TONY BENNET & BILL EVANS: The Complete Tony Bennett & Bill Evans recordings

BILL EVANS
Dizer que o piano se divide em "antes de BE" e "depois de BE" seria generalizar demais e, talvez, desrespeitar tantos outros gigantes, tão grandes quanto ele. Prefiro dizer que, para mim, o piano no jazz tem dois compartimentos, quais sejam: [1]Bill Evans; [2]Todos os demais pianistas. Com isso, não estou afirmando que Bill foi o "maior", ou que todos os outros sejam "menores": o fato é que se você mergulha de cabeça (como eu fiz) nos discos, CD´s e partituras de Bill, a sua forma de "ouvir" e "ver" o piano mudam completamente. E se você é músico, vai descobrir caminhos harmônicos que nenhum curso de harmonia pode ensinar, porque são fruto da genialidade de Bill e só podem ser comprendidos a partir de uma análise de suas  (re)harmonizações, partindo do particular para o geral. 
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BILL EVANS
William (Bill) John Evans, (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, John Taylor, Steve Kuhn, Don Friedman, Marian McPartland, Denny Zeitlin, Bobo Stenson, Michel Petrucciani and Keith Jarrett, as well as many other musicians world-wide. The music of Bill Evans continues to inspire younger pianists like Marcin Wasilewski, Fred Hersch, Bill Charlap, Lyle Mays, Eliane Elias and arguably Brad Mehldau, early in his career. He is considered by some to be the most influential post World War II jazz pianist. Bill Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, United States, to a mother of Rusyn ancestry and a father of Welsh descent. He received his first musical training at his mother's church. Evans's mother was an amateur pianist with an interest in modern classical composers, and Evans began classical piano lessons at age six. He also became a proficient flautist by age 13 and could play the violin. At age 12, Evans filled in for his older brother Harry in Buddy Valentino's band. He had already been playing dance music and jazz) at home for some time. In the late 1940s, he played boogie woogie in various New York City clubs. He attended Southeastern Louisiana University on a music scholarship and in 1950 performed Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto on his senior recital there, graduating with a degree in piano performance and teaching. Evans's first professional job was with sax player Herbie Fields's band, based in Chicago. During the summer of 1950, the band did a three-month tour backing Billie Holiday, including East Coast appearances at Harlem's Apollo Theater and shows in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and at Washington D.C.'s Howard Theater. In addition to Fields and Evans, the band included trumpeter Jimmy Nottingham, trombonist Frank Rosolino and bassist Jim Aton. In 1958, Evans was hired by Miles Davis, becoming the only white member of avis's famed sextet. Though his time with the band was brief (no more than eight months), it was one of the most fruitful collaborations in the history of jazz, as Evans's introspective scalar approach to improvisation deeply influenced Davis's style. At the time, Evans was playing block chords, and Davis wrote in his autobiography, "Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got, was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall." Additionally, Davis said, "I've sure learned a lot from Bill Evans. He plays the piano the way it should be played." Evans's desire to pursue his own projects as a leader (and increasing problems with drug use) led him to leave the Davis sextet in late 1958. Shortly after, he recorded Everybody Digs Bill Evans, documenting the wholly original meditative sound he was exploring at the time. But Evans came back to the sextet at Davis's request to record the jazz classic Kind of Blue in early 1959. At the turn of the decade, Evans led a trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. This group was to become one of the most acclaimed piano trios — and jazz bands in genera l— of all time. With this group, Evans's focus settled on traditional jazz standards and original compositions, with an added emphasis on interplay among the band members that often bordered on collective improvisation, blurring the line between soloist and accompanist. The collaboration between Evans and the young LaFaro was particularly fruitful, as the two achieved a remarkable level of musical empathy. In addition to introducing a new freedom of interplay within the piano trio, Evans began (in performances such as "My Foolish Heart" from the Vanguard sessions) to explore extremely slow ballad tempos and quiet volume levels, which had been virtually unknown in jazz. His chordal voicings became more impressionistic, reminiscent of classical composers such as Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, and Satie, and he gived away from the thick block chords he had often used with Davis. His sparse left-hand voicings supported his lyrical right-hand lines, reflecting the influence of jazz pianist Bud Powell. Like Davis, Evans was a pioneer of modal jazz, favoring harmonies that helped avoid some of the idioms of bebop and other earlier jazz. LaFaro's death at age 25 