayio,g to the masses. but rather for .hlmse~f. As an eavesdropper one seemedto commune at a privileged one-w-one level.

But how to deflae the magic of this playing? Wen~ ilheamalgaJ;Il! enoomp~s, for a stan, rue ability to sing en the plano; one of the greatest challenges to any sensitive pianist. Classical .musicians are (l.Isu.ally" we hope.) well known for this. Sad1)' j however. many a jazz pianist is more inclined to a kind of indiiscrim1nare, digital hit approach, 'Then. 1here ~ Evans's peedess haunonic sense. On a purdy tJ::clmicaillev€:J, he totally re-organizedjazzbarmony into oophlsticatedreaJms it had never kno,wn before. Exploratory top IIDcs aresbadowt.d by "lock.;handed" bermenies, wilhID which the eaoiee and tone of each composite ncee are judged to perfectien, dtewbolc block of sound suspended from. and carried by tile singing. kading voice. On the rbythmic side be d!eveloped a toclmique of displacement away from tilt: beat, which may be likened to riding, a roller coaster swimtn:i:ng against the tide. One could, say that itl these areas lay his most important theoretical «m:t:ributions to ja:zf.,but 1he h1otirvation for such procedures was ,always purely emotional, instinctive p!)Ctry the asme of thegmne.

Bill'scboke of repertoire cwld be refreshIDgly off·beat.

Now, some m.usicians like to sleep before .II! performeoce, oIDttS enJoy a good tea. wbils,t a particular coUeague of mine is partial to losing himself with Cilia on "'Blind Date," BiD. whenever pos.sibIe. liked to catch tmfa:vou.rite TV show MASH backstage before his fll'St set, and f~ its theme nme in his later sessiOlllS,. On simIlar lines, Bull Bacba!lllCb's "Alfie" provided perfect materia] for his sllibdy concentrated ballad treatment (uy MontreN.X lIon ClI). At the other end of the repertoire seare, be chose in1:riguing and adventurous chord :sequences, and featured regularly, for msta:nce" a composition of his own entitled T. 1. r: This catchy twel¥e-tone tune first appeared on The Bill Evans Album in 19'71. His best-known oomposition, Wahzfor Debby, bas become a jan classic.

He was a geoeroos musician. and 'lhoroughly pt'Ofessional madversiily • .I remember calchirng him at the FaUfield Halls.. Croydon. The. ttio bad just: flown in very dela_YM from Italy. There was no time w test for haJance. and the sound system sabotaged 1he carefully judged plano epenlng, So fm, it was

Figel)

evide-mly not a, g,ood day. In typical. American fashion he :shrugged, "Well,. that's killed that one .... and proceeded without hassle to the seeoad number. Once at Ronaie's, the tuning of the (11hmk, at the time) Petrov piano was quite frighfful. Ronnie was observed a:rremp'liing it de:spei'arte teuch-up hlmself. but ¢ventuaUy Bill settled for "ro getalon,g with it." Like 1he heckled sportsman, the arti~t must get on with the job.

Thls he did consistently throughout his creative life, OODccnttatmgoil the chamber art of the jazzpiiiJilo trio, ,a format he made vc,ty specially his own. Towards the end (1980), he pJarycd. his heart out in II. new surge of creativity. Witness. for example. the remarksble heights attained on "Live in Buenos ALres,. 19'7!)i' apd "Live at, the Balboa Jazz Chlb~" Madrid. He knew he was dying., but the Ohoice of notes was there, eversearching in II. kind of joyful defnance.

There is Ii. shaDow American sentiment along the lines, "We am the beautiful people." At Bill"s penwtimli11'e engageWC.nt at Keystone Komer (sic), San. Francisco. howe:v,tt, 1he Me was both sinceeeand exact when 00 inlroduoofbim.simply as M ... the vel)' beautiful Mr. BiillEvans,," -pp'

Peter Patingeris duo partner with Julian Llo)'d Webber a1ki Nigel Kennedy amongst others, alld has recorded Elgar<s complete piano musk.for Chank He writes about his ll:lusical en'llutsia$m8 'wherun.oer and wherever possible.

NOW IS THE TIME TO CHECK OUT THE I.A.J.R.C.

The ~'"ternaUonal, Association of Record 'CoUe,ctors has been providing ecrnmen ground for' reco,rd coillectors of aU styles of jazz, for mere

than '2,6 years. Annual dues are $20.00. Send for your free sample copy ,of: the t.A .. J .. R.C. Journal,. tA.J.A.C. Membersh,lp Din!ctor, clo Vic IHaU, P'.O,. Box 7515,s, Tampa, FL 336,05, U.S.A ...

Loftel 'rom EWlns~ Spring 1993

Book Beview Ted 'G'i,oiaWest Coast Jazz:

Modern Jazz In Calltornla 1945-19'60

by Ken 'Dzyden

OxfOrd University Press $24.95 4()4 pages

West Coas: Jan. has defied a clear defmition since it was fimt coinedL Ted Gioia has attl:m.ptOO w'exam:in.e,some oftbc m~jar figures who were Calilot'll!i.a natives or those whomoved to the s-tate to perform and record, if only for a short period, from 1945 to 1960.

The book's jad~et: diaims that Gioia,·s "]engthy ]ook at Dave Brubock ... is by fur the best bj,ogrnpby ever written of this i!nfluential mllSi'Cian." Eviidently the hapless author of this bJmb didn't ftDd GIoia's rese.arcll on Brobeck as shallow as I did; it seems that he made II. minimal effort to interview his subject at length. Gioia's condescending tone towards Brubeck is frequent aad embsrrassing; 'especially referring to the pianist as: ~e "Tffil~ magazine cover 'boy. M Even 8. nonBrUbeck fan shmddot, stoop this ]ow.

In spite of pr.dse for portions of Brubeck"s work,partieu= ~arlythe.Fat:lf,asyyears. itisthcauruor'srepeatcdsnideremarJrs dmt stick m. the reader's mind. Gioia glm&SeS, that Brobeck deliberate." fudged the rewtding dates of his Ocl'el so they would preeede die hisloric Mlles Davis "Birth of Th'l;l Cool" sessions. "Dave Digs Disney" is routinely dismissed as a "ho-hum project" and IDe series of Columbia records devoted to works by Cole Porter. Man .Dennis and Rodgers & Hart are

called "formulaic," -

first. of all, DO proof is offmxl to Ibotter document the Octet's recording dates. Secoad, Brubeck was the fi_1St to cover the Disney material, plIeccding Bill Evans and Miles Davis alongwitb a hoot of othess who later recotded tuaes sum as '"Some Day My Prlfice Will CO'tIl¢" and "Alice In WOllder~ land." FmaUy. the dtree "composer series" records (Anything Goes!" Angel Eyes and My Pavorite lhhigs) are hard[y sbIlilar to the blalanl[y oommeIC-ia~ albuntS of current pop that so many groups were prodded. into ~oording in the mid-1960's; there's nothing fhat resembles half-hearted run-through on a single track. In addition, all three records followed "'Time Out" by S or more yearn rather thanprece.ded it! With so little eoneem for accuracy, Giola' scapabrllty to' objectl \pdy review Brubeck's music is also, on shakygronnd ..

Gioia fai'la repeat,edly to ten the COlJIpJdc slory about severalimponaat developments in Brubeck"s career. He goes huo some detail about the planlst's diss:a,tisfuction with the Weiss brotbetS while he recorded for Fantasy; including their firllure to consuft with Un about re.]casing hls works. iliek

secret n:oordings of ills live dales without his knowledge, aoo Brubec.t"s bclief thatbe was half-owner of thdloo£ling record label because he pto,vided initial masters for their first release. Gloia also .~ses Il:m there ma,y IDe a number ,of unissued performances still in the Fan:t.as:y vauit.

None of these areas a.ill followed up in detall with Brubeck.

If Gioia had asked Brubeck about the-cwncrsmp CO:tlttoversy, be might have leamed that Dave and lola Brubeck investro. several years of their Sliivinp into Fantasy Records before Jeamingdley weeenctpen-ewners, Asfol'theunisSl!ledrecoro.. ings, producer Eric WHer. Who is now in charge of Fantasy's reissue program, oould have answered questions about any uniss:u.edBruhrl:. material

West Coast Jau could also bve used an attentive edltor!proofrea.det, Dave Bnlbeck's birth datels inro1'tectly jisted as 1921 (it's 1920); one reads several times over two chapters about "Coronet, the fuiling Dixieland label owned by trombonist Jack Sheedy;"" then there's the crippled descriptlOfl of a posthwoous Sonny Cdss release: "a ~vi.ously unknown recording by Sonny Criss ..• whlch was released after Criss" death on the Pablo label." (May~ de LP didn'1 sell 1)

Ted Gioia's judgement is called into question again when he shamelessly promotes the tiny Quartet Jalocl (which has a tota] of 5 releases. Wcluding bis) as one "of thefinest independent labels focusing on improvised music in the past twenty yeaIS~ along with heavyweigbts Fantasy and Concord; ilit;, mach smaller Black Hawk, Palo Alto and 1h.eresa labels; and the d~bious laclusion of Wmdham Hill, w!hl.ch is: still predominately a New Age rather thana Jau label. The bigg,~t. job is rue authof's request that die reader appeeach hls bOOk with an open mind; Wore long he refers: ttl eritics as narrowmiodied!

When Gioia is at his best be has the kind of praise fur specific records, ,sucil as the 3 volume Hampton Hawes All Night Sess,ion, that motivates the reader to acquire the discs. Gioia"s selected di.soography~~ well-founded. wi1h brief com ... mentary. While it is impessible to be completely cuttent :aOO1.U every listing, by lihe rime ;8J book is published, G[oia coWd have spent ttlOCe time obtaining CUlktU iafermation, ~y of his rook,eg have been available on compact disc for several ),'CMS and are representod by 3040 year-old ociginal.issue catalog numbers, atlbum ,titl'es or in one case, an out-of-business reissue label; P:ausa.

In conclusion. if the author wants to give his opinions. say so and back them. upwidtwncfete- evi:dence. Also. spendlitlg more time fClOtD.OI:ing ms sources fur (;Oliltro¥ers~al. qOl;ltaS (Who described Dave Brubeck as Mdom.inoerin.g?"') as wen as intol'Viewing his subjoo~ atgreaser length will improve his final prodUct imm~ly.

West Coast Jazz. had a Jot of po.tentlal, but its numerous weaknesses washed its ,strengths out to st;a.---KU

Th,e Twenty-Fi,fth Annual I.A"J.E .. Conterence

by Win Hinkle

This year's oonfereBC(j was held in San A_ntonio. Texas at the ~iot River Center. There was a shadow ever the proceedings as Dizzy Gillespie bad passed away-the day before the start of tbeconferena. Rathel" h'W'iliedly ~ the conference was dedicated tomuy and 1I11lch of his music was performed on occasions where the mmic progmmm_ing was less t:ormat

'This yeat I tended, to steer towards small groups and vocal performances, There were two major surprises fur me, the duo ,of Maraneand ,Manteiro. an, aocordion/voice duo and the great straight-ahead style of vocalis,t Rebecca Parris, I also enjoyed the vocal arranging class given by Pans RutherfQl'd, vocal jan ilmtruetor at University of North Texas. Pianist James Williams and Ellis Marsa& collaborated in a jazz piano master class, but no new ground was broken. James Williams is an tfl'ttustin,s player. His SO~Q voiee is primarily right handsoio bebop lines but he always manages to do sotnedlling interestiag harmonically whea not soloing. He is a pianist to watch.

1'he L.A. Voices

My flight teok me from Florida throu,gh Houston. On the flight from Houston to San Antonio I saw and chatted with many jazz friends em. the plane. One friend remarked tlIa,t if that flight had crashed half of the WMld's jaz.:z.ctS would have been lost. This flight was my .fust. introduction to the LA. Voices, Eith,ct because they werea group of six, ttaveUng together, or their press agent was the high profll.ew~ fheL.A. voices boarded beforeus rcgularjazz passengers and received a speciaJ announced welcome from the flight erewon me plane's public address system. They were given ,they same t"reatrnent on the retum IDght.

When the L.A. Vokes did their thing on Friday 'ev,eWn,g. J was uon-pl1l&Sed. What became immedIately apparent was the attention eo ch01'eOgraphy. The, music wasn't bad by any means .. h may Iaa.ve been one of the [ou'tkst presentadons at the eonvemlon but ~t did not reach rock concert proportions. It 'WaS predletable, however. and very ~how..wz. The only nine I rwly enjoyed was "Round MidWgbt. .. Withe performance, ~speciaUy the soloing. was nothing exltaordinazy.The dellv'ezy was e.xtrcme,ly high energy. 1 thlnk their delivery detr8Cted fwm their obvious 1altnt:. The entire prod.uetion was geared to the non-jazz audience,. merely anotberwell-rdlearsed; tight perf~ oo1hcir probably busyschedrne. I've gote nothing against show-biz. ~iaJ.ly when it comes to making money. but I expected a linle less naivete and more em.phas15 on creating an when perforrninglbefore such a dlsceming audi· enee.

Vlhat may be a1arm.U'tg is that most of the WUieI 30 jazz crowd loved theperformaace, These WOICe, lots of yah·whooos., and whooa-eees horn the audience. I'm concerned that this larger segment of the audience lisrens to the musicwitb ,the same discernment that I do and if dleporfortnanres dtat 'they whooo-eee at will make any lastingirn.pres:si'on onthe:irpsy~ ehe, I argue that this sports mentility bas no place in the ,arts aOO especially when lislming to musk. I have serious doubts about the future of jazz as an art when I see supposedly educated audiences act this way. I can recall sounds in my head that specific jazz artists have made. Sometimes I wonder if the only thing the average audience recalls is a certain dance step, or the overall ,effect of the "'piuazz of presentation. ~ Jl guess, this liS what U.C executives at Walt DIsney Wotld mean by the piu"ASe .. EntcruUnm,cnt Arts," BuUhock,y!

Consider tbh;. On that same airplane sat David Liebman, perhaps one of the greatest juz. musicians of all times. He W'Ouldi not fir in with the L.A. Voices, subbmg for their saxephomst,. (and musicalD1toctor) Darmou Meadet~ who does a gIea,t dance step and supports bea:utifullong golden hak. David is iUllable to dance and, like me, bald as a billiard ball. But unlike the L.A. Voices, I 'can vividly recall the soullds of several of David·sperf'Ormll.tlCe5 from years ago. David's music \'om infl~ me and wUl mikea.lastmg iInpr~ ion on me. I can't say dte same for the L.A. Voices. And Uebman did notteeeive a special wekOOlI,l from the flight crew of American Flight # 121 L The L.A. Voices are indeed the "beautiful people" of jazz. But someday I hope to catcbthem wifuout the make-up. the dlOIeography" dIe production and manag,ernent, and see if th.ere is any jau theFC.

A .NEWSL.B1TER OEDlCA T:ED ro OKET BAKER .AND HIS MllSlC

50'14 Dunbar Ao,ad Raleigh, NC 2760'6 USA

Tel 919-851-4422 Fax 919-8551 ,·B9!68

!\Ifarano and Manteiro

I hal'lle to admit that when I saw the pkture of the accerdioa iin the J.A.J.E. progmn I m.ade a meatal note to give that acta wide birth and fwd anything else to do during thcir lobby performance schedu.led at noon on Sarur~y . I'm sure you have seen "b" movies where ilie heroine holds up crossed fotefiugets. In the shapeofa cross to ward off evil vampires. Sometimes I walk ,around jazz iesti.vlds with that attitude. I wllfess

Interview with Peri Cousins Harper by Win Hinkle

tl1at: I'm not afan of the accordien, I tdl as many banjo and accordion jokes as the nextlel.la.

When listening to Marano and Mantcdro for the first time one is made imIDcdiate~ Bo!W,are that the guy (Eddie Manteito) sitting down.and holding the a.ccomion is not realiJy perlomrlng on the accordion. He is sirnplyusing the insmnneat as a MVI cciIl:i'OUeJt. You won't see racks of electrenle deviceswilth Marano and Mante.iro. just maybe II. small amp or monitor, one small oox (MIDI interface)~ and the &!tnned squeeze-bex, er; ~I keyboard attachEd to :Ill bellows. Both M3moo and Mankiro sing but We bt:ener.is hard pressed to detemtine just who is the main vocalist, Both are OOMIHIlmate vocal artists. Matttelro bas it phmom.enalrange and switches effortlessly between a humorous falsetto, gorgeous midrange., and raspy bass. When I beard thls grouP. noted jazz critic, Leonard Feather happened to sit next to me. Irernarked to Leonard that Mamelre would OCC3£jona~ty solo in a style imitating bass~t Slam Srewatt, singing aliong in a guthl:~ alimosthar¢-]jp~ Gabby Hayes-type voke w~th the bass lines. Manteko diJd this ,extremely well but it was just QRe of his manytaJon,ts.

Marano and l'14anteiro sirop~y made ill great deal of music, Their amuIgetDOnts are worked om with spin~dillling accuracy, tasteful modulation and harmony with a unique tte.a1lllent to each tune. Don. Shelton, noted vocalist, arranger and S/liX0'phoniSit was in the audience, smiling. ,and disc~tly oobing, and aahing (not "Whooo-ccc" 01' Yah-whooolrng') at every opporWIlhy. And there were many opportuaities, Rarely did fout nteaSUl'eS go by without some new harmonic treatment or inventive Me of counterpoint The-ir perfonn;m.cc kept the real listeners on the edge of the seats, attempting to follow ilij: mmical gdin.:gs=on. Musical taste wasruwlliYS ,evident in their performance. They never tet 1hek harmonic prowess denact ftom the musical message of the tune.

Nancy Marmo' is a termed voc;:alist wi.th a wonderful fuU-bodied'tone in her own rigbt Sbe sums to be the straight;.. man of the group, setting up' IDe vocal antics ofMaotcifo. They CODI.p1.im~'nt each otherwonderliJ.Uy. I'll bet ther have bun perlorming togethor for years, The delivery of ilieir fluid, but quite complicated ha.J:mony. is polished as only yew:s of work~ log rogetl:ler andantieipati.ng each other could produce.

