Bill Evans

Early life Evans grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey, the son of Harry and Mary Evans (). His father was of Welsh descent and ran a golf course; his mother was of Rusyn ancestry and descended from a family of coal miners. The marriage was stormy because of his father's heavy drinking, gambling, and abuse. Evans attended North Plainfield High School, graduating in 1946. {{Quote box |width=380px |align=right |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right College, army, sabbatical year {{Quote box |width=380px |align=right |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right After high school, in September 1946, Evans attended Southeastern Louisiana College on a flute scholarship. He studied classical piano interpretation with Louis P. Kohnop, John Venettozzi, and Ronald Stetzel. A key figure in Evans's development was Gretchen Magee, whose methods of teaching left a big imprint on his compositional style. Around his third year in college, Evans composed his first known tune, "Very Early". Also around that time he composed a piece called "Peace Piece". Return to New York City In July 1955, Evans returned to New York City and enrolled in the Mannes College of Music for a three-semester postgraduate course in music composition. He also wrote classical settings of poems by William Blake. Along with his studies, Evans played in low-profile "Tuxedo gigs" at the Friendship Club and the Roseland Ballroom, as well as Jewish weddings, intermission spots, and over-40 dances. Better opportunities also arose, such as playing solo opposite the Modern Jazz Quartet at the Village Vanguard, where one day he saw Miles Davis listening to him. During this period, Evans also met Thelonious Monk. The album began Evans's relationship with Riverside Records, and also marked the formation of the first Bill Evans trio, with Teddy Kotick (bass) and Paul Motian (drums). AllMusic critic Scott Yanow said about the album: "Bill Evans' debut as a leader found the 27-year-old pianist already sounding much different than the usual Bud Powell-influenced keyboardists of the time ... A strong start to a rather significant career." David Rickert of All About Jazz noted Bud Powell's influence and wrote, "Even at this stage he had the chops to make this a good piano jazz album, but in the end it's not a very good Bill Evans album ... There are glimpses of the later trademarks of Evans' style". Though a critical success that got good reviews in DownBeat and Metronome magazines, New Jazz Conceptions was initially a financial failure, selling only 800 copies the first year. "Five" was for some time Evans's trio farewell tune during performances. A week before the festival, the piece was previewed on TV, and Evans's performance was deemed "legendary" in jazz circles. During the festival performance on June 6, Evans became acquainted with Chuck Israels, who became his bassist years later. Also during the festival, guitarist Joe Puma invited Evans to play on the album Joe Puma/Jazz. worked with Evans on his album Chet in 1958–1959. That year, Evans also met bassist Scott LaFaro while auditioning him for a place in an ensemble led by trumpeter Chet Baker, and was impressed. LaFaro joined his trio three years later. Evans also performed on albums by Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Tony Scott, Eddie Costa, and Art Farmer. Work with Miles Davis, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, and Kind of Blue in 1955, three years before meeting Evans. In February 1958, at Miles Davis's urging, Russell drove Evans to the Colony Club in Brooklyn to play with Davis's sextet. At this time, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones were the other members of Davis's group. Red Garland had recently been fired, and Evans knew he was not merely filling in for one night but auditioning to become the group's regular pianist. By the end of the night, Davis told Evans that he would play their next engagement in Philadelphia. The band had been known for playing a mixture of jazz standards and bebop originals, but by the