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Last Waltz: The Final Recordings Live

Last Waltz: The Final Recordings Live
MSRP: $124.98
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Manufacturer: Milestone
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Additional Last Waltz: The Final Recordings Live Information

This eight-CD set was recorded at San Francisco's Keystone Korner between August 31 and September 8, 1980, just a week before Evans's death on September 15. With Evans were bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera. It was an unusually well-balanced rhythm team for the pianist, perhaps the best combination of talents since he first developed his trio style with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian two decades before. They provide Evans with responsive support that can shift from the quietest underpinnings to aggressive stimulation. There's often a characteristic movement here from introspective solo passages to vigorous trio dialogues that shows just how hard Evans could swing when he had the right drummer.

Largely a final encounter with Evans's key repertoire, the set includes multiple versions of his favorite pieces, like the ballads "But Beautiful," "My Foolish Heart," and "Emily," and his own "Letter to Evan" and "Turn Out the Stars," perennial stimulants for his profound harmonic imagination. But there are also then-recent compositions that never reached the recording studio, like "Yet Ne'er Broken," the repeating "Your Story" with its subtle underlying movement, and "Knit for Mary F." The signature "Nardis" is heard in six different versions, each of them compelling and each a distinct exploration, from a crisp seven-minute version to a concluding performance that stretches to nearly 20. Evans introduces the third version: "We've learned from the potential of the tune, and every once in a while a new gateway opens and it's like therapy." Each of the longer versions is a structure for extended solos by each trio member. Evans's own improvisations are concentrated in extended unaccompanied introductions, stretching to a sublime seven minutes on the final version.

The set is a treasure trove for Evans enthusiasts, inviting close and extended listening and rewarding it with the subtlest inventions and variations. There are rare depths here that represent some of his greatest recorded work. --Stuart Broomer

 

What Customers Say About Last Waltz: The Final Recordings Live:

I thank heaven that this last incomprehensibly beautiful opening of the worlds most pianistically beautiful flower was captured so well on recording tape. This recording represents a peak performance of perhaps the greatest (most influential) jazz pianist in its short history, incredibly occurring in the last hours of his life. Words cannot describe the enormity of this "moment" or collection of "moments" in musical history. Bill continues to bring joy to many many thousands of hearts. I know first hand, as I was there for his last set at the Keystone as a young jazz piano player in San Francisco in 1980. The evening was electrifying, the highs joyous beyond measure, and the lows a deep well of heart-ripping emotion. Buy this set and listen to it in moments of repose. It will lift your heart and inspire you.

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.

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