Check these guys out. Open your eats, close yow: eyes and don't lookat the accordion. and be prepared to have yoW' musical socks koockt.d off. - WH

Support LFE

Order' y,our LFE postcards today 20 for $10" prepeld,

Peri CO'uslltS is the "Pe.ri~· in "Peri's Scope ~ and" as you. wUl read, someone whQ ft:wed BrU Evans very much. This .illlerview was dcn2 by telephone i", 1992.

WIl: BiU rtaYded "P~ri's Swpc"from as early lIS M959 and then as late as 1980. When did y,oD frrstlntmt Bill?

PC: I met him In 'the early "50's. He was playing with Tony ScotL

WH. In New Y mk. Did be have the 1hythm seetioa of SeQ" LaParo and Paul Motian1

PC: Oh, no. Th<d was after .lnddentaJ.ly. il is i:Jrteros;tfug that that was not the r.lrst trio he had. His rust trio, although it was short~lived. bad Jimmy Garrison and KeDII)' Dermis. Do you know Kenny Dennis?

~'H~ No. I don .~.

PC; He was married to Nancy Wibon. I suppose that's his claim to fa:tne. He played in New Yark for a ]ong time. M a matter of fact. to give him his dee, he was really jhe prime mover in ~rsuading BiU to start a mo. He really did. I don't think peopJe know that and thaCs too bad because that is true. WU: Did he play with Pbilly Joe Jones before Molian? PC; They pllayod . together with f)..fi]cs. He teCOrrIed with Philly Joe but he and PhlUy J ee never really played to,gcther. WHi He was never really part of the trio at least in those eat]y times.

PC: No. Then Paul Motim and Srotty.

WK: Were Paul and Scotty part ef Tony Srott's band? Is tbat how they met BUn

PC; No. Pauhnigbthav'e, been.Idon't.remember, Budrehad known Paul a long tane, He was OlU~, of his closest mends. I don't remember: how he tne'l 800".

WB: Do you resaember the exact year you fmn met Bill and the eireumstaases.

PC: I was a lover of jazz. I don't remember spec:ifi.caIly. WU; Row did he write the tune lor you.

PC: But I will say not having seen him fcra while and. I saw him again when NBC produced a series on jazz. in 1958 aod he 'MIS Of! the last show.

WU; '"1be Camera 'Ibree1"

PC'; NO~"'Th<l Subject is Jazz, .. He bad written a tullC .liJ little while before he was working on It. The first working titlle was "Kid's Tuna," And I had been complaining that no time WIliS ever written with my name. Yau mow, there was "Matyft and KRuby. My Deaf" and so forth and he. in effect, said. "Okay. Okay ,- So. we toyed with naming it MPerisp'here." He decided that wouldn"t 'be right because "sphere" was Monk's middle neme, Then he came up with "Peri's Scope.'; That was in IDe summer of 1959 as I mnembcr, And then ~ate[ that year,. towam the end of the year, be was recording an albmn and he

l.f1Hsr from Evans, Spring 1993

,caned and said he'd be home shortly and that "Guess whll!t we t~1" Of course, I couldn't, wPeri's Scope," It was a gr,eat feeJling. Ifch immortal

WH; Back to 1heearJyhlstoryoftbetrioandhis early mstcry after he left Miles.

PC: Aftu' he left .Miles, he gigged 8I'OWI.d with diHerent people. He pm~ed solo ill clubs in New York and then sbrttiI lite trio.

WR: Old you keep, in touch wilhBilfl,throughouthis carom Did you talk to hloo later in the '70's1

PC: O~ yes. We had contact. Not a lot. Wbmever be came out here to Los Angelts.in 197.5,. he'd call.

WU: Did you know Bi'lll. prettywell then or was it was more like you wc,.t: a jazz fan and just came to coo.cens and appearances like in the '500's?

PC: We lived together ..

WU: Ob, okay.,

PC: He was 'the [eve of my life.

WH.: I glilCSS you were before his r1M wile. Elaine'l' PC: oe, yes.

WH~ Bill was just hanging OUI in New York. Did he talk abour his days of going to college down in Looisiana1

PC. Sure. We had lots of eonversadoas, As I'm sure you know. he was very shy. He wasn't shy with me but be rendod to be quieta ~ot of the time. But. oh yes, he told me about coUege. Yeu know, incidentally, that his scholarship for college was for the flute.

WB: Yes. I heard that. He was ,a double major, flute aiI:ld piano. Then he went ~h,to milita:ry service. play~ the flute. He was at Ft. Sheridan in Chicago.

.PC': Right. He was from N,ew Jersey, WD: Did you ever meee his fathu?

Pet Ob; sure. Both his pattnts and hls h:ro1her.

WH; Mary was his mother. and Hany his father. How would y,ou describe their family7

PC :Hls mother was very strong. His faJher was khld of a gentle man" very sweet. Thafs hIY reaction, I think that his mother favored Bill. Bill was the younger, as you know. She teaJly doted 00 him.

WRt His mcthe,r lived in New Jerscyup until the °70·swhen she moved to Florida?

PC; Oh, no. They lived In Florida from. the: '50's. They retired. and wellt to Rorida. I met them when they carne up for visits.

Wu,: Did you evt:r go down to florida with Bin?

PCi NO'. Think about it. I am a person of coJor if you didn't know.

WH: Ob. JI didn'~ know dtal. PC: Yes.

'WH: I wouldn't have known that.

Pe: I'm nQr identifiab1¢ on me telephone.

WH= .00 y,ou feel CQfIlfortable talking about Bill's drug habit at all?

PC: W ell~ he bad it.

WH: Other than drug addition" did Billshew any self-destruc:u~ tendencies?

PoSSe toO

PC': 'Iba,t was 1t. It w,asself-desttuctive. Of course, that was the lbanc of our existence. Because he was a person who was SO aware lhat there wars uoargument that I could give him. Becausohe knew. He knew what he was doing and part ofhlm felt that was 5Ome-dting he bad to do and that when he was finished he'd stop. I suppose Jots. of people fdt that way. But I don't mean that be said, "'On, I ~j(lS.ot stop anytime I want to," He knew it W,EtS dlasttuctive but it was almost as ifbc didn.·,t want to stop. I have a theQty about his addiicti,Qlil. WhenBmy (l was the only person who called him Billy whkb he didn't particumJy like 10.11 accepted). When he came down. 'WhCIJ he kich:dit. which be did on D:UmefOUS oocasi.ons~ the world was, :I: dOn' t l\mow bow to, say it, too beautiful. It was too sharp for him. It's almost as lfhe had to blur d1e world for himself by bdqg strung out. I bad iliat impression all the lime.

WH~ I 1hiok I understand 'tDtbecaUSi:: I'm acqu:tinted with drug 1JSIel'S.BiU went on Methadone inabeut 1970 or around there']

PC; That's what Iundesstand.

WU; And after that it w,as just a Methadone dependency which is Je,gal.

PC: y.es.

WH: ][ guess he stayed otI that throughout his life from my understanding.

PC = \Vkn I met birD he was learning heroin. He was not using a needle. Thilt was bad enough but not as bad. And he also was, for years, in the eady days, no one knew. He was very private and careful and somehow it didn it menifest itself so the people didn' t know *at be was strung out at all.

WH: Did! his parears know it?

PC: No,. I doubt it vezy much aJtboogh he developed hepatim and went to Florida andstlyed whh them. We bad broken up and I offered to la.1re care of hint but he said he didn "t want to give me tmlresponsibmty. I was very willing. He arranged to go to his ~nts MId I. psdred fot bimand tookhim to the alrport, Y O\!I. blOW hepatitis very often Is a result of diny need1es and so forth and that may be how he got ~t. 1!don'tth_Utk_ his pal't,nlS, knew and other people didn' r either. I can reraemher seeing people who would ask about him. I remember Max Roach.saying "How'sBill," And I said, "He's doing well." He said. "'Ob. gee. what 8. drag for him to have gotten hepatitis ~m.t: ii's ajunkie's disease Md b.e',s;so clean." All I could do was sort of cough. I don"t knew if Max remembers 1hal I sort of murmured sonu:thiJlig and left it alone.

WH; 'When you ba.dbroken up I guess he met Elaine? PC: Yes.

WU: E~ bemg a junkie, maybe they found ~COiJJ.mon ground?

pc.; Oh boy. More eemmon ground than 11 \l'B: Wet'e you also into drugs?

PC: No. Not at all. Which. surprises somepeople who didn't udenltand how I wouldo.'t 00 but no, no, no.

WD: Of course, Bill's only lawful wife, Neaene, was not Wto drugs either.

PC; Y cab. 'Ihat was prell)" heartbreaking, By then, Bill was realily strung out and Elaine was too and it bro,k¢; .my heart.

I...ttw from E~.nSf Spring 199'3

WB: WeH, maybe it's s:orn.ething we shouldn't dwell OD then, How would you want, the world to. remember Bill Evus1 PC: I'vern::vcr thougbt about bow I would want the worM to remember: him, I know how I remember hiro. He was probably the most honest person I've knOWD. He didn't go through routines fur the sake of being polite) wbieh hill' t to say that he was rude. because he wasn't, He was gentle and sensitive aad had a delightful dry sense of humor. He was: a beautiful human bclng and I'm happy 1hat he was in my life. Of course, the legacy he has left. that aU know is one 1Imt be may be stil!l be :faintly surprised about. lie wrote me a letter, I doti·~ bow ifhe was inFlorld!a or not. He often wrote me DOtes and letters, He askM" "Do you think I belong in musie?" And he was semi-serious,

WH: You don Or. still haYe that letter do you? PC; Sure. I hav.e all ,of his letters.

WH: Ifyoll ~Uoeditouts!oy personal thlngs.Isurewould [ike to see that. Tbar's int«'CStiog. Since I have found oul that you ate person of eeler, were you with Bill when he was with Miles Davis?

PC: 011. ye-s.

WU: I've beam all kinds of s~orics about Mi]es and how he perceived Bill.

PC = He loved Bill

WB: That's what I thought.

PC~ Loved him. It was the kind of thmg -Iike nv-elin,g - be often had Bm ride with him. Blll used to tell me that wben be flrst :statted with Miles. Wiving s~ed Ray Garland, dlat when they'd rehearse, Miles would say "mock chotds." So Billy wonld pllay a few block chords and he's go back to playing what he played, Miles accepted it. There were people who woW!d complain about the fact that Miles had this white pJa)'Cf with Jilin. But they wouJd begrudgmgly say ~Bl.lt the CSJt can play." y.es, they had II vel)' close relatiiomhlp' even ~ Bill lcl'trum. Y QU know" he wasn't' wltb him when 'they did "Kind of Blue ."

WH= He came back: to do that album., right']

pc; y.es. I have also the criginal piece of paper on wiliJic.h he wrote the notes for me aFbum.

W.H: I'd like to see that.semetirae, too.

PC: Incidentally, I Was looking at Chuck Israelis' interview about "Pea'Ce Piece." To my su.rprise. it said that be wrote that some rune before he recorded it. I didn't know tOOt.

WH: Again. that's Chuck's recellectlon, I dou't know if it's 100 ~we:iJt or not.

PC: ru tell you, be used to p]ay MSome Odler Thne" and I liked that song very Qluch. So when he'd play it I'd say, "Would you plary itagain,.pl!ease."1 wasfCalJy a pain with this. "Will you play it one more time." And he'd play ~t and he would USB those figmes in the left hand and once after he'd played it for' me four or five Urnes, he drifted into what ultimately became "Peace Piece" and I thought that Was when it happened.

WB: I dlint: a ~ot of writers have blown that tune out of proportion. It's mere like an iintro era di!r:ecriOfi that rou take on ~ keyboard and it happens to he in me· same key that he

pJayed "Some Other Time" andpeople say he uses an mtto or inre]ati.onship~o "Some01:hetTItru:B and that's probably true. I .I:llmk "Pesce Piece" was m.ore just something that some teeerd producers and SQtncwrik:rS jumped. 00 as berng very approachable music to othe-r people.

PC = It seemed eoneemplativc to me, He was thltlling and this was II. kiad of musical way that some of his thougbts were coming out,

WH: That's a good description of n. Is there anything you weuld ~iik.e to add?

PC: I Dve to, say it was a privU-ege and a pleasure to hear lli pb)' and he p]ayed eve"y day. lie would usually play elassieal music. Ofcourne. you know he was: a romantic. He played Rachmaninoff root he also pby'ed Beclhovetl and Bacb. He would play dlat and then he would drift into jazz, just son of seque mtojau; in a very fluid kind of way . It was WGndeifuJ to beat this. That was my priviJcdge.-PC

Interview With Herb Wong

by Win HI_nkle,

WH; I'm ta]lingwiJtb Herb Wong. Yourbloute to Bill. Bvans has to be one of' the most thoughtful to, have an those different piano players playa tune and thinking ef Bill. How did the 'idea lot that come about'?

HW: It was around 3 :30 or 4:00 in the morning and I was dUnking about Bin and saying to myself. MMy gosb.there hasn 't been .atly event or tecotdingj no ootillgutation of IIOY sort" that was payilng tribute to bim at least untilthat time. at least to my knowledge. )[ felt upset about it, I starred 'IMnking aoou:t because I was just lying in bed thinking about people that might want to participate in this idea. And then,a:s, many

mmL-b- 1 .. L_._ -- 0....... +f -- - d - n't ""'t seme cf "'I..~" d

C.~1Jo!;\ . ." JJ!!I~ expene ........... l you" Q . r- . some 0 '1.iI1J:>' own

by dmti_mc you wake up it's evaporated. So Igot up right aw,EIiY. went to m.y desk and started to put names down. and ehlnkabout how this might work, I probably bad about twen1y~five names. 'Then I called Helen Keane. I said, "Helen. I've got this idea," She said, "That's wonderli.d. Why don·t we work together on lt," I sai.d, "Of course. .. So; we wen: limtted to how much lime we ceuld put- on it because it's not a CD. unfortunAtely_ Too, bad! it wasn't around, I could have had a ~ot more. Anyway I' We, sealeden mro criteria. One was those people tlJait: BiU had plainly high respect fOfto tb¢C'Jltent that if he came mlO town and ot:!e of 'llwse piarusts was also in ~ ht;; weuld then make an effort to go see md listen. We thought ilhat was a viable basis. The second. but not necessarily subsidiary to the flISt. would have been dIe fact that there have been many who became very influonced by him and he respected 1hem as I would call extentionalisis. So, we made that up together. 'Ihere were some that people might have said, "Gee, how is so-and-se ceaneeted," Theyare all connected and they all fit into me rna,m. Cert!aimy dJere were others that colirld have been ineluded but we had to limit it to whatever we had there.1ben, from the standpoint of materia], again, that was SOlJlethmg that

hge 11

letfw Itom Eva'ns,Spring 1993

we had to make some decisions on. FlISt off, we considered tunes that were Ius ccmpositiens. Of course .. there were pian. is'lS who fa:vot~d certain compesaiens ofhis that wanted to do those particular tunes. There were o1hcrs who made a judge. rncnt that Bill lUred their tunes and had recorded ili~m or played and recorded them so they thought it w.as approp:ria~ and wedid, too, that 1Ib.ey wouJdperfoIll! those particulat numbers, I think a case in pcint that comes to mind very prom.ptJ.y would be Denny Zeitlin -Quiet Now" or Herbie Hancock,

WH; Rdttsh my memory. What tune did .Herbje play? HW: I think he played "Dolphin Dance." I haven't looked at it. I'm. just thinking sbout h. Anyvray., it was a v'ety challenging enterprise because of the different sites and 1Ib.e number of different studlo si~c; we had to record, the various p~a:n.osin the tota]co.]]ection ef fourteen. to IDIlik:e it eonveeleatte them and where they were and if they had time. So ·orchestrating the ftCording sessions was a task. We'd 11)' to get as many as possible in any one block of toe. However, there were BI few cases (Denny .Zeitlin was one, be had to do it by bimself) because he wa.om·~ 8vailiabJe in other sites. New York or L.A. bill be was up here so flat was done just by hlmself. Most of tbem, by the way. were fU'St takes. It was interesting, I recall some images now •. 1 remember limmy Rowles j1!lS1 did OD.e. And be says. MWCU, is thatgood enough," I said, "Jimmy. of course, thatw.w; good enough, do yon want to do anot:her ooeT' He said!. .. I don't think so, I think that's my fueling as I'm 1hln1ing about him. And that's flne, I'm. happy with it ...

WII: The one that really com~ to mind is Joanne Brackeen and RichtlyBeitacb who both have !Leally diffor,ent directions than Bill but yet show SOtJi'C influence, teo,

H.W:: Well, certainly Riehle Is vay strong. QllDder we·lEvans umbrella as be's dbrnoIlSttatM even with his own projects. Like the Elegy alburmon Trio Records. There's some departures, !Even Teddy WlilSOll. or George Shearing. Yet, kom Bill's prospective it was pertinent. Teddy was somebody he rea]]y admired .. It could have been dQ1lC where alil the piomis1s would have II 8m Evanish sound or direction or v'Dicings 'W' things but we dido'l do it thai: way completely as I tried to e.lucidate betc. But. it was an. excirting project because of the emotions. I think the session In New York. partiCll1l.arly when ODe would hear another and they g.ot reallY engrossed into the attnoophefie of the project

WH: Ate there any plans to issue that on CD.

