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Genius, mastermind, virtuoso, etc.--they all fit. It is melancholy. Evans was dying at the piano as he stomped through "Up With the Lark" or delicately teased out "Knit for Mary F", and you can sense an urgent desperation to impart his gift to an audience just one more time. Evans' circumstances at the time of recording. Sadly, Evans lost the battle and his body succumbed in 1980. Haunted by his inner demons, Evans found solace in heroin and (towards the end) cocaine.
As jazz fans know, this is a common thread that links the greats: Charlie Parker, Art Pepper, Miles Davis, John Coltrane. They all struggled with booze & drugs. Finding the right adjective to describe Bill Evans is tough. This recording is no exception and like a Fellini film or Yeats poem, leaves the listener breathless. I've listened to most of his live recordings and I have to say, even the LaFaro days did not produce music of this pedigree.I'd be lying if I said much of the music here is upbeat. This is partly, I think, because the songs take on another dimension due to Mr. I cannot recommend this enough.
He poured everything he had left into his music. Evans was simply one of the most innovative jazz pianists of the 20th century. This desperation doesn't translate into sloppy playing--quite the opposite. One of his last shows was a multi-night gig at San Francisco's Keystone Korner, captured on this BRILLIANT box.Much like the aforementioned Art Pepper, Evans' playing took on a new dimension in his final years. Every song on "The Last Waltz" is absolutely dripping with emotion, and one gets the sense that Bill was trying to go out with a bang. Evans is at the top of his game.Most great art moves us in ways that are difficult to explain. It is a brooding, nuanced portrait of one of the greatest men to ever play the piano.
How could hours and hours of recordings from a dying man's last gig be so inventive, so satisfying, so consistent, so full of life. How can this band bring something new and fascinating to each rendition. Some songs here are repeated (up to 6 times) over the course of the box set, but I'd be perfectly happy to listen to them back to back (and have).It may lack the intense sense of discovery and invention from his early work, but this has all the wonderful interplay and sensitivity of Evan's great trio works from the past, and clearly shows he had plenty of great music left in him when he passed away.
Marc Johnson really brings out the best in Bill Evans. This recording was made in 1980 about a week before Bill Evan's untimely death. I think it was a sound he was looking to create ever since the untimely death of Scott LaFaro.There is an intensity to Bill Evan's playing a poignancy that is not to be missed. He may have new it was coming because he is really at his best in this recording. Every track is incredible.I particularly like the recording because of the chemistry of the group. The tone production on this set of albums is also very good.I'm a Bill Evan's fan and own most of what he has recorded. I have never regretted laying out the cash for this set of albums.
I first heard him solo in Conversations with Myself in an old record now scratched beyond recognition and have forever been listening out of the corner of my ear for him on albums - trios, groups, sideman - and always feel that he has been playing in a way that tells us who he is and what it is he wants us to remember. I can't imagine anyone who puports to love music not wanting these CD's. And these CD's, are what I think he wants us to remember. They are truly a thank you - to the people then and the people who would come - and a way of thinking of Bill Evans that will always be in whatever parts of our minds are moved and thrilled by music, skill and art. I was going to go hear Bill Evans for the first time in Boston at the gig after this one - and he died. At least I have these.
It is Bill Evan's final bittersweet triumph. Notwithstanding the synergistic brilliance of the 1961 Village Vanguard recordings with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, they do not match the majesty, musical maturity, and emotional effusiveness of the playing memorialized on these discs. In the end, "The Last Waltz" provides a peak into what the future held for Evans' art, and in that sense, gives the world a picture of a life unlived. His playing on other songs - "My Foolish Heart," "After You," "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," "Noelle's Theme/I Love You, Porgy," and "Your Story" - will break your heart.
Do these performances do justice to Evans' musical legacy or was he gasping to the finish, running on creative fumes, rather than drawing from a newly tapped reservoir of inspiration.Let me allay any concerns and state outright that these recordings represent Bill Evans at his most lyrically imaginative, romantically inspired, and emotional. Loving Bill Evans' art as I do, will I like what I hear on these surreptitiously taped performances when the man was literally dying as he was playing that poignant eight-night gig - his last - at San Francisco's Keystone Korner. Evans' gorgeous pianism displays a breadth of experience and wisdom that could not have been possible twenty years earlier. In short, Evans creates a musical universe distinct to each work.
Evans is heard playing "But Beautiful," one of his favorite ballads and certainly one of the most stirring ever penned, three different times in succeeding sets. Nor could they, as "The Last Waltz" represents Bill Evans at the end of a life's journey filled with tragedies and bittersweet triumphs. His playing is much more confident, vibrant, and full-bodied. Evans' was always regarded as the Chopin of jazz, and as true as that statement is, what these performances show is that, while his flowing melodic lines have retained their Chopinesque quality, his harmonic textures now compelled comparison to Rachmaninoff. I held off buying this box set for months, asking the same questions I'm sure those considering purchasing "The Last Waltz" want answered.
He instills these works with melodic beauty, harmonic heft, and a palpable yearning. I'd like to comment on one selection, in particular. He approaches the opening section of the song (before the middle improvisatory bars) differently in each performance, using chords, voicings, and rhythm to wonderful and evocative effect. How wonderful it is to witness Evans' mind constantly working, seeking an approach not thought of before - never settling into a preconceived mold. You can tell he has brought the fullness of his knowledge, experience, and intuition to tap the musical and emotional potential of these songs. Make no mistake - these performances are better than anything previously released by Evans. Those seeking an antidote to the balladry can find it in spades in his rendition of "Some Day My Prince Will Come." Here, Evans displays an explosive virtuosity that is as incandescent as Art Tatum's, as he executes improvisatory runs at lightspeed with every note articulated and exquisitely controlled.
In addition, Evans rethinks his approach to most of these works in a way that revitalizes them. All the while, his grasp of a piece's formal architecture imbues it with a rock solid integrity, as well as an unfolding sense of drama in its exposition, development, and climax. Prepare to be astonished.Evans' fans have cause to be grateful for this live document of a creative resurgence cut short in the middle of its bloom. What a loss it is to no longer be in a world that has Bill Evans in it.
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