time Evans arrived, Davis had begun his venture into modal jazz, having just released his album Milestones. Evans formally joined Davis's group in April 1958. The band appeared in radio broadcasts on Saturday nights and, on May 3, the new formation made its first broadcast from Café Bohemia (its usual locale). The live radio appearance broadcast on May 17, 1958, and also released on the album titled ''Makin' Wax, is the earliest documented evidence of collaboration between Evans and Davis. By mid-May, Jimmy Cobb replaced Philly Joe Jones, with whom Evans had developed a close friendship. On May 26, Evans made his first studio recordings with Davis, which were first issued as part of Jazz Track, and later reissued on 1958 Miles''. A performance of the Ballets Africains from Guinea in 1958 sparked Davis's interest in modal music. This music stayed for long periods of time on a single chord, weaving in and out of consonance and dissonance. Another influence was George Russell's treatise. Both influences coalesced in Davis's conception of modal jazz offering an alternative to chord changes and major/minor key relationships, relying instead on a series of modal scales. He realized that Evans, who had worked with Russell, could follow him into modal music. At the same time, Evans introduced Davis to 20th-century classical composers such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, and Aram Khachaturian. As usual, during the sessions of Kind of Blue, Davis called for almost no rehearsal and the musicians had little idea what they were to record. Davis had given the band only sketches of scales and melody lines on which to improvise. Once the musicians were assembled, Davis gave brief instructions for each piece and then set about taping the sextet in studio. Evans also wrote the liner notes for Kind of Blue, comparing jazz improvisation to Japanese visual art. By the fall of 1959, Evans had started his own trio with Jimmy Garrison and Kenny Dennis, but it was short-lived. LaFaro expressed interest in forming a trio, and suggested Paul Motian, who had appeared on Evans's album New Jazz Conceptions, as the drummer. Evans later showed special satisfaction with these recordings, seeing them as the culmination of his trio's musical interplay. Evans never allowed heroin to interfere with his musical discipline, according to a 2010 BBC article that contrasts his addiction with Chet Baker's. On one occasion while injecting heroin, Evans hit a nerve and temporarily disabled it, performing a full week's engagement at the Village Vanguard virtually one-handed. In 1973, while working in Redondo Beach, California, Evans met and fell in love with Nenette Zazzara, despite his long-term relationship with Schultz. Marc Johnson recalled: "This fateful trip marks ... the beginning of the end. Bill's willingness to play and work decreased noticeably after the death of Harry, actually it was just the music itself that held him upright. He fulfilled his obligations because he needed money, but these were the few moments in his life when he felt comfortable—the times in between must have been depressing, and he barely showed a willingness to live." In August 1979, Evans recorded his last studio album, We Will Meet Again, featuring a composition of the same name written for his brother. The album won a Grammy award posthumously in 1981, along with I Will Say Goodbye. , East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, Section 161, Plot K. During the late 1970s, Evans kicked his heroin habit, with the help of methadone, only to become addicted to cocaine. He started with one gram per weekend, but later started taking several grams daily. Harry's death may also have influenced his emotional state after 1979. His sister-in-law Pat Evans has said she knew Bill would not last long after Harry died and wondered whether that is what prompted her to buy three plots in the Baton Rouge Cemetery where Harry was interred. Evans voluntarily quit his treatment for chronic hepatitis. Laurie Verchomin has said that Evans was sure that he would die in a short time. ==Death==