OW. It is on CO. Not oornpJetcly. I was ttdid it came ont so I called the record label. There arc some fttat are not on theee and I said. "Why not?" It was intact, it was a total stareml::ot. ·"Well., we thought there ntightbe 90Dle preblems with same people." I said, "If you didn"t Ibylhen how would you know?He said. -We don't have the in1repidspirit ~t you bad mit." I said, MWe]~ obviousiy. You don't even have dte total d.cdication." It was a just a projeet and sante.body else had picked it up. As much as I herald with enthusiasm that it is available on CD ~V"M. not in it's complete original fenn, Ialso depLore We fact 'rhat there are deficiencies in the project because of it's absence of Ire)' people Iike Chick Corea. That"s ridiculous, WH= He was one of the Oile$ left cut?

PB{!c l2

HW i Yes and Denny Zeitlin was left out and h was. such 11. beautiful petfoml.ance. It's like taking part of the g,uts out. ef it.

\\'8.: I'm glad I have the record.

OW = I encounter ~ple who searchfer it and it ls around here and there. I see it once in awhlk. About throe or fout weeks ago I saw it in a localrecycleshop audit was in exroUent condition. It's around. Students tha.t I teach are enthusiastic about finding it and a number of them have found It They come back and say "I found it!" I spent significant time on hI 1hlnk I mentioned to· you this la.~ academic year I've ;spent three quartets OD. th<i evolutiQU of the jazz piano trio and BUI occupied probably the most prominent position in that modem. period.

WH= Looking back onthat course. I'm sure you found a.lot of different aspects Ihat Bill's mas .n:rul(y started some specific directiQrul in pla}'ing.

HW : Yes. And tbe change of personnel .. In looking at it in retrospect it W,iIIS a fascmating backward look and then looking fOlWam .again frOID there. The equarion ofblis. impacris beyond our- appreciation.

WH: It'smade mevcry oritical of trios and duos. Unless they start to play OD. some of the levels that Bm did and cspeciaUy the dnrmmer and bass player relation-.mips they·ro not. really playing as a trio. They"re playing as three. guys getting together doing a gigas opposed to· reaUy making trio music. Some of the New York ttios are doing really well. K,mny Werocr. OW; And consistent pen;OII_fie] taere, too.

W8: The guy we just heatd,Fred Hersch. That trio concept is r:eally developing .. We heard Fred playwith a new bass pla.yer fot the first time. But they were drawing upon. ttio ensemble systems (I don't want to USlC the word sy~-te.ms) that had developed in New Yorkand they were already lrymg those lh:ing~. Tune things and te:dural thing.s. BUI it dido't sound experimental. It sounded like they bad drawn upon a vocabulary of t:ed:u;riques ~baJt have aheady been. established .. If you go back .andllook at the history ·of those teclmiques, it's Bin Evans.

HW = That's where it comesfrem, He forwarded. the fullest im:v;emOIy of possible inner relationsbips in a trio, alIow:i.ng maximum freedom for individual ,expressl<lb and yet the communion. between die three muslcians were always so watm and tight it would belie an)' kind of co.ncept of longevity ·01 relationship. Because it seemed to me that whenever you heard them,the OOlIStalJit that was there was freshness. And that's hard to eeme by, I thin._k. One might argue that it would take long perlods of being together and rnmiaation to acllleve that kind of level. of ease and sophistication mid intuiitiveness 001 it also seemed to m.elhat ili.ose kinds Of balances were streek eady en in aU of his trios. Now, how that evolved and developed obviously had to come hom Bill someway or mother. WU; That's one of lbethlngs I want to tty to figure out is how that evolved, For exarnpk~ I've listened to LaFatQand Motianplaying with Tony Scott and it's almost straight ahead. It's. just conventioual pJaymg. And he (oust have informed Soot!)' and Pau~ to do their own thlng. Bey, I would Jove to

..

I.Gltfet hom .Evans, Spring 1993

have bad those insttuctions and to have 1IDen there. when that staned.

BW: I remember ODe part of a conversatien I bad with him. He said, "You know there are differtttt. levels of creative expression or ereatlvity," 'I'ful;t was one ofoureommon topics, byrhe waf. He said" "rm thiDJclng of people who have to hivest a lot of time and a lot of worklmo whet-ever they're going until they reach a cenaia level. &en it Slt.a:m; to rome 1fuuugh. 'Ibere are others that don't require that much work before yon can rccei¥ethat 'kind of satisfaction." He says it aill depends 0!1 the chentistzy of the group. But he was also referring to hom players as well as p~. He died some examples of what be was thinking about. But tte used that work equation as somet:hiDg that he referred ,10 in his work witb own cohorts. So he obviously had some rationale pattkubrly with jhe people that he p]ayed with. Maybe they were very brief. Maybe it was just enough of a nudge to point in the right ~ direction. WH: We were over at Earl ZU:!.dar·s house y.esteIday and Earl p,layed us a tape tlmt he did with Bill about W 960. ImI was playing,b:nLsbes rut a p'hooe book and Btl] was working mit some things on a tune for about thineen or fourt:ecn .minutes. Just these things. It was agreat tape. I dOn't ~ow what IEoa:d's g'oWg to do wi1h tballfs a study tape. It's mote about listening to how BiU worked things out and he did! do a lot of work, He spent a lotef time on thesetunes, And so many players t,oday fed they can just walk in and put themselves in the .tninds¢t. But, no. ~t's bald work

HW'~ So. that's consistent with what I'm :saying there. There's something I'm WOlking wilth HaItI told you about that didn't n

"''II: No.

HW: I'm making a proposal of a proJect with Earl and Andy La Verne. They have never met, They've ,only now spoken on the phone. But I finally'put them togetherand bopefuUy something wiU develop out of this that will be a ve.ry positive thiag, It·smteIesting. Barl's mustc has such deep &)'riCEHI. It's very obvious why Bill ~esponded 90 positively to his music, It seemed like it was written for him. So at one point when Stan Getz was still living bere less t.Wm ten tnimrl.r.s from me b.~ in Menlo Park. He was in 2. (lUmber of locations out here in Woodside and Menlo Park, but his last location was very dose to, me. We were in good eommunlcatien, So one da!y I said, "You know I have some music here by Earl Zlndars." He said, "WeU. who is d:tat'1~ So I shJmed with him the relatio.nsbip with Bill, He said, "Do you, have anything'" I said, "Absolutely. Do youkno,w "How My Heart SinWO'']"' He said, "Oh yeah, that's OOautifid,,"1 said,. ~w ell, that probabJy ss w:t:]1 known as anything that he's done." So I said, MWby don'r I bring over some music:" Resaid" "Okay.w So I broUght: it over and he didn 'tget into it right away. But he did within. I don't know; a week or so, and he called and sald, "Hey. this stuff is go!gOOUs. Where did it come ftom. I mean. all of these songs. Yon know how I'm intosofigS." I said. '"Of course. That's why I thought you might be really in.tern;ted in this," He ~ '''W-en. I am. Can I keep these? .. baid. "'Ob yeah, keep them. Y au :tn.ay find that you wUIt to, draw on them at some future

rime. ~ He never put it on record, I went over there one day and he was playmg them. He said, "N o,w dig this:" He played. I said. "Teo bad we'renot even mping it right nOW. Ead would fUp (lilt." I don't remember all the things .I gavt:, him but .Earl has so much stuff .. He ~. sent a geed dcM of it to Andy to seleet, It's very similar to the g,eneraI approach I used fOI1be project that Andy did wiJth Chick O;:tt.a·s music. M Lrecall there were seventeen tunes thast had never been reamied by Chick. And he says. "Take your piek. ..

WH: I've got that CD at horne, I haven't had a 'chaoce to listen to it yeL It's behind the Bill iEvans stuff.

HW ~ It's an interesting one.

WH: Well Andy is very good for paying homage to a par~ tlcular area se that may work out really well.

HW: They'le both ",err enthusiastic. I owe phone calls back to them. too. Hopefully ~ somebody will say~ My cab., I'm interested," There is a label that I mentioned it to who said.M.s~nd me the proposal." But I don't know if it's gO'ing to he 100 steep for them of 110,1: enough. I never know. I just put [t together with conservation in mind but quality without compromise. This is it.

(At th_is point WIn and HeIlb took a break and then canti& ued with the interview.)

HW: The period immediately preceding Bill's trip to New York and his demise, was a totallyfrusttating period ~ in San Francisco and at The Keystone Comer. He was in the worstshape that Ihsdever seen him in. I was WId that theday he came into ttM'tl. W'lh:ich was several days before the engage-ment began. he demanded drugs. The proprietor took care of that. 'To me, it: 'was a disservice. It was just hurtling him downward I guess be was quite insistent about it Either he got the· meney to purchase it or it was supplied. I don't knOlW whicb. I know that was pari of the happening.

WH: Almost like a death concert.

BW: He said clearly lie nte, I won't forgot 1hls. He had an attitude of "YO'u know. I don'. care," It was Iike ~.1 don '1 care about whatever is happening to me PhYsically. I'fIl gO'ing togO' out there and play." It was tt:oommended that he get medical assistance. There was a fan. a medical doctor, :I don't bow if you've heard a~ut 'this incidence. He made, and how be did iIt I don 'It !know. he did make a diagtK;l;S.is and recommended that he redraw from playing and got hospitalized. Herefused to listen or compJy with any of this professional adviCe. I den °t think ~rs only one doctor. There was 000 lfutt was, prominently involved in trying to belp him.

WH;' Do you recall if it was a stomach disorder or was it hepatitisagain1

HW: It was it oombinadon. It was mote than one singJe syndrome. He was messed up period. Also. there is ano'lhet memmy that is filled with blemishes ill its atmosphere. Nntritionally, he dllin't care what was happening to hlm. rVf: never seen him do this. He was eating junk food, candy. That WiS being supplied by this young girl. I Jhink she was still it. teenager,

l.etter from Evans~ Spring 1993

WH: Practically, in her early twenties.

HW: So ·her eating habits were those of a typical teenager .. She bad ,t!hls stuff around, I looked at thls and &ald. "'Holy smoke" .. Ilbat's what he's p1ll1ttmg in his body. And he did. In a COBW:1Sation 1hat I had with him in twoinstallinmts~ be said to me, "we 've had a lot of ron~rlo.m OViCr me years," Something Uke 85 to 90 eoaversanons, That"$ a lot. We covered a lot of tepics but mainly in certain areas, But, this rme be talked about I!. couple of things that stuck with IDe. The fust of 'the two ins.taJiments were more involved with 'things such as the Jelationsrup witb Miies.lIc. mentioned "BJut and Oreen.~ He said, "That's t:ea1ly not supposed. lobe credited to anyone but myself."

WB: We have Earl's skdcbes of it that Bill had way before he was working with Miles.

H'W: What be wanted to teU me was that. He said; .. Mter a number of years, I approached Miles anrl saidi,'Miles., dcm'~ you think I'm entitled to some of tberoyalt~ tbat have been coming in for the tune.' And Miles said nothing '00' me. And. then shortly after that he gave me a cheddor $'25.00 and I DI;:Ver spoke about it again." Now, thaI's what Bm told me. He was vezy serious about it and Ibefieve that that's probably what happened. Maybe he did it as a joke to him to say. "Come OIl ate you lcidding? Here, take this." Too bad.

WH; Ifs kind of.hard to f~ out Milts semetimes.

IIW : Yeah. 'Then.) fmaUy·knew wat be had resigned himself to whenever he was not going to be around by way of the comments thathe made to me. I said to lli as 1 looked at my wattb, "You. know you·re going to have' to get a little more feSt before you get on stage, M He said, '"Let me tell you, ][can'twait toget on stage because of IDe laBarbera and Moo;: JohHon. :rm ~Bing yOD~ I'm so,grateful that I have £maUy found two people l1ibat: .really meet what I feel is what this mo is about and I've been searching since Scotty was gone. I have no words fOI it. Just rotel! youthat I adnwethtse two young guys and I'm justa ~ Jucky pef9Otl. I can' t wait to play wilh lhem." Buthe said, "1 don't want you to leave yet." 1hls was in the basement of Kerst'one Comer where Plusicians sometimes used II. 1'000'1. there. He was seated Indian sty k on the soft t'Mterial that we bad there, It was not chairs oranrtbing, So we just, kind of sat with each other and he said, "I want to t'I:U you semethlng." I said, "Ok;ry. what Is that." He said, MI want to thank yoo for allthe conV(ersatiom wt:'VC had an these ytaIS. M I said, "Y ou're thanking me? Y eu'veget to be kidding. I'm the one that's so grardUl to have the chances to chat with rOil about anything and everything;" Whethet it was a res taurant Of a bar or his hotel or OOIfuc, sidewalk or Whatever it was in so mabY diiifel'Cnt contexts,. Anyway, he was speaking vory :softly. I know it was like saying "Goodbye." He was saying "Thanks a lot, Iawtceciare it but I've got to go. ft' Of course, I had tears and told him that he'd better rest to do what he needed to do. I w-tnt upstair.; and sat alone enthe side and waited for the group to come an because theD 11ndy knew that this may V¢zy wen be the lastgig I'Il ever see him. What is hueres1Wg to c:omplete my ~l thing whh him is that when he'd left for New York on the day that be passed away I was Oil.

Highway 280 going to SanFi'aiJcisco from Palo Alto. It was in the aftetnoon. Kind of two-ish in. the afterooon and 1 heard over IDe radio stanoo KlAZ They said. ·""We have to, IDtelfi!lP.t our musk: to share with you some very. very sad news. Bill Bvaos [ust passed away." And what I was doing at tbatmoment WID> I was felIding a letter nomhlm while I was driving. Can you believe this. He 'WaS telling me once again about some of the things we'dchauedaboul. But he was slitU hopefu!. because in the letter, he said "l·hope to see you in Los Angeles." Wen Ihave w;tell you ~;af,course, I couJdn'ttake i!t. I plUed over to' the side of the road for at least a half bout and dJat, was roy experience of getting the news.

'WH: In your coaversations with Bill, did be express to you any icibas of bootleg tecoIds,. how be hated them and that kind of thing. And also, your opiaion because you an; involved in the record. business. I'm still.leami.ng how to treat that.

HW! He,lilreBe:onyGoodman or Woody Hennan., who I've slso ta1'kedto about this. White iliey were alive theyknew thingswm.happeoing. None of the thesep.ople fed good about that kind of dep~e from conventi.onal business prlletiees, But,. all of them said 1!b.e same liIing. "I can't spend any cner,gy to be bothered with cliasin,gpeopie because I don't have timeto do that. My time isnot to be devoted. to that." In general, thls: lis what they said. I remember Benny knew so much stuff WIIis happening to him. lie said,~Why should I spend .aPy mQ1i.ry on legal services when ifs just going 10 00 a chase and nothing's gom,g to happen from it. If they"t.e; doing that it means they don' t have the lIIIooey anyway to do It kgiti.mately." That's wCfCStin,g reasoning. While irs been done, it' sbeing done ,and ~t wiu be done~ the 'opinions are twin, one of remorse about people doing dtat but Ithe helplessness also that they don't have the whcK:~with-aIl to pursue it.

WH: Back to tbe record tribute. I assume you have Ito ntake ends: meet with 1ha11 Did you make wbat you invested into it. .HW: I haveo't reviewed this. The .rati.onale behind wat was .80 altnristie OD¢. 'That'swby it was tied in with scholarsbips. Maybe I should speak a little bit about wat Iucri.bod, in the liner notes, of the double gatefold LP set is fue exp1anadon that it was eokttd in with the National Associa'l:ii.oo of J azz Ed1!lC3.~ 'tors and Keyboard magazine,jointly, :mpportiog a scb.olarshlp program whettln musicians from anywhere in the world could send in a tape and have ~t ,~vafuared and if selected to win ene of these subsidies. They would then hav'c a choke of 11 mentor pianist for whatever time and rate they can usc: the money for. And thaI did occur. I received in three figures submissions fr~ llteralJy aU OiVCl' the world. Interestffi,g huh? That also roM me that !the reootding 'was dbn:ributcd weU enough to get the

0,

word out, There were 'really wonderful p~anlSts,They we«:

men assigned to 3. person of their choice or" when they dido.'. lmow~ I would propose totbern 5e>/ora1peopie that they might consider. and speak about their anri~ as mentor, leaChor f and inspiration or whatever. I did do that. How that. was adDlini.~red was another matter of management. 'The award monies were not giV¢!l directly to the ree:irpimt, They were given to the iRCUlOr diroctly $0 that was iI'aken care of and the person would taJre, care the lUTang,ements from thet~ in. I was

HW: I think he would have been delighted .. I also flnd another aspect of it that feeds into dlat self-assessmcntOH h_1ts part and that ~s to extend ooyond just thlogs that are 100% related to him but those that have the spin-cffs from. not omy his music but from his persona as an image, as a highly attaotdinary inspitationccntn~ J think he probably would have approved of the. well, lor wantof at benet WOld thatcemes frem another field of mine. it' s equalsystetnatic. It smacks of th!lit. I see it. When I look at it,. I S3Y,1hete"s one, there"s another one ... It kind of fits in.

WH; I by to make ~t both on Bill Ev@s piiankm. ids composit~ions .and] the mind-set that bls music puts us m to create both on personal levels and nio, l,eve~9. That mind-set is stronger: for me tbMl. lilly other pianist.

BW: 011.1 understand that.

WH; A lot of people do.

HW: I fecaU that. them were people caUing when Lbad my COlU'Se announced. "How much are yon going to spend on Bi1l Evans'?" I said, "A bell of a lot. If you miss those you might as well not ceme at all" He represeats the pivotal crux of this whole tb:in,g that I'm. going to be getting into. Evierytbing jl'lSt Jeads up to it. and every1h:ing afterwards,

was no longer involved except that I did requite an evaluatiea and a report·of the experience. I guess it's the educator in me. Ihsve to have tbauomake,closure on thesetbin,gs. That's what happened. I don't think the c(,mpany lasted long ,enough for us to realize. enough income to takJe care of everything. The f'trnt priority was to ta:k~ of the scholarshlps not to take QU'e ef the costs of the recording. It was dearly that kind of project. So' it was one of a different set of values. It wasn'tone 10 say "Let's ,capltalil.C, on some conttnen:ia! "ruue OfBI!ll' S felmWion.. Let's just go and do something.M It was clearly not that at aU.