in a car accident, ten days after the Vanguard performances, devastated Evans. He did not record or perform in public again for several months. When he re-formed his trio in 1962, Evans replaced LaFaro with bassist Chuck Israels, initially keeping Motian on the drums.During this time, Helen Keane, Evans's manager, began having an important influence. One of the first women in her field, she significantly helped to maintain the progress (or prevent the deterioration) of Evans's career in spite of his self-destructive lifestyle. In 1966, Evans discovered the remarkable young Puerto Rican bass player Eddie Gomez. In what turned out to be an eleven-year stay, the sensitive and creative Gomez sparked new developments in both Evans's playing and his trio conception. In 1968, Marty Morell joined the trio on drums and remained until 1975, when he retired to family life. This was Evans's most stable, longest-lasting group. Evans had kicked his heroin habit and was entering a period of personal stability as well. In 1976, Marty Morell was replaced on drums by Eliot Zigmund. Gomez and Zigmund left Evans in 1978. Evans then asked Philly Joe Jones, the drummer he considered his "all-time favorite drummer" and with whom he had recorded his second album in 1957, to fill in. Several bassists were tried, with the remarkable Michael Moore staying the longest. Evans finally settled on Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums. This trio was Evans's last. Although they released only one record before Evans's death in 1980 (The Paris Concert, Edition One and Edition Two, 1979), they rivaled (and arguably exceeded) the first trio in their powerful group interactions. Evans stated that this was possibly his best trio, a claim supported by the many recordings that have since surfaced, each documenting the remarkable musical journey of his final year. The Debussylike impressionism of the first trio had given way to a dark and urgent yet undeniably compelling, deeply moving (if not mesmerizing) romantic expressionism. Evans's drug addiction most likely began during his stint with Miles Davis in the late 1950s. A heroin addict for much of his career, his health was generally poor, and his financial situation worse, for most of the 1960s. By the end of that decade, he appeared to have succeeded in overcoming his addiction to heroin. However, during the 1970s, cocaine use became a serious and ultimately fatal problem for Evans. His body finally gave out in September 1980, w  hen
— ravaged by psychoactive drugs, a perforated liver, and a lifelong battle with hepatitis—he died in New York City of a bleeding ulcer, cirrhosis of the liver, and
bronchial pneumonia. Evans's friend Gene Lees bleakly summarized Evans's struggle with drugs to Peter Pettinger as "the longest suicide in history".

(*)As music critic Richard S. Ginell noted, “With the passage of time, Bill Evans has become an entire school unto himself for pianists and a singular mood unto himself for listeners. There is no more influential jazz-oriented pianist -- only McCoy Tyner exerts nearly as much pull among younger players and journeymen -- and Evans has left his mark on such noted players as Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau.” Bill Evans's musicianship has been a model for many pianists in various genres. His music displayed a creative mastery of harmony,
rhythm, and interpretive jazz conception, fusing elements from jazz, classical, and ethnic music. In his duos and trios, Evans developed in unprecedented ways a unique conception of ensemble performance and a classical sense of form and conceptual scale. His '60s recordings Conversations with Myself and Further Conversations with Myself were innovative solo performances involving multiple layers of overdubs recorded in the studio by Evans himself.
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ALBUM REVIEW
 "The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album" remains, for me, one of the three or four most engrossing vocal jazz recordings. But what made the initial Bennett/Evans project, and its follow up -- 1976's "Together Again" -- so special was not just that hearing a big-band singer like Bennett in such an unadorned context was unusual. Evans doesn't simply provide a supporting presence for the singer; instead he and Bennett brilliantly trade ideas back and forth -- improvising with word and deed, not just combining their towering talents so much as opening an engrossing conversation that intertwines their very different personas. Bennett and Evans had been brought together by jazz singer Annie Ross. They'd met in passing over the
years, and Bennett of course had recorded Evans' "Waltz for Debby," but the men didn't know one another well when the first sessions were held for Bennett's new Improv label. That feeling-out process, explored more completely on this compilation's second disc of alternate takes, is part of the bright joy of discovery surrounding the collaboration. There was no advance practice, no worksheet with suggested tunes. One or the other of the two men, in a studio with only producer Helen Keane and an engineer, would suggest something. They'd work out a key, do a run through, then put it on tape. Interesting, too, then were the songs that occurred to them. Almost a throwaway in 1975, Leonard Bernstein's "Some Other