On September 15, 1980, Evans, who had been in bed for several days with stomach pains at his home in Fort Lee, was accompanied by Joe LaBarbera and Verchomin to the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, where he died that afternoon. A tribute, planned by producer Orrin Keepnews and Tom Bradshaw, was held on September 22 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. Fellow musicians paid homage to Evans in the first days of the 1980 Monterey Jazz Festival, which opened that week: Dave Brubeck played his own "In Your Own Sweet Way" on the 19th, The Manhattan Transfer followed on the 20th, and John Lewis dedicated "I'll Remember April". In 1981, Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays released the piece "September Fifteenth (dedicated to Bill Evans)" on their album As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. == Music and style ==

calls "So What" chord; first appearing in the opening track of Kind of Blue. as a part of 6-Z17, an altered dominant tritone substitution (Db7alt) in the key of C, from Evans's opening to "What Is This Thing Called Love?" . Evans is credited with influencing the harmonic language of jazz piano. and Maurice Ravel.", as penned by Evans in the early 1970s. At least during his late years, Evans's favorite keys to play in were A and E. Influences In a 1964 interview, Evans called Bud Powell his single greatest influence. Biographer Peter Pettinger notes that Evans "assimilated 'a thousand influences'", including pianists Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, Oscar Peterson, Al Haig, and Lou Levy, and horn players Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Stan Getz. "The biggest influence on Evans [in his early days], though, was the pianism of Nat 'King' Cole", whom Evans called "one of the tastiest and just swingin'est and beautifully melodic improvisers and jazz pianists that jazz has ever known, and he was one of the very first that really grabbed me hard." Pettinger also notes that the "work of the pianist Lennie Tristano, with his cool approach to a line" was an important influence on Evans, and Lyons observes that Tristano preceded Evans in his use of overdubbing piano tracks. Evans was also heavily influenced by his deep studies of European classical music: "The constructional knowledge of music that Evans later brought to jazz was firmly rooted in this European tradition, as was his thoroughly trained and exquisitely refined touch at the keyboard." As a composer, Evans also assimilated and amalgamated jazz, popular, and classical influences in an "utterly logical" manner. His compositional style shows similarities to and the influence of some of the composers whose works he often played, such as Earl Zindars and Michel Legrand. J. William Murray wrote, "Evans was very adept at drawing Western European compositional techniques into jazz and there are elements of Bach, Chopin, Debussy, and Ravel in his writing." Views on contemporaneous music tendencies Evans's career began just before the rock explosion in the 1960s. During this decade, jazz was swept into a corner, and most new talents had few opportunities to gain recognition, especially in America. Evans believed he had been lucky to gain exposure before this profound change in the music world, and never had problems gaining bookings and recording opportunities. Evans never embraced new music movements; he kept his style intact. For example, he lamented watching Davis shift his style towards jazz fusion and blamed the change on commercial considerations. Evans said, "I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master [Davis], but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music." Still, Evans and Davis kept in touch throughout their lives. Evans considered himself an acoustic pianist, but from the 1970 album From Left to Right onward, he also released some material with Fender-Rhodes piano intermissions. But unlike other jazz pianists (such as Herbie Hancock), he never fully embraced the new instrument, and invariably returned to the acoustic sound. "I don't think too much about the electronic thing, except that it's kind of fun to have it as an alternate voice. ... [It's] merely an alternate keyboard instrument that offers a certain kind of sound that's appropriate sometimes. I find that it's a refreshing auxiliary to the piano but I don't need it ... I don't enjoy spending a lot of time with the electric piano. I play it for a period of time, then I quickly tire of it, and I want to get back to the acoustic piano." He said electronic music "just doesn't attract me. I'm of a certain period, a certain evolution. I hear music differently. For me, comparing electric bass to acoustic bass is sacrilege." == Repertoire and compositions ==

Evans's repertoire consisted of established jazz standards, songs by contemporaries (some of which he helped make standards), and original compositions (some of which have also become standards). Among the major American songwriters, he was particularly drawn to the work of Jimmy Van Heusen, recording what was reputedly his favorite song, "But Beautiful", many times in various settings, as well as many other Van Heusen tunes. Contemporaries whose works he often played include Michel Legrand, Johnny Mandel, and Earl Zindars and, to a lesser extent, Burt Bacharach, John Lewis, Henry Mancini, Gary McFarland, Thelonious Monk, Claus Ogerman, Steve Swallow, and Denny Zeitlin. Other songs by his contemporaries and colleagues he recorded include "In Your Own Sweet Way" by Dave Brubeck, "You're Gonna Hear from Me" by André Previn, "The Peacocks" by Jimmy Rowles, "Dolphin Dance" by Herbie Hancock, and, atypically, "I Do It for Your Love" by Paul Simon, which nonetheless "continued to inspire the pianist's most complex thoughts" in his final years. "Nardis" by Miles Davis was a special signature tune, often performed in highly extended versions by his final trio. During a radio interview, Marian McPartland listened to Evans play "Reflections in D" by Duke Ellington and later noted, "Sitting next to him, listening to the rise and fall of the melody, I realized that ... he chooses some of the most romantic, evocative tunes there are. The tune ended softly with a chord so perfect it took my breath away." Evans composed more than 50 originals. Many were dedicated to people close to him, including "Waltz for Debby" for his niece; "For Nenette" for his wife; "Letter to Evan" for his son; "NYC's No Lark", an anagram of Sonny Clark in memory of the pianist; "Re: Person I Knew", an anagram of Orrin Keepnews; "We Will Meet Again" for his brother; "Peri's Scope" for Peri Cousins; "One for Helen" and "Song for Helen" for Helen Keane; "B minor Waltz (For Ellaine)" for Ellaine Schultz; "Laurie" for Laurie Verchomin; "Yet Ne'er Broken", an anagram of cocaine dealer Robert Kenney; "Maxine" for his stepdaughter; "Tiffany" for Joe LaBarbera's daughter; and "Knit For Mary F." for fan Mary Franksen from Omaha. == Personal life ==