WH: The jazz; educators. You were president. I've always viewed that org,aniz.:ation as much more than just It 'lmnch of edaearors.

H~': CJearly. Just go Ito one: of them. right?

WH: It's a major jazz institution. H not the major jazz institution.

OW; I would agree with the latter. I already mentioned to someOOdy this, m.ora1ng.ltis~ even by numbcn:, the largest of any gathering of anything related to it in 'the world today. WH: I've aJw,ays wisaedthat the merllitclty of IDe organization wouldrecognire that and maybe structur,e tile organization a little more towards tMl. In otherwordt,i~ it's ajazz presenters lIS opposed to jaz;z; educ.a,tots. 'They do mare, And mote musieiaas come lOthait to make eontaets,

HW: Yes. Ir'sa master switch boasd,

WR~ Ifs the CPU (<:eII'ttal precessing unit) of jazz..

IIW: It is. People getmucb of Itheir year organizod just by gomg. Lots of peopJe don'rreallze that.

WH: Sometimes when I read the publication I wishtaere were less emphasis on the educational th1ng. Because irs a little siUy somedmes .. I'm a pwfcssional musician and it's very hatd to make a living in jazz.

HW ~ I think that this is an ongoing dilemma. It's more ilia:n a diletmna. ifs a polykma .. Its varIous compl'e:dons as a subspecies of nobody knows what makes it diff1crnt. Because there's so many dliffereot sub-audiences they are trying to .attend to. It's neither fish nor fowl. There are people who mU!lt have sometbing dIat smacks of some research or pseudo-research atmosphete for them to eome to IDe convention. to justify them en their CIUl1ptlS. There are those who don't CIU'C to read any of 'that. who cotild 'care Jess. Then ther'e· are the genera] jazz enthusiasts.

WH: JUSlt jazz lavers. I've seea people j,usl buy the: concert tickets.

HW: They would rather read som~tbing that's more general like SQWIG of the things I've been writing like interviews. a little tighter widIout depreciarlng, any quality on it. It's diflkult to serve all these different segments. ''That has not arrived wim. any c-iarity yd and I dbu·,t. thlnk jt ever will simp1y because of the div.crsity of audience segments.

wn: 1b.ank you. very much. This has been great. Any paning oomments 10' my readers?

DW: Ijust thiak that the Evms Letter is fulfilling somelhlng gmod fer Joss of oth.ec adjectives. ] would say that BiU would have been d.elightod.

WB= I'm worried about that.

II nterview with Joyce Collins

by Win Hinkle

WH: I'm talkingwith JOyce ColHns .. Joyce teaches at the, (hove School of Music. She just fiaished afantastic nibnte 'CQI}'C¢I'I' to Bin Evans at the Jazz Cenb:"Al Organization [Aug 1 S. 1992). How did you first heM Bill Evans? He's obviously a big influence on yom musk.

JC~ Y es, oh yes, Al1hou.gh. if you didn't live in the East you dido·t get to gee as much of BiU Evans as you'd lUre to. I first heard the album tmt I ~ater found out was h_is second album, the album called Everybody Digs Bill E~. And I just Wlmt a.azy. It. mademe rerniak my whole approach. Espedlll1y in terms of ldt,.hand voicmgs. I heard trim twi'Ce in person, Once at the eld "Shelly's Manhole," That was in the early '6O·s. J remember that I was dying to talk to him but I was too shy to go up .and say "Hi, roo Joyce Collins. - I could never do that, So' I j1ISl kind of eavesdropped, He was talking to somebody ,anciI it was one of these things where you could sit at the little hac. So. J just sat there MId listened Ito what he said and I remembered that he was telling this person he was talking to that he got a.lot of his roiciogs from WQzzeck by Alban Berg. WH: oi, really.

J"C: Yes. So. I immediately scureied out to a music stor:ea.nd. bought it and I couloo'{ see.my of the Bill Evans' voilcitogs in there, I guess they're there, but he worked them around in his O''Wn way. Th~ I was just cmzyfot 'evezything he did <Uld I studied his piaymg a lot. The last tim.e I heard him was in tbe early I97& at Coneerts By the Sea.

l.etiat from Evan'., Spring 1993

WH: You've just brought me a very interesrlng piece of information because Wo.tz.eck is one of my fuvQf::be operas. :I did a paper Qfi it when I was in college, mainly for the brass writing. I'm odsoa trombone pla~yer and it has some of the best low brass writing in the hlstory of opera.

JC: I didn it know that.

WH: It: is interesting ,that I was drawn both to Woueck and ElillEvans at the same time and now dtere'sa ~OIl. JC: There is II. eoaneetion. I have a similar tb:in:g. Before I heard BHl.!Evans. one .mght.,cmthe tadio I heard ..• I've srudied classical piano but for some reason I had never beard the Eric S:atie "G~ies" before, I went crazy for that and on a flrst album I lU'Olded, I made an an:utgernent using dm.t '"Gyfilnopedies" based thing with ., Get Along Without You V cry WeU;"1 kind of put it together. It was a nice arr~angemem. WB: :[ can imagine that right now.

JC: Then. of course. when I heard Bill Evans I knew that he was infl'U~ by Eric Salk; and I was dta.wn to both of them kind of at different times, Those are the onI.y times 1 saW him. And I never got ,torea]]y talk to him. One of ~y treasured possessions is the tape from the Marian McPartland Show. It'!,! very iruigbtful. 1 sst down with that and tried to do what he does on "Tae Touch ofYool' Lips."

\llB: There's a great version of "'The Touch of Your Ups" that is eight minutes long. A solo piano version of Bill's on the Complete Fantasy Jazz CoUection. Apparently it's hom the solo piano· 1hlngs.

JC: Do, you ooy,c to buy 1hat whole thing?

WH; No. I thiokyou can buy eiilie-e the so]o·piano Vo.!. 1 or Vol. 2. They're new releases,

JC: Anl thi:y?Bealuse I would loveto have them, TU find out about ilia'!:.

WH; omn Keepnews. JC: I know Orrin.

\\,B: I thiuk that eight minute version is on there. It goes through ~t Jeast four or fivr: keys. I hea1d it the other day on the i'a~io. I've got it at home, but I havm1l't fu;tened to it in a lOllg time. That's a great rune aDd that's one of Bill's best versions. In fact, that particular Version. is going to go en my personal tt.'Ul£Ctiption Mwam" ti:st, beC<l!USO he does such good. things with. it,

JC: 011; yes. Getting back to the .days when he was with RiyetSide.1 g.ot a litde money togetber and I hired Ray Brown and Prank Butleraad made a master tape, I sent it to Orrin Keepnews and I just signed it J. Collins. I had an il:uennissioo job~ a trio job in ajazz club here and I'd been working eppeshe Cru:mooball .and Nat Addaley" I was nJiu:riod thenand my husband and .I were go:irtg to New York and then ,to Europe. In the meantime, I had said in this letter to Orrin that I loved 1he thlngs: he was putt:ing out 00 this label and here's a master tape would he listen '1·0 it and I would be in New York on such and such day and I would call him. So. we got to New Y 0Ik:. I had never been to New Yotk befareand I was just <:raLed with ·ex~oitemenL We wont to bear OmoonbaU. and Nat. I said. to Nat Adderley. I"m going to· call Orrin Keepnews toroorrow. bent bhn a tape. He sai:d~ "Was that you that sent that tape?'" And I

P'II8" l6

said, "Yes." And be said, "I didn't get the name, but I was !in the office and Onin said be got. dris tape from a West Ccast planistand he said bethinks you're a man. and be thlllklo you're black," So he said, ~ Just make an appointment with his seereta:ry and don·t say a thing. just Sli.y • J. CoUws·.n So I did. I caned the secretary and I sai.d,"This is 1. Collins and I'd like an appointment with Orrin Keepnews," Shc gave me the appointment I wore this s.masbing bait and I went walu.ing into the office and I said to Onin. "rm J. Collins." He neady died. He waltzed me down to Bill Gmuer and he said, "Can you believe this. '" So llIIlIt was the album tbtI did with "I Get Moog Without You ve:ty wen" with the Sane ~cfr Wmd. So, eve:ry time I see Orrin Kct:pnews, be. says" "You really put one over on me;"It"s the ooiy coup I've ever pulkd ·otf·lnMY life a.nd probably the last. Bm it was really all because of BiJI BVllIlS" because of wanting to be enthat [labeL So. it came our on Jau Land which was a subsicHary of Riverside.

WH: .I coosldcr yow: mllSic .a real find. I heard Dave McKay ]ast night aIld both of y.onare talent tiesenrin;g wider recognitio71.lgucss is ~ way Do~Bem wuuld .;rut it.

JC: lie's a fabulous player.

\\'H: I want ro heae more and more of your rhings. Your approach to playing and your mindset whet! YOlilp]ay seems to be &£ same as ant Evans. You're out to play, to smg and to play melodically ~di to say :som.ething of yourself lather 1han Jmt piaying licks and the oid famiUa:r sniff that you heat pianists play an the time. And that mocks m.e out. That's. what I'm sea.rdrlng for. That's what )'ou obviously Me, too. l1"s the style that Bill Evam exemplified

JiC: Absolutely. 1 th_tnklhat we a11 go through that,especlaJly when we are younger. I remember going through a rea] beavy dilty~1I Gamer stage and a Bud Powell stage. Then, .I think you fwaU, grow into your own. But it takes tlme except. I dllnk,fOf vt:ry. exceptional people that jrust have then O'Wl!. individual stamp from the begUmiDg and I think thereW'e some people like lihat.

WH: Right. rucbie Beirach, for example, I think has that stamp. It's a littlle di.ffefent~ Irs his own little dWection. It's interesting. He's very different from Bill. In fact, if I bad 1:(1 draw an evolution of jazz piano. I'd put Bill here and maybe Ricbi.e as a bmocb off BiU but then very much going his OWl! dl.ttc:·tion andorher people following him. I hear some of Richie Bdt&Ch. in otbermusi.ciam.

Je: I do, too.

WH: Thafs great. Bill.md Richie are corning from the same from-the~heart direction whlch is" unfortlll.latcly. probably a small branch in tb~· tree of piano.

IC: Well. I'm afraid so. And especially, it seems tome it's gd'IIDg man; and more aboutsho-w:blg off chops.ln fuebegmllingl dido't have dlOPS to show off and maybe I would have if I've bad them so I can't say this was my approach. Because. in fie beginning, I listened to Lester Young a. lot. I've .always 1istmed to born players, That is an influence. AJ1d now I have rome chops but ,that isn't my lIlindset. I'm not saying I have chops Uke Oscar Peterson or some otherpiMlists but I have a

lot more than .I choose to use, My idea of it isn 't justto ,go out there and show off chops.

WH.: ][ would m.uch rather have a line in my solo p]aymg take a particular dired:io,iI that ma~be I dlidn.·t anticipate bm~ somehow was real!ly nice. different, or derived from the m.elody in some new way. If~s ,something you dou·t work at Cit pre-ecnoeive, It ,som.eth:ing that just happens sometimes, You hsve to put yourself in the right rnindset and the ~ight. frame of mind lo let it happen. Yon can't do that by dlSp~aymga.n yout chops. and yout ideas.

JC: Of course, Ito me the Ihiog that's so exIl"aonliIwy about BiU's playing not only, well, everything is exJttaonU_nazy. But theee is a]ways a sense of form and Il~· a sense ·of form. WB:: The form. ls never lost and he always slicks ¥rith the rune.

JC: Oh,Ilove 1hattoo.

'"''II: That's something that. in teaching. you may have run up against like some young pianists that would want to drop form.. And fmm beeemes the least lmportmt and sometimes even the tune becomes the, least impottant

JC: It's like what scale goes against what chord. I jusUay. "It'simportant to know that and we all know that and then we blend that in with tzyLn_g to create our own melody but creating yout meledy from the origiillllll melody and harmony should rome fl!l'Sl. But you see if dtey haveri'tlisten¢d to a lot of jazz, t!hat's a very bard concept. I mean they don't ba\ilc any raw material. I alw,a.ys say there's tapes going around in eveczy musidan·s head. And they don't hsve those tapes going arou.d unless 1bey"ve done a lot of listening. Now D1ost1y.I find the kids ID<lJt come here from Burope OF some of the kidS from Japan that have been into jazz as listeners and neophyte. players uncleI:stand that concept beeanse they have listened m a lot mom jazz. They really have.

WH= Thas's interesting. You taugb,t Pascal Wetzel1[P<WC.a!~ wetzer did the first book of Bill Evans tram:crlptions CPP/Bclwin.]

Je; Ho came to rbe Grove School. He was in The K!.eyboaId Program and rm Dick's assistant in The Keyboard Progmm. He was man advanced sightteadW,g class I taught and then be took p.rivate lessons with me. Of course, when I realized how good! he was and that he couldtranscri!be all these things (1ihi£ was way before his book). I paid him to transcribe. I can do it but it takes me so long. I used to be fast at ifc and I'm nor any:mo:reand I'm Luy. I \V8IlUd to use some oflhis sruff in teachlng and I wanted to know i.t lJl.yseJf so 1 paid him to do, all these aItalIgements and we became fasrfritQrk. Then he went back to Paris. He came back to do the ammgingprogmm. By tben, he had, made the connection and he bad put out the book 'of tmnsc:riptions. And I'm so proud of him ,and 1 keep in touch with hlm. We write all the rl,m.e8D~ as a matter of fllCt, I waut him to right down an arrangement I did on my last CD, u's a solo I did on "Oh, Where'sMy Bess." I'v,egotkindofll.copy. But I litemUy ean't write it down. I'm going to send it to him and pay him to do it. I have plans tog'o to Europe. I'm trybtg to set up II thing where I'm going to do someplaeo se:m.inars

and some dub jobs m Switzerland and maybeParis, so ru see Pascal.

'WH~ The ttanscription Iiiook published by ICPFBelwin tba't Pascal did. FU'St of aU I was disappointed that they didn 't ~ve the sources of the recordings,

JC: I was. too. I like w know that.

WU: .1 wrote Pascal and be sent I!h.oni 'to me and I published ~t in the newsletter. It's in. one of the issues that probaMy you've mis.9ed.

JC: I want that.

WH: RightllOW. I'm maJdng a compilation of all the known traascriptions, published OfIJOt, that people have done on Bill Evans works. In Older to save the transcribers duplicating wad!: dJat eomeene else has already done. It is a chore. It's a bard job .. In faet, there's Ili guy I know that has very poor manuscript that has several BiD Evans' b."aIlscriptions but I have t~ wade through his. fiLanuscript to tty to understand how to read it because he's not a professional musieien and he has kind of a shan hand way of writing and so I'm. going t.o' ha~ to wade though it. Pascal diddle one volumeand I was assuming 1!hat he would be asked to do a second vefume, He was not. Bob Hlnz is golQg to, do .malber volume for eN Belwin.. Bob has oontribnkd 'to my newsletter and bas done some good things. So, thai: ShOldd be good. I'm looking forward to that.

JC: When. will it be ouO

WU; I have no l&:a..1 don't know CPP Belwin, I'm not as familial with them as I am with lRO. Bill·s publisher, I want to gtt back. to more teachin,g. Other than just chops and voicing exercises wmc:h I'm sure )I'M teach in an keys andl:hen working on, tw:l.cs, is there any;lhing you wou1d to' to imparl from listening to Bill !Evans and being such 8i Bill Evans' devotee as you are iBto helping a youngster bring fhat ont ,of bbn to play melodically and to play from. the h.ea:rt?

JC: Yes. I talk about thas, :I also talk about putting wdght into the keys and by that I don' t mean bangmg or potII1ding. But to play eaeh note like your.iIe depended on jt More conunitnlellr .0 the melody. At the Grove sehool .and in my private teaeblng.Ldon 't reach improvisation" per se, They have several tea.chets at dIe Grove School that have a veI)' good melhod They get all these kids togetherlltld ther do wonders ...,jib them.J fmil improvisation \i'efY .hru1t. to teach. You can give them. simple ideas and things bunhatmelody,thatconcept has to come out of the1r mind and their guts •. This: b. what I work on in the Bin Evans way. 'W by and get. a singing sound, welghtin:to the keys. voicings" partioullldy left~hmdvoidngs. But, of COOtse.SlO' many of those voicings work better with a bass player Ithan not so there's a lot of time spent on "okay, here's how you do it if yell have a bass pbye[ ,and here's how y,oo do it if you don't." How to accompany" of course. the only thing be did was that ~ony Bennett thing which is'very Wal. Irs just beautiful. In my own plla')'ing andteacb.~g.l'm aI'WaYS woddng on baJauce. Making the top note of the hand ~fig and bringing out the inner lines. This takes control and Bill bad it His balance is anotherfuntas.tic aspect of litis playing. SpcciflcaUy. I t,ak'c "'Very Early" andbave pupils analyze the left hand cfu:m:Is inthe first fl!fteen meesures, name these cbordsaed

,.l7

practice in all keys. And fmany appb' them. to songs. "Sometime Ago~ is a good one to use. [You. can iJ[usltate hls: won,.. derful device on block chords m. tlJ.h; SOong In measures 2:5~28 he plays block chords with the secoed not:e ftotn the top dropped down an octave piayedwith the Wt hand, Great seundl See IOOunple One.] .

YlH: Have Y01ilever written any rnethodbeeks?

JC: I wrote a little book called Jazz .lWckfor Kids. I'll give you a ropy. I have to say it was raIDer nervy of me because I've never tmJght kids. But thls publlSher wanted me to do it so I did it. It's with Alfred Publishi:Qg. I get a eheck for $24.00 mayk once a year. But I can use the $24.00. There's a ]mJe rhythm section record, a play-along. reoord that goes along with

it.

WH: This ilsthc same publisher as Carol Kaye.

