God's Gift of Music: Jazz Pianist Bill Evans

If you have never heard the music of jazz pianist Bill Evans you are in for a treat. Bill Evans was uniquely gifted by God and when you watch him you see that he intellectually and spiritually engages with his music.

God gifted him with a creative ability that we still enjoy today!

Universal Mind of Bill Evans (1966 Documentary)

Video from BillEvansArchive

"Bill Evans on the Creative Process and Self-Teaching Conversation With His Brother Harry, 1966 Songs appeared: 0:00 Spartacus Love Theme (aka Emily) 13:06 I Like New York in June, How About You? 17:53 Star Eyes (Analyzing the Melody and Harmonics) 22:07 Star Eyes (Full Song) 40:52 Very Early 42:15 Time Remembered 43:07 My Bells “I believe that all people are in possession of what might be called a universal musical mind. Any true music speaks with this universal mind, to the universal mind in all people. The understanding that results will vary only in so far as people have or have not been conditioned to the various styles of music in which the universal mind speaks. Consequently, often some effort and exposure is necessary in order to understand some of the music coming from a different period or a different culture than that to which the listener has been conditioned. I do not agree that the layman’s opinion is less of a valid judgement of music than that of the professional musician. In fact, I would often rely more on the judgement of a sensitive layman than that of a professional, since the professional, because of his constant involvement with the mechanics of music, must fight to preserve the naivety that the layman already possesses.“ In 1966, legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans (August 16, 1929–September 15, 1980) sat down with his composer brother, Harry Evans, for an intense and deeply insightful conversation later released as Universal Mind of Bill Evans: The Creative Process and Self-Teaching. From filmmaker William Meier comes this gorgeous cinematic adaptation of Evans’s thoughts on the autodidactic quality of creativity and the value of working at the intersection of clarity, complexity, and spontaneity. The whole process of learning the facility of being able to play jazz is to take these problems from the outer level in, one by one, and to stay with it at a very intense, conscious-concentration level until that process becomes secondary and subconscious. Now, when that becomes subconscious, then you can begin concentrating on that next problem, which will allow you to do a little bit more. I don’t consider myself as talented as many people but in some ways that was an advantage because I didn’t have a great facility immediately so I had to be more analytical and in a way — that forced me to build something. Most people just don’t realize the immensity of the problem and, either because they can’t conquer it immediately, think that they haven’t got the ability, or they’re so impatient to conquer it that they never do see it through. If you do understand the problem then you can enjoy your whole trip through. People tend to approximate the product rather than attacking it in a realistic, true way at any elementary level — regardless of how elementary — but it must be entirely true and entirely real and entirely accurate. They would rather approximate the entire problem than to take a small part of it and be real and true about it. To approximate the whole thing in a vague way gives you a feeling that you’ve more or less touched the thing, but in this way you just lead yourself toward confusion and ultimately you’re going to get so confused that you’ll never find your way out. It is true of any subject that the person that succeeds in anything has the realistic viewpoint at the beginning and [knows] that the problem is large and that he has to take it a step at a time and that he has to enjoy the step-by-step learning procedure. They’re trying to do a thing in a way that is so general [that] they can’t possibly build on that. If they build on that, they’re building on top of confusion and vagueness and they can’t possibly progress. If you try to approximate something that is very advanced and don’t know what you’re doing, you can’t advance." from video introduction

Bill Evans Live '64 '75

Video from zoltán Zakar

Bill Evans

"Widely considered to be one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Evans’ use of harmony and his inventive and impressionistic interpretation of the jazz repertoire has few peers.

Widely considered to be one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Evans’ use of harmony and his inventive and impressionistic interpretation of the jazz repertoire has few peers. His “singing” melodic lines have influenced just about every jazz pianist that has followed him; a bold traditionalist with the most delicate of touches, he was never to be found on the fusion end of the jazz spectrum.

“My memories of Bill, like his music, are beautiful. As a human being, he was a very sincere and gentle person. He was one of the greatest pianists, and his memory will live in the minds of people and his fellow musicians forever.” – Herbie Hancock

William John Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey on 16 August 1929. He learned to play the piano as a child and later studied classical music at Southeastern Louisiana University before moving to New York City in the mid-1950s to work with bandleader George Russell, although his first-ever recording session had been with Jerry Wald’s Orchestra in 1953, while Evans was still in the army. In September 1956, he made his first recording with his own band and an album for Riverside named New Jazz Conceptions (1956), featuring the original version of perhaps his most famous composition, ‘Waltz For Debby’. Evans joined Miles Davis’ sextet in April 1958 and in May made his first studio album with the trumpeter, Jazz Track (1958), then the following year they recorded Kind Of Blue (1959) – a masterpiece. Both trumpet player and pianist had a deep love of model jazz, and Evans exerted a strong influence on Davis through his knowledge of European classical music.

In 1958, Evans recorded with Canonball Adderley, cutting the first version of ‘Nardis’; specially written by Miles Davis for the Portrait of Canonball album it would be associated with Evans for much of the rest of his career. Despite having so much success, or perhaps because of it, Evans was seeing a psychiatrist, unsure whether to continue with his career. After a period at his parents’ home in Florida, he returned to New York to record once again.." from the article: Bill Evans

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