Evans was an avid reader, particularly of philosophy and humor. His shelves held works by Plato, Voltaire, Whitehead, Santayana, Freud, Margaret Mead, Sartre, and Thomas Merton and he had a special fondness for Thomas Hardy's work. He was fascinated with Eastern religions and philosophies including Islam, Zen, and Buddhism. Evans introduced John Coltrane to the philosophy of Krishnamurti. == Reception ==

in 1964. Music critic Richard S. Ginell wrote: "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." During his short tenure with Davis in 1958, when the band left New York to go on the road, Evans sometimes received cold receptions from the mostly black audiences. Evans later acknowledged that some felt his presence threatened the black pride aspect of Davis's band's success. Pettinger believed in a recording, for his solo on a tune named "Walkin'", Evans received noticeably less applause than the other soloists, and for that on "All Of You", none at all. Davis and the other band members responded, "he's supposed to be there, Miles wants him there", on the bandstand whenever audience members made comments. Davis wrote in his autobiography that Evans was sensitive to the criticism. It might have been a contributing factor to his leaving the band after just seven months. When Ken Burns's television miniseries Jazz was released in 2001, it was criticized for neglecting Evans's work after his departure from Davis's sextet. == Legacy and influence ==

Author and jazz pianist Len Lyons wrote: "Evans was the most influential pianist of the 1960's. The tone, touch, texture, and harmonic richness of his playing affected the majority of pianists who followed him." Evans has left his mark on such players as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett, Steve Kuhn, Warren Bernhardt, Michel Petrucciani, John Taylor, Vince Guaraldi, Stefano Bollani, Don Friedman, Marian McPartland, Denny Zeitlin, Bobo Stenson, Fred Hersch, Frank Kimbrough, Bill Charlap, Lyle Mays, Eliane Elias, Diana Krall, Ralph Towner, John McLaughlin, Lenny Breau, Rick Wright of Pink Floyd, Denis Matsuev, and many other musicians in jazz and other music genres. His recordings have been transcribed and arranged by Jed Distler and others and recorded by classical musicians such as the Kronos Quartet, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Roy Eaton, and Igor Levit. Evans's style has also influenced some contemporary classical composers. The English composer Gavin Bryars wrote "My First Homage" in 1978 "to Bill Evans," the composer explained, "and, more particularly, to the trio that he had from 1959-1961," which "affected me deeply when I first began playing jazz seriously." Bryars also notes that the title of the piece "uses the same initials as ... 'My Foolish Heart'." The 15-minute work is scored principally for two pianos but also for two vibraphones, tuba, and sizzle cymbal and was recorded by Bryars and others in February 1981, shortly after Evans's death. The noted Hungarian composer György Ligeti admired Evans and acknowledged his influence in an interview, adding, "As far as touch is concerned, Bill Evans is a sort of Michelangeli of jazz" (in reference to the great classical pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli). Ligeti's Fifth Piano Étude (1985), subtitled "Arc-en-ciel" ("Rainbow"), demonstrates this influence clearly, and Ligeti even hand-wrote in the margin of the score, "Play it like Bill Evans." Likewise, American minimalist composer and keyboardist Terry Riley included Evans in "the Pantheon of my teachers and heroes" in the liner notes to his solo piano Lisbon Concert. In 2025, composer John Williams premiered a Piano Concerto, the second movement of which is modeled on Evans's style. Many of Evans's own compositions, such as "Waltz for Debby", "Peace Piece", "Blue in Green", "Very Early", "Time Remembered", "Turn Out the Stars", "We Will Meet Again", and "Funkallero", have become oft-recorded jazz standards, and his early death inspired the composition of two widely covered tribute songs, Phil Woods's "Goodbye, Mr. Evans" and Don Sebesky's "I Remember Bill". During his lifetime, Evans received 31 Grammy nominations and seven Awards. The Bill Evans Jazz Festival at Southeastern Louisiana University began in 2002. A Bill Evans painting hangs in the Recital Hall lobby of the Department of Music and Performing Arts. The Center for Southeastern Louisiana Studies at the Simms Library holds the Bill Evans archives. He was named Outstanding Alumnus of the year in 1969. Evans influenced the character Seb's wardrobe in the 2016 film La La Land. == Discography ==