JC: Well. she's the one taat hhOO. me. She plays bass on the play· along tape, Then she leased it or sold it to Alfrod.. Th.at's the. only thing I've: ",rinen. I have an Idea for something else but .I dton't want to talk.aoout it. You' U be me fin;t to, kn.ow~.I have put wgother. of coutsc) packets. my own limc, method. I did a iicromar 'last September in Brazil and it was a compilation of things, I teach at the Grove School. how to voice under a melOdy. how to eomp the b~l1es, how to pill endings on songs. new to accompany sing'ers.

WB: Some writer said that Bill Evaru;: kind of started what this writer called the "So Wbatn changes. or voidll(g5. Lguess fourths, I guess iif you're goifig to voice a Oro 7. it would be ~ g-c that style. But I don' t know if he did or not. Of course, Herble Hancock immediately cemes to. mind. Maybe you can o:ffer more Wforrnation 'on that for me.

JC; I wouldn't be sutprised but then like you sa.y, it all happened at once. But then. I know 1l1.at Herbie Hancock was influenced by BiD; as well as Chick Cere a. Keith J.arrett. They al! were. I wouldn't he surprised but. I don't know.

WH: Irs kind ef an oversimpllflcetion rosay the "So What" vojcitlgs.

JC: But that's thaitfOUr1:hs thing and the do dab rn. the left hand and the fourths In the right with the third 00 top. There W'.lS II pianist I'm&'1I1"e yo.u mow of who died several yeaiSago named Victor .Feldman. Vietor had a very small hand and I have a small hand. 1 had heard these voieings on Bill Evat15 records but. Ilctdn·t figured them out yet, He was the first pianist I knew who also "layed this voicing. I just went crazy when h¢ showed it to me. (demonstrates) h·s the min.ar nine to the thbt,een1h. If you·rr: playingb minor nine, it has no r-oot in it. Aom 1he bouQUl it's A. Cit, D. P#. Then. all you do is ~~ your ~ittle fmger to G# and Y01:1 have E 13. That's one of the VOlCingS when I teach it~ I make tbe:tn ]eat!;! ~t in aU ]rey,s, of course, Now, it only sounds good in just a limited part of ths keyboard. .. A£ far as I know, Bill Evans is thefirst one that did that .And as I say, I learned it from Victor Feldman. He was a great musidan.

WH: What are yout future plans?

JC=Oh. I have so many plans, I want to, make a solo album and I"m trying to g,crlhe ambition to really work towards that. WR: I would really enjoy that.

hge ts

JC:: rve shied B.rway from. it because ill's so difficuk But, I'm Jean1ng more a_nd more towards wanting to. db it Every year around Cihristmas rime I work a solojob ia Van, Colomdo. Irs a reSfaumnt where the dub ewner loves jazz piano. He·s ftom New York.

WH: That's a good time togo. to Vail.

Ie: Oh. it's wonderful! You play and the snow is falling down., Anyway. he flies the pWrisrs he likes in. Be's had tom Garvin. Allen Broadbent. From the &st he brings jn Kiek Ugbtseyandl he brings.mt. in. Ifs a solo job but I don't care ~use ilpays aJor ofmoneyartd ~l·s so nice tobe dte.re. EvelY time I've wmked that jdb, mualJy it's a three week.job, by 'Ih.e end of the seccnd week rm reaDy starting to get into the solo thing. I'd rafuer work duo. But there's a. certaln freedom in playitlg solo and tho sky's the limit. Ir's just II. matter .0£ shopping for a label, in the first place and then I'm always better when I have a deadline. If I know I'm. going to do it then I'll get to work and do it. So 1hat'sont planaadthen, of course. I'd! like to make more albums, I want to cercpose more, I'm a slow eompeser root I enjoycomposmg. I'mgoing to Europe. They W<U1t me to come back to BIaLi] so I'm trying to figure it all out, It's kind of hard to ~, enough money in Bmril because the money shifts, 'One day it's this and dte next day it's iliat. I absolutely love it, though, and! ][ met great musicians there and the music YOIl heeel U-s ~ vital. It's exdting! P«ll?l~ g'o toclubs and they're very much into music. So, I'U be doing that this year. I just doo 'tknnw exa.ct]y wbat month. The nice thing about the Grove School (I'm only doing two classestb.ere now because Jj wanted to spend more time whh my own stuff) is that I ,can tlkr:, off any time I want as long as I halVe a good seb,

WB = Does Joe D·ono have anythi:ng to d:o with the Grove School?

JC: No, be might be invO!.v,t!I with MIT. ~'H: Or the Guitar Institute of Tech.

JC; That's now called MIT - Musicians Institute of 'fedmol,ogy.

WU; Joe was playing at a festival I attended reeeatly, He played "Since We Mel.'"

Ie: I didn't ~alize bow pmtty "For NmetteM was ootil I started to play it.lfs beeutlful, [Joyce p~ayed this tune at the Bill Evans Trlbuu, Concert. Ncnette E'lWiS attended]

WH: To my .knowled,gc yo.u're the first one that's pJay.ed it besides Inn.

JC; I decided I Wii!ltled to do it. I couI.dn·t remember what tw)fd it was on and time was kind of getting short, In fact, I thought I had the book that it was in and then I rea1ized I Je:J]t

.t to some kid. and I didn't have it. Then I had to rosbaround trying to fwd it. I fuund it and then I ooly had a couple of days before the oonoert. IthQlI.ght god,. this is a pretty song. I'm ;.. going to play it.

WH: I do the 'same dung whenever I stan playing Bill's tunes. There's so Jnuch thet'e, Som.etimes: I'm. a.fmiJd of them bot once I get into it.

JC: I IilDdIe:rstand that I was afraid, too. I thought to myself) "Now you're not goingtosighHead at tho eeneest, ~ I always

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~~, $4 ,,~ :;6 tell my kids, "Yeu can't sight-read. 'You've got to have yomstuff memorlz.ed."But I thought in this case irs: more lmportant to p]ay that song for N enetteespeclally when I fell in love with il. And SO,, if it's not memorized, irs tlet memorized and

I don't regret playmg it. .

WH: Is that fl![St album with Ray Brown still available? JC; Yeah. iif you can fwd it. I'm. not very pro:u:dof it. I ha.ve another album I didafter that one. that"s better .. It's ealled Moment To Moment on Disoovety.

WH~ I've gpt. the CD you seru me.

JC; The album. I did OIl the Uisoovery label has. more singing. rn give you a ropy. Jack She.ldonis 00. it, The·Ie·s a couple of piano tracks I'D!! pl.'mm of .. But this nast CD was 00 much better.

JC: Also, you mentioned Dave McKay (pronounool "MeEyeM• He and I and a smgetnamcd Bill Hend.etsoiJ7 Do, you know aboutthese reootds1

WU: I've heatd part of it.llt John Vail's bouse, He's II. friend of Dave's . He played part of that fut me.

JC: Dave plays Rhodes and Ip1ay acoustic. I learned a lot about voieings from Dave. he has :1 great hamIonic gift and he gets a wonderful tone. We were very sensitive to, each other's p]lliying. Hke all good pianists of out get'i.Cmtion, he was dc,fmite]yinfllJoocod by BiI.

WH. Did you overdub the vocals later when you p]ay and sing?

IC = No. I don'l like to do that. Tha.t never-feels comfortable lOme.

VlH= I always wondered how pianists who sing would do that.

JC ~ A lot of people do but ,011 'the other hand mQ8SQrn Deary

deesn -t Dave Frishbctg d!ooe:sn"t. Shkley Hom doesn"t. So. I think people that. bvepl!lyed first .md sing later are more oornfonabde doing diem both together. Bm: it's hard!:

Bill mentioned that Nat Cele was a big mfIuence on his p]~ring. He was a biginfiuenoe. '00 my playing too and on It ~ot of good pianists. Yet. some-times I fee]. because he was known asa slinger, 1hat people don't give him the due 'lMl be deserves as <t great pianist and an Lnf1Iuential one.

WH; Do you, have the Mosaic Set of Na.t King Cole? It's: II. five or six. CD set. I'm going ItOhy to get that. It's Mosaic reeords.Dan Mmgenstenl. I'mnotsure w"hoproduced it. Once you get on thdr m.a.i.Ung list you :get a brochure twice a year. It: has a.com.pllet(l description ofir.lt'san iw.ttument.:al. There's

no vocals.

JC; Nat Cole W,IIS playing bebop earlyen, There's an early instrumental called.~So What .. ( a different tune than. the "So What" mentioned earlier). It's very bcbopy,a predictor of things to, come,

,Another thingtbat BillEvalIS said that I loved in some interview. He said he neeeed to play a song a thousand times bcl'0lll: he feh he knew it 'On the Marian McPart1and tspe, he says this.

WH: It's better to play one tune twenty 'times than tweDty tunes in one bout. Something close to that

JC: Thlllfs: it:, especiaUr when it comes to improvising.11ili;

is anQfu thing I tell these kids. You've got to know it • backwards and forwards. You've got to know the chord changes and, the melody really wcll before you tty to improvise.I also tell them that. of CO\lt~~ Bill, Chick. Corea, McCby Ty;l!in~ Herol'e Han.cook, and Keith J arre11t are great and must

be Us~ened to. dley need aho to listen to Teddy Wilson. Art

Tatum, Bud Powell, N.ail Cole, and WyotOfi KcUy. And Mary Lou Williams,. Joanne Br:acbcn. Marian McPartland, Geri Allen. Eliane BIlas - let's tint iarge! jheladiesl

Evans 'Changes to

"Cornie Rain Or 'Come Shine"

,by Warren Bernhardt

Bill's performance: on this tune has. always been eoe of fflY firvorl.tes -I wonder wby be didn't play ~ more often. I lhillkwe might have gone O¥el it a ooopJe of times. together attire piano

roock in the 60's (because I liked it). but I don't recall ever hearing him play the song with ills trio oilier than on Pwtrait InJazz..

It's milly:fun to see how he re-barmonlzed the sang at a few spots, most Mtably the two .rnea.sures at the end of the first 1(5, andagainat the 51h-8th bats of the secood 16, and,ofcoorsc:, ,the eodais II. gem. of siJ:npIidtyand g.enius.. All1he cban:hI. andnotation here 8Ie ~ from Bill's own writing, including all the furmatas at the·coda. You can see that he left out some of the COIlIltell~!.ines (Like the ~g C~ D flat, D~ E flat in bars 5 and 6) which be would probably have includt:d in the notation had be been giving me a piano pan - ~ about which he was usuallyvet)' thorough. Simple but thorough.

What's fim is to· listen 10 Bill's reoord:itIg wbiile i'ooking at this, Wen get a hold of the ongiEal sl:le£t music of the song and sit

RILL'S CHAf\GES TO ro~E R~ TN OR COME SH1NE

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h,ge·2l

Letwi' from Evans~ Spring 1993

down at the piano and compare that to 'Ibese hamtociC'S. A gt'eIll way to. spead a tainy aftemooh.- WB

The chord chan was made {rom Bill's handwrirtl'!.n sheet, exoccly as.Bill wrote it daw/l.-Ed.

tntervlew With Earl E,pps

byWi;n Hinlde

'When Nenelle Ewn.s told me thm Dr •. Earl Epps. Bill:s fist ,cousin was livi~ jiLS1 daWIJ ,the road from me in L4k1!land, FloridQ. 1 we.nt.right duwn to se« him. lape recorder in hand. lhi..'1 interview grws a glimpse inso .Bill Evans famiJ;y life and

gene'awgy. .

WH: Yeu are Bill's first coasin, Let meget the relationship right first.

EE~ 8iU's father, Barny Evans. Bill and Harry Evans~ two childeen, Hany. I don"t know much about AlII know is. he was from, PbHadeJplUa.. Why we never' learned anything about b_is side of the family, I don't know. Maybe you know something about it.

WH: I thinkhe was 'born in Wales.

0: Y es.He was from Wales. I didn"t know he was born there, I thoughtlhathe was born. in Philadelphia. Anyway, his KliOt5 in this OOillltty W~ in Philadelphia. Now, Ute 'other side of the famib' is Sorokal from what was originaUy Austto-Hoogary. These are the C.mpathian mountai:ns here, and I understand, the cities where my Hlothe.r's grandparents Iive.

WH: Your mother was BiU Evans's mother's sister,

EE: Yes. Thatt.sri,ght. There is onecousiaofmymotaes'swbo may still be alive here in Plorida, Peter Soroka. My mothor·s father and mother and Petet's father mJd mother were sister and 'bWl:hef~ so lhey were cleses than. cousins. My mother's JllOther was Arma Mathiechek. hom in Charaa, Austria.

WH: Which O!!C was Bill E'\I'allS' mothct1 Matlllef or Martha.

EE: Neither one of liliom. Here's Mary (shows picture). That's ber name. My brother was muoh closet' to BiU because he Uved near New Y Ofk City. and he used to go in. awl listen ro him piayoften. He attended his memorial, Are youfam.iUar with bra 'b was a1m.oot an aJU-day affair, and practically every great JAZZ person of ~e day was there to potf~ and be said it was just outstanding.

WH.: And your brother's name is Saylor Epps,andi he lives in Ohio?

EE: That's right.

WH: Were there ~ots of priJfessionaJ people?

Ell:; Professional, but not on. thls: side. My futhor was. My farther may have had sometl:W!g to do with the fact that Bill started on pLmo .. The first I: can remember of Bin was when he was about 3 months eld, His mo1het was breast feeding him. They lived in Dunelle:n. New Jersey, then. That W,ElS fieM Bill's father "my's place of work. They bad a v;ery tumwtuous marriage. Harry was a spree alcoholic. There wuemaoy rimes when Mazy and her two seas Harry and Bill. were living with

Pap 22

us. He WSiS.1.ike spree alcoholics areIa between-e-grest people, They get to drinking~ and he became abusive and spent. a:11 the money ~ andtm:y were almost in povettyat rimes. They had rome to Uvt: wilh us..md the brothel', Michael, was gomg to set them up in housekeeping in SummeIV1lile. I have ebeut '0 or 600 letters my mother reccived when she lived here and in New Jersey from Mary. lbey wt~ each other about once a week. and :she would bring up fadS evet)' once in awhile about their younger life. She was quite upsot the wary thin:p went. My father graduated from the University of Michigan in 1916 with a Bachelor of Music in piano and organ. He was going to be aeencert pianif;t.1n Wor1d War I there was nothing tb~y wanted less than a concert pianist, so it never became more than an aVClQtion. But every evening at 7:00 he would sit down at the pia!lO and play all thG great classics from memol)' . .I learned all the gteat classics from his playing, feaUy.

WH: In the ttaditiro.D dial everyone had a piano !hen; and it was the mllin source of el1tettamment.

EE: And he was a piano teacheron 1heslde. Mazy. Bill"s mother, want~ to stan Harry on the piano. and my father was the one they went to. to ask about it. lrilhose days the piano teachers came to the home. Between Sand 7 Harry started playwg the piano. and they had no thought of giving Bin piano lessons, He. was too young. Wevisitttl. them on weekends. Lots offamilies did their visiting on weekends. We'd go to Plainfield, and of OOllISe we had to listen to Ihrry play his eady pieces on the piano •. But Mazy said, something strange. We didn't know why~ but Bill used to crouch over in the corner and li~cti. And when they walked out, he'd go over and have picked up the wfmm.ation and would sit down and piay what

be bad heerd, Obviously. he was talented. He WM advancing faster than Hairy was. who was taking the lessons and practicing. Anyway, they got him started. They would ask HIS father's opinion, and of course be didn't waatto say too much, because being a teacher .himself, quite efteu they're veryeritical of the way somebody else teaches. so he'd never say too mnchBut when he got hom-e. he'd say he didn't like the teacher's approach, that's Pot dIe way to do jlt Anyway, Billy wellt on

to start taking lessons. Ofeeurse, he advanced m.ucb fast:er than Harry + Thoy both con.tlnued" but Harry was a liUile mom a11-atOUDd and piano was just one of his things. Whereas Bill.

it became .his only tbing.BiD. when he was in blgh schoo~, got

to playing in a dance band with an alder group' of men and started to Jearn SoIDe of the other aspects ofjuz music other than what you read on the sheet m.usic. He stsrted to leam about chords and ehord pregresslons as he'd nwer known an:ytb.iQg about them. He'dceme home 2 or 3 in themonting andspc:nd • We test o;f HIe night (this was in high ,school and be wasn't getting much sleep) practicing that aspocl of the piano so that

he could play better in die hand. Of course he beg.an to realize > there was a lot more to music than he was Jeamin,g. That got him started His fathef, in the meantim.; always unhappy. he worked in Dunellen as a printer at Art Co,lior" pdtUing magaz.in~.That was what :iLis job was, always had other things on his mlnrll. Atone time, bacldn me late 2O"s hemdhis brother. Michael. (Mkhael being the silent partner) bought a pool hall

Manville, Nc,w lerwy. andthq did very well. Money was conUng in like 'Cl3ZY until 1929,. the crash. Apparently. people didn't have money to buy their lUMber so they took second m.ortgages on the homes they wen: building, which was a great SOIH'Ce of income. The iotcr,est rareswere higher. In i 929 and after" people couldn't keep up the1r first mortgages. They finaUy lost the house. and they very often didn' t get the money that was owed them. They flllBUry went out of business about 1932. He also sold fire iasurance in Manville, NJ. and did extremely weD, He~ived with his brother, who was 21 y~ older than he was, and finally met my mother in Manville on. his insurance route. And Mary and my mother lived tog,ether. Actually. he ~ook both of them out. And MMy, who was Bill's m.othtr, Ukod my father and thought my father liked. her, He really liked my mother, but. he was afraId to say anything f(;lf quite awhile.., Sh.e was, ually miffed when he fIDally married my mother. Hisbi""O'thet started to get in a Iinle financial ttoublc wi1ib. tbe lumber ccropa:oy aed need some bdp so he eoereed my father. against his better joogeme:1lt jQ become a panner. and so they both lost their shirts. They both lost their wooer with the dcpresslon, That was i.t, and he never recO¥et,oo fl.rulnCially. He became a clelk. with his. knowledg.e. They were at ,Ill laihoadsiding. He had to deal wil:b. the railroads and he 'knew all :about how to deal with ttanspoltation and railroads. and so the Job he got had to do with either trucking rompanics or the govemment, He worked in Irallsportarion and. as .8. bookkeeper. He [ost SOUle desire.. He did a lot of musie ... He played organ in the Episcopal church in summ.ervm~. He played for charitythmgs. male choruses, thl'ngs Hkelhat. Nobody ever wanted to pay you for that. His, iemunemtioo came from: weddings and thatsortofstuff.ltwasn'tvcry.mucb. WB: SpeaJdo,gof religion, werejhe B'Io'aMes Episro;palian, by any chance 7

EE: No. I doo't reaDy know what. they vrote. They were Russian~ they were RllSSian Onhodox.arul of course, they were SO poor. My mother Mm;y's fa,thet. was killc;d, in 1.902 in the mines of Penn.~lvania. He was sort 'of a Icader, 1I. work Ieader, It was his job to keep the: men working and be was 1he one Who set the dynamit,e charges. Dytwnite then was done individually with the old method of putting in. 'the nitro and punm,g in a fuse and Jighting it and evetybody ran and waited for the Mast. Apparently, one day it had rained a tot and most, of the mines were closed, but he needed thcmoney and he got his men and iliey went to work. Because of the wetness of the area, be oouldn 't get the charge of dynamite to go and got angry and took a bsmmer and hit the cap. I don't Whetlle·l it was just the cap that detoll8ted or some of ,the dynamite. He died within 24 hours afrerthal Left the family destl,tuteto dle point where, (there wetefivc children in the family) she cctddn·t.keep most of the c.hildren. So Maty and my mother went into a Russian monastery who had a sort of an orphanage and they were both raised by Russian Orthodox priests fot a period of about 3 M 4 yearn.