Time" (from "On the Town") became something of a jazz standard after this Bennett/Evans reworking. Likewise, few had ever really examined "Who Can I Turn To," originally from a small Broadway hit production, before this. "Young and Foolish," embedded below, had been recorded separately by both Bennett (on 1962's "This Is All I Ask") and Evans (for 1958's "Everybody Digs Bill Evans"). Together, and with the lightest of touches, they made a track once part of the early 1950s show "Plain and Fancy" new again. In contrast, by the time Bennett and Evans convened a year later for "Together Again," the two had appeared countless times together. Still, the tunes were again selected on the spot, though no doubt informed by shared concert experiences in places like the 1976 Newport Jazz Festival, among others. The juxtaposition of personalities -- Tony Bennett, the expansive crowd pleaser; Bill Evans, the introverted instrumentalist -- remained a source of satisfying artistic friction. Bennett found undiscovered depths of understatement, while Evans (notably on the rousing solo opening to this second collaboration, "The Bad and the Beautiful") explored a dynamism that might surprise listeners more familiar with his quietly focused trio recordings. Meanwhile, "But Beautiful," from "The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album," illustrates the singer's complete command of his craft -- even as Evans adds quiet interjections. They have enough tension in their styles to turn a even jokey tune like "When In Rome," previously recorded by Peggy Lee and Bobby Short, among others, on its ear. They make an easy go of "Lucky To Be Me," also from "On the Town," then take an even more contemplative tack on "Make Someone Happy," another formerly happy-go-lucky showtune. This version of the rather complicated "You Must Believe in Spring," closing out "Together Again," is uncluttered and definitive. Notable extras in this new expanded release include a terrific alternate take on "Who Can I Turn To," and a rare third version of "The Bad and the Beautiful." Evans, and this is such a thrilling part of the extra album, never plays the same way twice. Bennett had already long since come into his own as a big-voiced interpreter of classic American songs, but one who had never completely summoned this level of sensitivity. Pairing him with Evans, until the end delicate and piercingly honest, drew out something new in both. The pianist succumbed to an on-again, off-again battle with drugs almost exactly four years after the second recording with Bennett.
~by Nick Deriso
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MINHA OPINIÃO
Esta coletânea, além de mostrar que "água e azeite" podem se misturar, mostra um outro lado de Bill Evans: o do notável acompanhante - tal como George Shearing - ornamentando e emoldurando com elegância a performance de TONY BENNETT que, como sabemos, não pode ser classificado como cantor de "jazz". Mas o "enviroment", a ambientação criada pelo piano de Bill, levaram Tony a se despir dos arroubos operísticos, característicos do seu estilo pessoal (herança do "belcanto", naturalmente, como bom ítalo-americano) e a ser mais comedido - inclusive com a escolha de tonalidades mais adequadas a uma performance mais contida. E aí se dá o milagre: dois sujeitos com personalidades e comportamentos totalmente opostos, acabam interagindo, trocando ideias (e as acatando, reciprocamente) e se integrando de uma forma tão completa que Tony   Bennett quase acaba cantando jazz...Uma obra prima, sob todos os aspectos - ou seja: OURO EM PÓ!
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TONY BENNET & BILL EVANS: The Complete Tony Bennett & Bill Evans recordings


TRACKS/FAIXAS
Cd1
01.Young and Foolish 03:55
02.The Touch of Your Lips 03:57
03.Some Other Times 04:42
04.When in Rome 02:55
05.We Ll Be Together Again 04:39
06.Mmy Foolish Heart 04:51
07.Waltz for Debby 04:05
08.But Beautiful 03:37
09.The Days of Wine and Roses 02:24
10.The Bad and the Beautiful 02:18
11.Licky to Be Me 03:45
12.Make Someone Happy 03:53
13.You Re Nearer 02:23
14.A Child is Born 03:17
15.The Two Lonely People 04:27
16.You Dont Know What Love is 03:28
17.Maybe September 03:55
18.Lonely Girls 02:50
19.You Must Believe in Spring 05:52
20.Who Can I Turn to 02:28
21.Dream Dancing 03:46

Cd2
01.Young and Foolish Take 4 04:46
02.The Touch of Your Lips Take 1 02:55
03.Some Other Time Take 7 04:56
04.When in Rome Take 11 02:57
05.Waltz for Debby Take 8 03:50
06.The Bad and the Beautiful Take 1 02:13
07.The Bad and the Beautiful Take 2 02:10
08.Make Someone Happy Take 5 03:54
09.Your Nearer Take 9 02:58
10.A Child is Born Take 2 03:27
11.A Child is Born Take 7 03:12
12.The Two Lonely People Take 5 04:44
13.You Dont Know What Love is Take 16 03:33
14.You Dont Know What Love is Take 18 03:37
15.Maybe September Take 5 04:38
16.Maybe September Take 8 04:32
17.Lonely Girl Take 1 02:58
18.You Must Believe in Spring Take 1 06:02
19.You Must Believe in Spring Take 4 05:36
20.Who Can I Turn to Take 6 02:30