\\11: In New Jmey1

EE: No, this was in Pennsylvania. Th1s is apiemre of theU' mother. Anna Sarab. This is. the monastery, 'These are !he

,hge21

Letter from EV8ns:~ Spring 1993

and bowling alley. I think he worked in the da.ytinte and this a.t night. It went on for many years.

WH: Bill's fatlil.er was, a printer. Was be anythin,g else?

EE: Olherthan that, bc always had these other idleasofmlliking (Doney that were easier. The whole family had an intorest in goH. Michael~ the ether brother, was It caddie roaster in IDe days when iliete, we«: caddies for BabsroU Golf course .. which is nowadays one of the great golf courses in Springfield, New Jersey. In fact,it is on the PGA touf~ major toumamems are played there. NiliallS won there m about 1982 Irs one of the quality couesos, HG was caddie master ruere. Golf was a very impmttnt thing m the Soroka f<Unily. EverybodY' played golf. My mother, Harry, Michael and Pete, who's down in V,enice now. Harty uJtim.ate~y started up agolf driving range. and that was neat New Btumwick. New JerseyJ across fi"om. the airport, 'There was a jot of ttaffic there and he thought. it would be a good place to have i,t, He wasttty successful in that He was mnov3'tivt':. He put a target about 1500 yards out" an .(Icblgonal target that probably slanted about 45 degrees, You"d get ,;1 bucket of balls and there was a ball in there called a "lucky baIl";. If you got. that lucky ball into the 'target, any ball tlla,t went into the target would conte down to the !»tto.mand rerum down through a pipe to the dob house, you"dget a free bucket of balLs. That was an innovative thing that he did. The place was very active. He had a pro 1het!e. and both Harry and BiU were excellent golfers. I don't Jrnow if you ever heard about that, but they were both excdlent golfers. He fma.lly g,ave up his job with Art Color and came down here to Florida before and during World War n, and had .a driving range in ~ winter tlme on Route#!. Ut Veto Beach. 1 don"thow how many yean; they rudthat They finallrre~dlo Daytona in '54 OF "5S, I came in '57. and they 'came in '54 or ":!is. Thq got "SQDd in their shoes" bac.k at that time. I think his whole life he was a spree drin_ker. and made thek Jives pretty tnisera.ble.

W8: Back w your father, who was the concert, pianist. Was the.re ew::r any pfCSS\lft; to be BI professional etber than a. musician because of &cbclar of Mll5k: being such a Ulekss degree']

EE~ He started HIe on it and he taught my sister the piano. My sister w.ent into muslcand into publics.choot music and tau,ght mus1c and now is a prindpal. and she's 74 years old. Shc's a principal of an elem.entaryscbool in Tr-cnton, New Jersey, She used to have to mke eare of choirs at the Episcopal church. And she's taught in nmthcm Jmey-pubHc school.tnusic. When I started. in ate 30's. theI'e, was a mechanical style of'teachmg music. There was DO fun to it. It was just scales and that stuff. Ijust couldn't hack it. So~ I u1timardy wenron aad learned to play the violin in high school, and. 'the trumpet"and I played in. tOO band. Gave it up after that. later I bought a Hammond organ and learned chords and chord progTe8Sions. and .fmally decided I~iked the piano better. I reaUy wanted to have a piano in here and I just play £Iilr the fun of it. But there. ~:eally wasn"t much pressure moot family 00 1.5 to do :anyjllng. Michad ultimately became a doc·tor~ an anesthesielogist,

WB: Your futbet ~ did he emphasize m.usk?

EE~ Yes. He and hls brother owned the IunlOOr company in

l.etter ltom Evans, Spring 1993

priests. Apparently. Itheyonly had three children there. This was probably taken in. the early 19OO·s. So they were raised in a monastery, Ne:ithet one of them spoke Englisb until they were ·8 or 9 yearsold, mey spoke Russian. They were so poor that Michael, one of the brothers, had to go to work in the cool mines at the age <is, which was a hattOWing experieaeefer a. yOlmg child, because the old man just rode their butts somethin.g tcaib1e. He' d do. aU sons of demeaning things to tbe:m. He said it was just an awfut life, but they n¢t:dod money. They used to go oU't~rve he:mimy moth.ct and Mary talk about fuis-with 3i bag. and pkk up eeal among the slag to bring homefer heat. I don.·t kIlow what happened to aD oftbem, but everybody bad. to WOl~ somehow. Julia, the one you saw, was a professtooaL She was IDe lazy one, She'd neva do anything. They'd hide theiI' money and she'd steal h. That was sort of her life, her whole life. She was always very '"putt-on". She'd act like sotnobody she wasn' r, They moved around rhe CCUH'by from tben on because coal mines were a tenible place to make money. an.yway. The girls' grandm.otbe:r never learned to speak English. I'never could speak English to her. They sent them out ttl work My mother started working at 1 J in the silk mills. They 1iv·ed la nortbern New Jersey and in lower Orange. Massachusetts. I don 'tknow how the Eppsfwnily and the SOl\oka family and a M of others ended up m Manville, New Jersey. Manville was where tbeymade me asbestos shingles and asbestos pipes, and that son of t:hing. Apparently j all the workers were Russian and Polish that bad just cOllIe over and nobody ceuld speak English . .But they bad kits of laboring jobs in Manville. I think my uncJe Michael, who haid was a .caddie m.aste1 at Ba.Jtusro·ll Coif Club, became a~fSoone.J. wredor there, III]d I sup~ he got jobs for cvezybody. SO' that's how they a11 seemed eo get ~. I\fary worked as a bookkeeper; I don't remember whatO'lY mother said she worked as.

WH: Wh¢1i .Mary and Harry fetired fO Florida. did they have enough fl_nanda11y Ito make if? Or do you think that Harry and Bil] contributed to 1haf?

EE~ No. They didn't contribute at aliI. In fact, young Hatty, (he and Ws wife were almost split .many riimes) would come to visit hls mother, His wife nevercame. Mazy' never liked her. .Bill, I doubt. I'm sure you"re familial withbis. drug problems, startod very 'EMIy, and Micb.aeJ. one of my mother's brothers. very good-b.eaned fe.liIow, vezy outgoing, hefinally became an ins!Jtanoe man for Prudetnial. He was verysaecessful because of his peIS1ona1ity. He jmt could sell so easily. EveQ!'OOdy Ioved him. Anyway~ Bill had been getti;Dg m.oney from. Miehae'lunbeknoWDSt to any of the ethers, He said he was down on his luck, and of course what it was, was for drugs.

WU: Was 1his in high ~ool?

.EE: No. Bill went 10 Southeast Loaisiana College, and. then he was in the. rMarlnc hand in Washin.gton. D.C.

WH: Ai'Jn_y band

.EE: Amly band as a flutist.

WB: fu Chicago, at ForI. Sheri~

BE; Wherevct, (The. Flf1h Army Band stationed at fort Sheridan. n...,. near Orl.cago) Bill diOO' r talk vel)' much, be was very quiet. Last time I remember bKving a really ~oog talk with aim

fqe24

W$ at Ills farber's driving IOOge. He said, "You know. when. I g.et. out of the Anny, I think I'm goiog to go to New York and! 'try to get where rue action is." It wasn·t. too much longer after that. that he \Ii'8S on heroin.

WK. So. pretty much .rrter the Army period ...

EE: But he was getting money evezy place he could, obvi'QIlB[Y. He'd rut my unclle for, my uncle never cau.ght on what the money waS for until all of sudden ~t dawned on him. so:mehow or other that, it W.IIS for dru.gs and then he just cut him out. He woulda 'thave anydting to do with him for a long thne. This picture was taken back artier ,they went to Daytona. 'Ibere's Bin and this is me, Mary.Micltae.l. Doug, Cindya/oo Connie. And thaif·sHany. That"s the bunch of them. Now. when be was thete, Ircmember very weB that bE was sick and jaundiced, Dido.' t come 'to· me untH years. later that obviousJy he had hepatitis B that you get from. drug needles, So he was with his mother about 3 m.on1hs then anddestlsnte atthat point~ He never did imaodaUy well as far as I could tell for a lotqt time.

WH: Do yoo know w.hat dare 1hls picture was tlken?

HE: .Doug WAS born in '5 I, Cindy was born. in ·54. Connie was hom in '57. se I'd say about 1960, We went out to dinner that night J sat next to· Bm and he was talking. He was a braln and he was into wild religlonsthen, He was talking about Oriental religions and all ili.al. He wasaw.ay from the normal teligions of tl:ris coWltry. He, was into an the weirdones and he was well-read in all of them and that 'Was what he wss interested in then.] sort of lost ttackof hlm after that. My brother got to see him .lii Jetmore often.

WH; I'd sure Hke a copy of dlat photograph. if youcouId g.et

meone.

EE: I didn't realize until I.read Muy's le'll.en, the clreumstances around the death of his i:u:st wife. I dido" realize that, the reason she did it.

WH: Suicide .. .I dou'l mowlhe reason, 'ex.ccpt that soo was an addict, also.

EE~ He met Nem::ue in California and he came home and :said point blank to lruame. "I want to split"; Sb.e was such a PSYchia,tri.c problem. He said she handled it aU right when be left" but she kiHed herself,

'"'8: I believe she throw h.erselif in front of a subway train. EE: However she did it, booauseMazy's letter said she did it for that reason.

WH~ Deyeu know anydet.alls on Hatty Evans' death? Hany. Jir.1

liE: Yep, He shot himself. He was very. very depressed. and trealment dido" be~p at. all, wideb it often doesn't,

WB= lundetstand dIat. When R:myand Mary and Bin 'used to come and stay with you, did yQunotice a lot of nv.alry between Hmy and Bill?

EE: I don·t think there was. They WeIe v.ezy close. In fact, BiU took his broth.et·s death very hard. 11hiok he Sltopped playing, .. WH: At lot ofpecp1e think that Harry's death wasthe precursor ·ofBlll';Sl death. It was a year ~atC.f dlat Bill died.

EE: But, I was talking to my brother about this. Bill was going in a tIxi with someone, goin.g to get his daily ntetbadone.

Letter from Evan's, Spring 1993

Apparently, coming back in the taxi, he started to feel badly and he said, "You'd better get m.e to an eroergetICy mom. I don't fed well", I don't bow if be died on the spot..

l[Dr .Epps and Win engaged in specu1ativit\ cenversetion about the ci:rcumstances of Bill ,Death. It fmished with the fact that BiU was w;ing cocaine and tbepossibiUty of oontarmina,tkrn or an overdose.]

m Depending on who's dohJg Itheouttiing, you get partlcnlare maaer, smallpanicles d1at are not wssolvable and thto/ hang up la the liver and cause problems ihere, sometimes" also in thesmall bloodivcsselis, get in the, brain, W~ wherever. ll-'1I: YOU jl.1';t told me somedUng adWtionaJ. that Bill was getting his bJ.ethadone.l'm a little bit familiar wi1b. that because I havea friend who's on that. I was always. under !he impression that Bil kicked heroin cold turkey m the ",Os, bur he just went on melihadone treatment.

EE; He was on methadone treatment for the rest ofhis life. He never could kick it. And of course methadot!C is a nareotic, too. Ifs a twin-edged sword. It doesn't de everything. Irs: just puttJing off the withdrawal symptems, so that you can fun,ction. As long as you get your regular dose" you don or get withdrawal symptoms and you~re able to, function. But a,pparently, and I noted it in this one newslieUe:t I got from yon, that somebody had noted listening to his last, CD in Germany ... 'They said his teclmique and the way 00 played was much different. He says, 'I wouldn.'t want to say it was his, cocaine habit' .1 didn' t realize, he was 'CD cocaiae, I knew he smoked a ~ot of marijwma. My brother met lLUti. My brother was origiruilly a sales marnliger for a drug company, origlnaUy Sttotzenburg. There we«: 10ts ,of mergers, and the last com.pmy he was 'w'hb. I don'tremember, He tt8Jv,eUed all over the northeast and he happened to be in. a Holiday Inn in upper New York somewhere, Rochester or :something like that, He happened to look on the billboard Sind it said ~Bm Evans playing". So be went. and ills fILS! wife went with him. Blllsaid mat h¢ wasn't using anythiogoow bur a litde bit ofpot, but he said he had so m1!1Ch liver damage from theheeoln over the years=-the heroin wiU cause liver damage mostly because of the forelg.n particulate maUet that gets Wi and cues it. Well, it interfered with hisprote:inptoductioD.. You get h)1lOpI'Oteincm1a. In other words, the MliOUnl of protein that's normally in your blood .•. what. allows our blood to act like it does is the plCSS'IJm that ~t gets from the protein. in it. Otherwise, you don 't bavea higb enough protein level. called hYJXiprotcinemia. The fluid in your blood diffuses out into yQllf enraceUular spaces .and YOIl. get :swelling or edctna. WB: Does that cause the swelling of the hands wben he plays? . EE: That·s right. 'Ihar's what I was gcttin:g to. He, said lhathe roundo."t p~ay for m.ore than an hom or two. And that he'd g.e1t ,SiC) much swelling he ,couldn't pJay anymore. Now that w:as from. dte damage of his liver from his heroin. I'm wondering iflhat dantagc u~ti.matdy dido.'t also kin him because of other factors that liver disease een came.

WH; Is that damage, tba,t let's say he was 00 methadone, and just that·s equalizing hi~ keeping hhn the ssme, not helping

him or hurting him, whatever. But any sustained damage from the heeeln ..•

EE': I sw.-pected, you get scarring, of the ~iJv.er ... tile liver has a tn:mendous ability to re-generate. It can re-generate ... 1 have seen alcOOoli~, and slcoholism causes 800Llar problems. AU yom drugs, dle Ilver responds sort of the same way. Those people get hypoproteinemia, tQO~ and a lot of scarring and of course; cirrhosis. Cmh~is means, hardening or scaniog of 1he liv,er. You 'can get ib.ypoprotein¢:miaand you can. get swelllwg. But you ll~timateJy knockout so much liverfunctica, Th.eliver does mere thiQgs in yOUI' body than yoo can conceive of. It's a. big re,gulator of ,everything" You knock QUt that ergan, yon can". live. That:sprobably what he did. That:'s wh8lt alroboHcs do, They die of liver disease. It also knocks out the cells m your brain, Ifyou've seen old bmned'-'OUla!lcoholics,you·know what they'reliike. Thq're not worlh much, are they. Bix Bdderbeck did that to himsdf in short order, 11: didn't take ~ong. But, anyway, I had to guess that '!be way Bill went, that be either had II. massive gastroinltestWal damage it would have bad to be m.a.'lSlYe to die that fast, or an MI. a myocardial infarction, or boom. What could happen is that you bleed o1!.t1O where you'reoot adequa,te1y canylng oxygeo in your blood, and if y'ou haw; some pre-existing coronary artery disease, then you could Mve a myQ(:al'(tia] infarction, so it could be beth, There arc not too m.anr things that cause sudden death. Heart lSOU!::~ and! usually you get anbythmis. You get a rhyt1rn:l pt"ob1om,and you go infO ventricular fibriUation <lIod die on the spot. Or. yO'U have to havemassive bleeding, ~a11y massive. I've seen people who lose, 2. 3 or 4 mrlts of blood just like dJat in the operating room. Y 01!1 ocmJ.d still, if you could stop the bk,eding right then, you can bring 1hem back. You have to l!tav,e a blgvessel break, You have to have the aorta or carorid uteIy 'or femoral a:rtezy ... 'The bleeding, I've seen people with intcma] massive bleeding, gastt:omtes!ina] bleeding still don't die that [B'pidly. They may die in a day or 2 or 3. but. they we wi,tbin a few hOOfS.

WH: New rmjm.'t ... This is all supposition on my pare, .. EE= lit's all SUPfXiSiti.Ollon anybody's part. It's supposition 0tI my part, too. Rapid, immediate death is noteaused by too many things.,

WH: The only thing Ihat Laurie had told me is that as they were gowg to the hosp,ita1, B~iliI. remarked, he said~ "I must be dose to the end. because I'm seeing allthese good-looking girls go by, and it's not plwillg me at all," UsuaUy he gets excited about seeing .•. they were near Ithe bea-ch and. they were seeing girls in bathitig suits.

0: Of course, any anxiety ean do that Any .anxiety' jtlSt Ibhmts your input. Jusr being ~ can do the same thing ..

EE Who" .'1.:- T",' ., ~"n..-: .. ,,, bo .... : , 9~~uney.ou re ......... ~:a -Ull

WH; Laurie was his girlfriead,

EE: He had another gidfriend besides his wife']'

W8: Laurie was a very young girl A friend of mine was her boyfriend for awhile. a bass player. I've met Laurie and talked wiiliher.

EE: Thafs something I hadn·t heard. 1 took it for grmted that

Lettfit' from, Evans, Spring 1993

it was a male friend who was wi,tIl hlm. My brother didn 't say. ~obably he didn't know ci1heJr.

W9: Now I understand that both Marc IQbnson and Joe LaBarbent, the drummer and basspta~er that Bill worked with, wont with him in the taxi to, &c bospital. 'l;rut also Lamie, too. 1h.a.t was pretty rnech Bill's family at that time..

EE: Was he not ~iv,ing with Monette then?

WH: No. as I understand it. And the reason was drugs. Ntne1Jte has a very strong feeling ag;airu.'1 drugs and drug usage. When Bill went back on drugs ... Nmette actually discovered more and more about Bill's dependenoo on drugs, she just roulldn't hamJ.e it.

0; I don't blame her.

WD: And she didln,'t want the kids to handle it eithet.

RE,: ~~ his mo1htt. when Nenet.te mid he oonttd and built or bought a big house in nonhero New Jersey. insisted that she CQtJiC up andHvc close to them. Big mistake. I was reading, her Ietters and she said. '"Oh, what a mistake I've made. I love Roods. This: is miserable up here." 'They had her m a. basement apartment and a bunch of kids IU.tUiing upstairs. It was just miserable. I thl:nk she stay;w 3 months . At least that was the reason she gave for going back heme, She bad severe rheu. mafic heart disease. and lasted about 3 years ,after tlIat uatil she died.

WO; How old was she when. she died? 1m: She was born in 1897.

WH.: You're pretty ifutnUiar with depression,fmnily-orimted depression situations. Do you think m.:aybeBiU·s and 1bny':S problems were inherited in some way?

BE: I don"t know whe1her depression is an inherited trait. It can be ¢¢rtain]y possible, but you'vc, got to have othel input to bring it out. Certamly ~ alcoholism and drugs m tbemselves cause depression. All of lIS get depressed. There's tIQIDlaJ depres.~on. enviro.nmeotal depression. Of all the drugs we talk about in. this c'oootty.aJroho] is ,still the biggest drug problem we have. Theothec ones makebetter newspaper copy. You being a musician, you know how high it is a.moogmus.idans. That's a hard thing to sa')'. Endogenous depression is what you"re talking about. Very difficult to say bow much of it is genetic and. how m.uch of ill isetnriromnentsil. I suspect it's both. With.out dtugs,~ treatment ,of depressions or - a.nxiety wouldn 't be good" or pain problerns. Most other problems in this world aft related to depression and arudety. I dOiJ:t bow abcut Hatty ~ whether be had any drug or alcohol problems or not. His wife would know.

WH: Is she a career person'/'

EE: She started a chiJ.dren·s program on radio and men on1y had a moralng cl1ildttn·s progtarb that was on like the one tha,t w,as on for so. many yeaes, Capta:inKangaroo. Only she was a female COUE.teIpart of Captain Kangaroo. Paaicia" I only met her once before they got manied, I think her father was a professorat South-east Louisiana. I believe he married a professer's da.ugbtor. Mary never liked her. And of course you can see, she nevee came to visit her. Hatty was II. pretty g'ocxl pianist. In fact. ,rYe. got 11ihe record, Quite a bit differenL Didn't show the origmall~ty dmt ...

WH: In terms of j:uz, it's not even close to where Bill was. EE: Apparently. Mary mentioned that Bill and Rarry made ,M. ,educational tape.

WB; Yes" I have it rn send it to you. It'sgood to hear them talk. r II send you ~t

EE. I know She mentioned that.

WB: In fact it"s like two brothers arguing both at a time.

[Dr. Epps continues about the Soro,b, Russian heritage.] EE; Taltking about dle middle 1870's, somewhere around [ike that. They WCK: pool- And that was in the area where the boundary ~ines just kept changing with every war. "They m,oved them. One time it was Russia. Another:tbn.e it was Hungary., and then i,t was Germany. These.poor people didn't know who they betonged, to. Tbey were Russians Uv:ing in AustfO-Hungary. bdng ruled by the Poles.

Apparently. my great gl'eat-grandniother rDllSit have been a prostitute. It's in there. She used to sit on the windJows when 'the guys were coming home from work at njght and miVit.e d:tem up U) her bedroom. My mother call1ed Ithem a clrlppy. I would say she was probahly a prostitute.

WH~ (Laughter)

EE: Probably almost itnpossib]e to ttace 'over 1here. I don't know whether theJ;t. would any records anymor-e after all die wars. and all 'that. It's rather difficuh.

WH; I guess you 'vcgone back too far HOW, you found out you have a relative Who's a prostitute. (Laughter)

EE= My grandfather's from England. I'm. haJ:fRussian and half &tg!iisb. mu, they're half Russian, ba1f We.ls.h. which ahnost the same Ithing. The .Eng]igh part's ~y to fmd.But my gmndpa.,the blacksmith, carne oyer in lsn. He was bow in 1850. QWIC over in 1-872 and wmt to Wilkes Barre, Peansylvaaia,

WH: I have some interesting relatives on my ffl.ot.b.er·S side. Her name was 'Irueleek, h was. English. Otu~ of the kings (tMs guy's name originally was Truro) knighted him because he was a locksmith and. made good locks for the court" and so he became Truelock, Strange but, ... and d1en they came to '!he United States, and. there we«: same 'frue1ucks lnthe same line. The Hiakles are just coal miners. mostly.

EE: Most of our family is sull in Kent.. England, uouod Chatham. Irs ~ftStiog. I )oo~ up the Eppses in the United States thatgotbcre. And I've traced themall back to 2 brothers that 'came to VirgWia. Chesterfield County. Virgi.!Oi!al. were tobacco farmers about um. and they came from Kent. Eng~and. Probably Idle same family. WeD, there are about 7.000 Eppsd now from that gfOUiE\ most of them. in die South., But ~y grandfather came overat another time.

WH: You·re noreJatioo to George Van Ews. th.eguibfP~yer ate yon?

EE: No" I've heard thename~ but of '00Ill'Se. that would be Dutc.h.

W8: I see. Van 'Epps.

;-

Letter .from Evans, ,Spring 1993

Interview with Win Hinkle part two

by Babita P.ersaud

UP: How would Y'OD describe .BiU Svans to someone who has never heai1d of him?

WHo ~ t

'II '6tti!f't;"f1'+~ ••

BP: [laughs)

W8. 1 was thinking about that bdore you came. One of the tcasons I do'this publication 18. that it's vel)' difficult, and yet vny satisfying if I eaneomrmmicate to SIIDIribOOy tbat Bill .Evans was ~ the &do! music that is much . more ,compUcarI:d and more com¢ex and influentoo than 83y. !Elvis Presley was. Elvis Presley died in August two years before Bill Ev.aw, and

it seeess Uke whea the rumiver:s.azy of Eivis Presley's death comes UP. it has JlUlch more precedence over Bill Evam;"s, of course [laughs]. It's ru.wliIYs a challenge k> edncate people about that, Bill himself, in the few things. be wrote, said tJhat all people are part of a "'lwriversalmin'Ci" when it comes to music, He bied to make SUR that heemphasized that concept in his p1l'1ying. lie rarely deviated from that precept. I think there's something to be, learned 'from Bill by everybOOy. In ttyingto explain the difference between at! average jut piano player and! Bill Evans. to me B]ll Evans is doing 'so much more on so mooy different levels, both musical, 'emotional, and in 'terms of oorople.xity as opposed. 10 ,simplicity. He's very invohred, It's not a simple music, And yet sotnetimes the emotion is very simple. You can heat B~n sit doWll and. play

.. AJ.f~ .. just the ballad, and pre,tt)' Sb'alght ahead. and. yet he w~!!l me that as a w.ay to refresh his commitment to simplicity in music. Then maybe 'the nen tune will be "T.T.T. Twelve. Tone Tune." He will appro.:u::h "T.T.T. Twelve Tone 'Iune" just as simplistically .and just as melodlcallyas he di.dJ. ~ Alfie. '", DP: I heard semeptace that be played the flute when be was young. Did he study flute?

WH: Yes. He also played thevioUn. 'Ibere'sa pjctureofhim playing violin in Peter Larson's discog:raphy. He also was a flut'e major in coUege, and played flute in Ihe FIfth ,Army Band at FOrt Sheridan. lliioois. near Cbicago. When be went to ooUeg,e. at Southeastern. Louisiana Univets-ity (then it was Southeastern LouisianaCOUege) in Hammond, Louisiana, he had a double major of flute and piano. and I've got a picture of him playing in the pit orohestta far some kind of seheo! musica!pwducti:on. It seemed that piano, was the empbasis when he kft the school. His ,senior recital was on piano. He continued to play the fiut,e) perhaps sporsdlcally, as I understand it, utttU be started working with she Miles Davis band in 1958. I think ~e are some tapes somewhere of am playing

.'

the flute. Bill did an album with Jeremy Steig. the flute player - Bill playing piano and Jeremy playing flute. Supposed'ly there are sQtne out~t.a.krs where Bill played flule and played. duets with Jeremy. They were Dever released, I woold like to hear those,. bear how Bill played flute. That would be interesting.

BP: He"spJayed wilth a couple of flute players, like Hmie Mann.

WH= Yes. rye heard that Bill was not very satisfied with his Butt; playing. lbat's probably wby he gave it up,. at least mal is what I h~ from. the people who mew h:i.nl at that time. And you can' t play ev~ ... he wanted to coneemrare OIl

piano.

BP~ Have you ever seen him in concert'?

WinHinkJe c .. ~985 WH; One rime. onI.y 'one time, and that was in

1971" I believe. and I was in Da1las~ Texas. 1 was working at a dub just down De street from a club wh~ he appeared. I finished my job early. at eleven. and so I tri~ to make it down to bear the last set.

BP~ Where were you worldng?

WH: In a place called the Chare.aubriand Res·, taurant, I was playing bass guitar witb a slrngcr named Char Lovett. The Evans Trio was working at a place called the Club Villager. Thls dub was owned by anothet piani£t named Jae Mwphy. who has since passed away. He abo lead the bouse trio •. f went down and heard the Iasr set, and lihec-.e was hardJy anybody in die dub. So they playod a veIy .abbreviated last set. It was Eddie Gomez lind l\fany Morrell. An aquanteD(::e of mme. a bass illayor who played w1th Jac., was ,IDw:.j,ustlisfening. Hisname was John Giane.m,. whom I went to seaool with up at North Texas Stale. John. went on to play with Sarah Vaughn and Oihers. John sat iP with Bm Evans on about the last two tunes of that sbort ser, Anyway. it was, a little depressing, because there was nobody there in th,e club to hear them. And again. this was Dallas. 'Texas.

Dr: Country music. maybe ... was be touring at that 'time,'? WU; Ycah,hewas on some tour, Hewas ooly ilieJIefortMre nights. two or three nights.

Br:, Did you get a chance to speak to him?

'WB: No, Pot "eaRy, Allibat ~cuJar time, I 'Was net a BUI Evans fanatic. At that time I w(i'rlred a non jazz gig to get dlrough oo]lege and was interested lnbecomiag a legit trombone p1la~. 1hls was in 1911. I was interested, 0'.£ course. in jazz <l!tKi him, but I hadn't Jru.de a eornmitment to it and I wasn' t th.e Bill Evans fanatic that I am now.

BP: You had, heard about him before.

WH: On records. yes. But I hadldso heard about Oscar Peterson and mzzy Gillespieend 3. lot of oth.ct people that I went to hear aud listened to. But. he 'WaS just one of several jau. mnslclans, I was9 't really aware of many of his recordmgs. I think I had two recordmy of rum at tbat ume.

DF: WhiclJ. ones, were they?

WH: I had "'Trio '65," and, I think, one of the Village Vanguard ones with Soott uFaro. I can't remember ae title. 1hey'vc been re-issued now, and. thEy've changed the titles. I"vegot them on CO·s with different dtles than when they fin;t cameeer,

BP: Ye.ah! What were yOUi first itnpress,]OJJ.<lM him when· you heard the IDlISic. when you heard him ill concert and heard his style']' Suing a player Oilsb:geand h~ a recording are sometimes IObUy different things ..

WB: Frrst of all, my f1M impresslon of Evans was tball it was very complex. and that I ~uld, not really get a handle on j~ something I couldn't understand ~ght away. I would listen to his \'I!UlCS. especially the n:meshe wrote, and I: wouJdn·t recognize them, except evmnmUy die more Llistened to them.. tbe more I recegeized them. I very rare]y Jeft humming them, maybe pans of them., little motives or littletnelodic ideas. Then as I got to bow the music and could hear what was goiRg on; and I became a more mature tlliusi:cmn. I discovered he is doing so much more than anything else that was happening at the time .. And also I really investigated the music from the aspect of being a bass player and a bass player within a trie context - looking at jazz through the development of what we call ensemble playing, small group playing. group improvisatloa, not Dixieland. That·s a v'ery specific style, too. You can also look at that (Dixieland] in We same perspective, but the mo has developed moeh farther and on. mote sophisticated levels asa unit. The dmtnme'r, the bassp]ayer,.dre p~ai;)Oplayer. what they do together has become ,It VCl'Y identifiable sehool QJ scbools, I guess, if you want to call it that. And Evans was dmeloplng a very nice school, It bad developed from Scott LaFar,oand him doing experimental things to the point whcrc Gomez" Evans. and Many MomU were doing a kind of a combirnldon of meJodic inventions and playing kJgtltbcra:l the same tiIne .. It's very complex muslc, Ifs very hard to describe vuba1Jy.

BP:: Yeah.

WH: You just can't, you can. sayrhat they did this or they did that - rve heard and read all kinds of flowery attempts, and I'm sure you have. too • I've seen alJ kinds of attempts to describe what goes on In those trios, but me words don 't quik; measure up. For example, you '~] hear music being made on several different lIevels and fl1lJ01 severn] perspectives. There's counterpoint created between the bass p1ayer and Evans's left hand •. hls lower lines. Then there's the melodic intent and dkections of the music in a group improv:ismon perspective, and barb. the basspla}'et and .BiUcontributing to thst with_in the fuunewo.tk of the MIe. And the other element of the drums adding to thar~or maybe helping point that eet, showing ~t up, or maybe slartinga whole new thUd. idea, or' II djfl'~rent idea undeIilCii1ib. the same .frwnewOllk. And .my of these could evolve to anydirootiOil spo.nlWIeoosly. H coutdgo in one of several specified or non-specified directions and yet all within die framework of the form of the tune. That's what separates it from me concept of neW jazz - Orneue Cdemm, groop improvisation, free improvisation. as opposed to coord.iD.atcd bnprovio;ation. 'With one purpose in mind" That's what really

P®ge-2i

makd ill mw-ical to me. If s a spontaaeous Plus.icianship and music dedicated to one particular form, one unit at one time, and that's the ,a,ft: of masic, Sometimes the art is less deflned and harder to pmpoint than in otber more procl.ict:ablte types. of music,.lilre,dassical. Generally. if the fotm of the tune is good' to beg.in. with" mere"UOO somegood things happening. And if everybody's kind of happetling and thinking about what ~y're doifig~ thea, musiclnLilY happ¢n.

BP: What do you think was Bin Bvam;'s major contribution tojazz1

WH~ Boy ... ! I would say the development of the m,o. Some people might say he was doing so much in terms of the pianQ, but I woUld. say that the trio - he gave it so much freedom. He let: his bass. piay'e.rs do what they wanted to, It's not sUnple pianism. Of course. II. lot 'of people will say pianism. is what be did. I 1Wnk it's what be did also with 1!he trio. and allowing the piano trio monat to deveJop into some.tbi.qg very special. He developed it to such a high art Ithat ifs hard to find anything t,Qday that comes close to that. I can go listen tosome brand newrecotding (and I get a lot of new recordings to listen to. which is good). and 1"11 fmd mysellcorepanng tbem or measuringtltem to Bill Evans's trios as some kind of standard. That may not 100 very fairlo somenew artists on the scene. bllluhat.·s just dJC: way itfalJs.lfs not because I tty to do ~t 1hatpartkuiar way •. Jt'sbecause in twns of the development of the art, the BiJ1 Evans's trios, irs a very high Jevel, and very few other groops even tty to reach that Ieve]~or anywhere close to' making it.

BP; Rewrote for pianO, and fee bass1

WH: He didn't write Dotes for the bassplayer (except for cenampivotal points ill1he. "heads" of the tuaes); he wreee tunes, And he wrote lUnes, ~t like we write tunes intbc jazz scnse now. They were vehicles fur improvisation. He wrote a melody and.be WfPt.e a barrn.ony ro' gowi1!h it, a series of eherds, and in some respects you can't even describe 8m Evans's. lead sheets ~ I mean ina lead sheet forma~ i.e., a m.elody and chord ,symbols. You have to'pn som.c1hlng down in a piano scott: to show what he did har.monicail1y. because the nature of a lead sheet is sometim,es too simplistic to describe what he wants done.

BP: Yeah. Ifs just: like a blueprint ...

WH; A Mueprint or an. O'IJtliine~ an abstram or a ,s:ummary. h·s just not speclfie enough. Bllit sometimes, thc~ are books published with Bill Evans's times r:hat are almost UJo exact. Some guy wi'lb glomi ears has taken the specific, notes he play,ed

on a pat"licuw version of it, or on one recording. and said tbat"s gaspcL That's not the 'way it's done in jazz (or the way Bill ~ would have wished it, either). If YQl,llist,en to Bin, he plays a tune 'like "'Two Lonely People," or better yet, "'Tnm Out The Stars" hla variety of ways. And that's one of the d:!itigs about .. Bm's music making - his nmc writing is so fa:l1ta8tic! A nme like "Tum Out The Stars" is jUst a great jazz, nme .. III great jazz. vehicle, But also it tune Ji~ ""fwo Lonely People" is a perfect ,example of song writing in song writer"s (not Dec€Ssarily jau song write~'s) art. That song could be a masterpiece on Broa'dL. way, a masterpieee ahywher¢ you did it He was jnst a eon-

j

have to admit tbar's fine. It wasn't too loud. There was an interesting timbre to' 1he tones tbathe got from the synthe;sizm. and it was in no way ow:rpowering. It was ta,sttfuUy done. And again, going back 10, synthesizers in music, it isso rare that electronic instrument; are used mwdca]ly -so weIy do yOlil see that done, especially in Jive stage performance at a jazz festival outdoors, Theee ase so many variables to the sound. The more cmps yOllput into a circuit, 'the fllOrethings you can have go wrong. These guys had a kit. of chips up there. Bur il was ,aotazing that they hdthe staff. the road crews tiaveUing with them, and the knowledge eo pull it off. Personally, I wowd much rather heat Chick in ,an acoustic sib.lation. (be also has an acoustic band). I still refuse to give up myprejudlice against bwdis Wlth s.yntl:tesb:ers, but I like the mllSiic Chick's band played.

A!; fat as the directions of fusion music and the way that's taking. ]'m not a new age thlnker. I'm down on the so-called "new age." There are some thingstbat are being pa.~ off as music right now that my ten-year-old SlOB could play better. Just sit down. at the pianoand play some arpeggios, record it, and scll it as a CD for S IS and pass, it off as music, There might be, a need for genio,g rid of stress for rue busy buslnessman coming home from his day at WaH Street, putting sO'me new age stuff on the CD player and just relaxing and freeing up his mind .. However, Iet's just don't call it music, Jd"S caU it something else. Let's call il wallpaper, because that's what it is.

The word "'FU!ooion" is just another bou word dmt the music bQiness bas fotccd dOWiJ the throats of the COOSUll:lCf in order to sell more plastic, The economics of it are pretty simple: make y,our product more digestible fur a wider audience. "Cross-over" is the way to .ma.kcmoney in Ithe music business, but not the way to make alt. No thank :you, I'd rathel have my jau Stt'algh~; No C.haser. r ll take my Willie Nelson neat. thank you (yes, I like Willie Nel!son). It's too bad fhat Ithe majMty of jazz consumers rarely know that they are herded, like cattlt':. to the CD bins of natiorudly ehainedreeord stores by slick marketing that exorcises absolutely no responsibility to music as an art. fonn.

BP= Did B1UEvans ever go to Japan?

WH. Two ortaree times to my knowledge. He never toured Russia. 'That's an interesting thing. He was invited to tour Russia (then the U.S.S.R.). His mother was born in Russia, and he was asked to tOOl' Russia right before the Mgbanistm invasion. It was aU scheduled. However. he rumed it down. at the last minutefor political rt8S0IlS. He said, he justdidn' r want t.o participate in any kind ohoU! of a co~ who was showing an a~ive nature M that particular time, which was what Russia was doing to Afghanisl1m.

B,P; He ttIUred tuum of Europe?

WH: Oh, Yd. He spent just as much dnte in Europe as in the United Sb.t.es. In fact, maybe even more. He workedin Paris and Eogland and Spain and South Ameri~ probably seven months out 'of the year.

BP; And this was mostly with. his trio'?

WB= Yes, with his trio. Som.etimeg jm;t wi1h a bassist.

f:ls:e29'

summate song writ,er. It'samaring, you. Ihlnk efwhat he could have done if he had lived a little longer. if he" d lived past the age of 5 I. It's scary. Maybe he 'WQ:u]d have done some sympboni.c things, or written evenmore tunes .. His tunes are so under-recorded, that ),0'11 still have to listen to them a lot and dig them. out. ThL: tune fer example. "Song for HC~H there's a great new recording of "Blue in Groen" that's the mt rune on the CD. @d it's on!,y been. pliaiyed about four other times. And you can tell tiJ.elhythm:sectionsOltl. the other timesweren't qllite sure of what was happening vritb. dIat nme, because it was stiUprerty new to, them. It·'S quite complex. Bu.t you ~Isten to it on the; Blue·]", GrtM CDrecording~ andthey 1mow it very well. It's 'Starting to make sense tome too. as weU as it makes sense to dtem. He was a fantastic writer. TIlde's n~g mediocre <IC\xiut any of ~ tunes - even tbe simple ones, like "Blue In Green". It's just a ten bar tunc, but it's supposed to be repeated at twice the speed, and then repeated a:gain 81 twice that speed. That's where ]t gets: complicated, because if you look at the changes, they're simple, but if you stan: doubling them up, andttipIing them. up -

BP: It really becomes CQIJI.plcx.

WH: Yeah.

BP~ What do you tldnkabomaU this new Jazz they have now. this fusion music? I just want to get your opinion about that. A lot ,of it-seems rebe done with synthesbctsnow; sometimes therc;s not even a piano ill the room. How do you feel about that?

WH: Let's take :zynthesiLen; fast. I went up to the Jackson~ ville Jazz Festival. and on 1he bi.U was the Chick Corea .E!'ectDc Band, and I was thoroughly prepared to hate it I started listenmg with a mindset that said, "I'm not going te like lhi.s." I dQn.t, like loud synthesizers; they always: have the same problems. 'There's feedback and/or distortion on the stage. 'There's no. way of getting it aU coordinated; it's more trouble than if's worth. They brought lots of equipment in. It took them a king time to set up. But when mer staned. they made music from the very beginning to 1heebd. They used the ttadirional musical vallles that I value iP listening to Bill Evans's trios. And it was great!

Dr; It was g~t'1,

WH~ Chick Corea. played a portable Korg Jwy~d helod horizontally like a guitar, and wa]ked around the stage playing it And he was able to walk over and stand next to JohU. Pat:arucci, die 'bassl~ or the sax player, Eric Marenthal, and hear better on stage .. Chi,ok explained to me later that he was able to do that. and 1hat's something pianists can "t 00. They lire stuck with the same mix, if you will, of that solmdthat they get. They can't heat the drummer up close. they can't heat die 100ss player up close, and they're just kind of stuck right there. Chick liked '!hat aspect of playing the Korg key boru:d. It leeks a liwe strange if yoo'reusod to seeing sotnct:hing more tradirional. [In mndsight, I think that Chick has ycnoreach tbeleveJ of eommunieatlon that Bill achieved whh his mos. in spite of being, ~handicapped" by hearing oolly a single .... mix. IT] BP:V:eah.

WH: However, it enables him to make a lot of music, ard I

Lettsr from EWlns:. Spring 1.993

WH: Back to your questloaabout ~o.n, and electric versus acoustic. Jazz is jazz. U it's on CD. and yOU'Ie ]i~tcning to jt on a CD player, even though it's for aoQusdc mstru.ments. it's electric m. somerespects,

BP: '!hat·sright.

WH: It's digitiz.ed ..

DP: It's been tampered with?

WH; No~ not necessarily. There are; som.e purists that would say that if its ~d.. it's been. tampered with. I'm not one of those. 'Ihc problem. is,jau is not sge:oerlc music type. Ike tbt: o1hertypes of "UISie that the music business bas foJistcdon the Arn.ericanpubUc.

BP: What Ifmdl interes.tiug is that a [oh{young people these days t·rnd to comp]aifiabout the tpllSic, s.aying rrs gotten too digital, and Ihlis and that, but then they constantly listen to h and buy records, and they Sllpport it. I just fmd ·lhat kind of ironic. lbey say they want. acoustics, but they listen to ... WB: Yes. The music businessis pan of us now. You have to· have a CD player,. you have to go down and buy the CO's, Y Q,U have mw.ic tel.evision, you have the whole gamut of things, sbictJy geared toward music. andyet it's a commercial music that's part of us today. [WH is not one oftlIOSe anri.cn staiw.EUbl. Digital is not bad. In fact irs great. Once you hear a digital master, ~t is very hard to' go backwards in timeand teclmology to noise and ta:rc hiss. If it weren't for technology

and ~\.- - . - ... ~. .. -, .A<f LF··· E···I" - .'. ] -

.WY personaJ. c:ompu:~~ . .. WOI.lllU not ex:JSt.

BP: Yes ..

'WD: And that was notnecessarily the case forty or fifty years ago. That's something -that maybe the sociologists should investigate. I think ,there's one very good book that I reviewed by Ted Gioia. cail.ledJazz;; The Reluctant Art, In one very imporWJt chapter, Ted picks on Muzak as the start of the downfall of popul'ar music as an artistic expression. and in a lot of instances, he's right, because ifyau 100k at Muzak, it's music strictly for '"wsUpapet" purposes. It's d:u;:~ jllSl to be in tbe background. And the very concept of music being a background item, to me that·" something iliat bas really rumed the

art to a [arge degree. I mean, there are people who put on the radio fOr backgreund. Th.ey·U put on. music describing lt as. "'WeU dun's something we al\vays. have in. me background." WaUpaper is a very descriptive word,

BP: I cannot do mat

WU; Anybody who listens can't do that. I go into a gl,'tJoCe1)' store and buy some broccoli, and you'U bear ... ! notice !hat's Vivaldi!. it's fiot a tune. In other words, so you'll make those djstinctioos •.

BP: (laughs]

WU:But We8¥erag'e guy ~ he 'U know dial. it's there, and he·' U know dult if it's not thett:. "somethitig's WI'OXlJl. with lhe store, I don'~ hca:ranything. Put something 'on. something, .my1hing;R

.~

"Sugar Plum"

1'his tssu ~s·transrription is in the/arm if a c~e kadsheet and a history ksson. First is the Illne ilt BUl's own lwruJwriting~ JJi# 'r11TOte a teuert» John Cou-rt on music mtmllScript paper. with staff liJtes on tN:.fro1fl and· back. You can see the postmark and five ant stamp. Due to the limitmwnsofmysetmner.l'w primed theletter;iltPie i~.six parIS or .examples:

1. The frent or envelope part.

(The spot'S are r:o.ndle wax Ol.! the origirz,al. Notice that Bill did nat put his retwn address .down. T'he address iN the upper left corner U the same as the a~'ee)

2. Lel1d' to Jebn Court via Att Mogul in Bill's hood.

3. The text of Bill's letter- bis handwriting is difficulJ to read at times.

4. The tune in Bill's manuscript.

S. The tune re-written with music notation software in the original key~ then transposed to G major to compare with Art Tofunelli's transcription.

EX 1. The ",envelope~s.ecDQn of Bill·.s note

.,

.'

Letter from EWlns, Spring 1993

EX 2 and 3 •. BiU·s lettc4" to Jahn Court

Hi John,

I love the lyric and the idea you pic.kedto work with. It really II pIetty and catches the mind nicely, I think. I was conceIned however tha.t in the dub, a full beat is om.i tted betwe,en each repetition. Strictly speaking it should be as below in order to be natural

matI ica.lly .

Also had a thought about the lyric idea. I like all that's there, but feel that the nresolution" of the fear that he's dreaminl is not clarified as strongly as it might. Would you consider "one mot yerse!ff -this could allow the feeling to ~ more .gradually and surely towa.rd his happy reali z at.Lon that his baby is truly pz es ent; , I hope this is on the r igh t track and I d i.dn: t mi as your meaning. Anyhow, thanks .a·gain and hope to hear it done.

Sincerely, Bill E.

EX. 4 Bil!]'s rmmmcri:pt

. ,.-,,_ .

~ ""V'"" I~;

,l

Warren Bernhurdt reealls the origins of the tune. [Warren/axed this respcnce to my inqujry.)

Win.

Here is all I can remember: John had the idea while we wert: wotkifigon a Ricbie Bavens album I was pIayingo:o and hoe

was producing. It haunted him, that particular phrase. I mean. It just wcmld. not leave bim alone) so he decided to write a song on it. He was very. very iMpk,ed, as I recall. He somehow or other eeetaeted Bill to see if be would sanction the idea, but I don't think it was throu.gh me. John had no idea I was tlw: close

[>ate ::It

lett., from Evans, Spr;ng1993

(6 t ime s)

EX. 5 OrlgiJW manuscript in C and G

I

II ," ill- ~ ~ .... ,....--..., __.,o!
( , , ,
~ , J , . ,
,
, ,
~ C:::::-' ~ I t"~ 1 1 -
-
( ~ At. ..
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,
. "
.
, Ii! """--
, , ,
._
, . .,::. . .._..
~'
,
( ~
~ JJ ~, .--. ~ , ~ ......
-
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, ,
,
• I ... 1 1 Ii! I ........., '. -. ....

{ .. ...
,
~u to Bill. and Bill had no ideatbat John. was then my tn.anag,er (with Jeremy Steig.'s band, 'The Satyrs). Io'hn got his idea to Bill and BUI wrote this to Art Mogu]. whQ didn't 'know bow t.o reach John. but mew I was signed to Greseourt, 10M's manage,ment finn. So'. Art gave- it to me and Tgave it to John who went ahead with '!he song. I don·r know .if he used Bill's suggrstioms coneained in the ~ett'er. Somehow or other I eaded up with this piece. of mail from BiU. done in IDs usual slyle on. what else, manw;cript paper.

That's everything I remember. Hope ~t helps you out.

Wsntn

P.S. Can't recall from what solo of SiD's this pllrase came freen, can you? Maybe it's from ~IfYou Could S~e.MeNow1" Maybe somewhere 00 the MO(mbeams albom, ChucK mlgbt know. Noti~ 5-oe:nt stamp!

hge32

Transcribed lead sheet of '''Sugar Plum"

by Art Tofanem

1 "Sugar Plum" appears on a nlllDbe r of recordings: BiU Evans Live ln Paris 1972. Volume 2; The BiO Evans .Album (Columbia); Re; Person I KI'lI:w (pan.t:ab'Y); and The Canadia" Concert ~~ (Can-Ani). The piece is listed as being co-written by Bill Evans and J. Court. This is one ,of these tunes that I've probablly heard

50 times. but one day it just popped in my head and stuck there.

I dug it ooror my CD collection and realized that not only is ita addicting tune to listen to, but it's a great prac,uot vehicle

as well (as 'the b.me takes you through all the key centers via

Letts, from Evan!i~ Spring 1993 the circle of fifths;. it also is gEtat for proctidng the U- V-I tuma:round m all keys). For this reason, I thought that the readers of LFE ntight eDjoy playing it.

In a typical! perfornmnce, Bill would play the first 16 bars as written (solo). and then ruMib around the e_hanges. Afttt eventually making it back to the key of G. he would be joined by the rest of tlw mo for a second. pass ImroUgh the ,changes. UsualJyEdrue Gomez would then 'Solo onthe next cycle, and then the trio would return: to the beginnitJg of the piece (in tempo). and end the tune as Htdica:~ed. I'd Uke to point out dmt the ehanges as shown are Veq' fundamental. and should be

considered otdry as a statting point. for further harmonic embellishment.

'Ihatib ,to Mw.ic Prinld' Pius, Iihlswas not only easy to eater, but was even easier to proofread by using the MIDI Qompile/playback feature.~A T

I

- :

Tell a friend about LFE

Letter from Evans Win HinJdB, Editor 2712 Cady Way

Winter Par~R. 32792-4856 USA

Dflled Pti'nled Matte.r - Pleilse F,orward

A.cknowl·edgments

Spx:iad IIwlb to Art Ta1iBnelli, Wamn Bcmlimdt, Km DI'jden, Ptm CW:sins HllIp%, Hero Wens. Joyce Collins. Dr.. Ball Bpp;, N~stle Evam, f'de~ ~nget. Balbilll PttsWd. Jtopr McCtea and. MUSIC PRlNrSR PLUS, TEMPORAL AiOlJITY PRODUCTS .,and all LEE!IIlhsffibec;: whoh:!we ~weJ.1I!ld senJ:gills. MUSK: PRUITER PLUS 4.l i~ the,o!fiCial. music lIOlmiioo sofiWlW UlICd b}'!.oF E.

The D~tlS tine releases uviewe4 in the IEISl i=e (Tum ,QuI TM SIa:f.S and u(t!'~ To F~ :lIVailable from: QuzJitoo Impms. 24-C2 4QI;h Ave., !.als ]slm;I City, NY U uu.

BI.II'kRalii U.S. Poslage F'ai:l Permit No. 330 Wi Iller' Park, FL

A lp!lrtlalllslh1g 0'1 WQH CIed~ to Bill E.Yarw.

Ute CqmI2OSt[

Il. .~.

·tlr11moWn tile" 'George S'bNJiiB9

"A .summer Waitt' ~ Gr.otblm

"Arr; OttiM TII11!i" Michael, J. Sle'l'e~B

·Bl!3ss 'll'ou, Bill E~8liG" sun l.asIIy

'Eyams li1.ememlbered" Enria:I Pfm411UilZl.

~vamasmIoe" Fred IHmdi

'SP'I109I1!1, Part O~,," IEtil Kapstad:

'EpilojJue-, Ptl\Two" (.~e·uabowl

'Eleg~ For BUll E'i'lIJIS."(Lyrlcs} Bill za~

'For Bill EV!IIs' SIevt Aillm

"For Ellalls' Sabf Earl ZilldalS

~F(MIr foW" Thomas SiabeflOW

e'

l.PE Jlliie, 92

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~me for IBlrr 'Remembe~' "Sep!IImber'S. 1980,· '11Iank You. Mr. Ewns,· "The MM WrttI The mUSie$: ''Too SoQII"

W.altt Fer IBIII Evans"

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