|
Steven This Bill Evans CD is a classic. If you don't have this, please order a copy today.
I love this recording and I think in order to fully appreciate it you have to forget about those trio recordings he did years prior and listen to it for what it is: heart-breakingly beautiful music played by a master pianist in his prime. Evans is joined by Chuck Israels on bass and Paul Motian (from his classic trio with LaFaro). Highly recommended. "Moon Beams" was recorded a year after the unfortunate death of fellow bandmate and bassist for Evans' now classic trio, Scott LaFaro. I think Evans' music changed after LaFaro's death and this recording represents a heartfelt dedication and a closure to the past.
Regardless this version of this original by Evans remains the definitive one and reason enough to get this album but there are other treasures to behold the ear from "the Chopin of jazz/contemporary piano". If you're are in a contemplative or introspective mood, you'll be rewarded by listening to this album. With Evan's 2nd trio, this album iniated the second stage of the late pianist's evolution into a balladeer of the piano. Rarely heard gems like "In Love in Vain" are coupled with the fresh re-workings of "It Might as Well Be Spring" and "Polka Dots & Moonbeams" plus a classic Evans original, "Very Early". Recommended for all romantics and poets. Starting "Re: A Person I Knew" an anagram for Orrin Keepnews as well as an elegy for the late bassist Scott LaFaro, Evans' playing grew in intensity with this classic album. It was also the "Best of the Month" in the Hi/Fi Stereo Review by Nat Hentoff or was it Joe Goldberg.
His best call was making sure we had at least this one album of all ballads by a man whose magical touch and translucent soul create lush tapestries of blissful relaxation. Re: Person I Know and Moonbeams are just two of the highlights from an album with no weak spots. Evans had a fine rhythm section here; Motian is a fabulous brush player, and Israels fills La Faro's sadly empty shoes more than credibly.Producer Keepnews made a wise choice in recording uptempo numbers at this session to balance to mood, and in putting them together on How My Heart Sings, another fine Evans album. Evans is peerless when it comes to jazz ballads, to my ears, and here's a full album of his mellow mastery.Moonbeams is perfect for those who love quiet, introspective music, and is superb background sound for dimming the lights and so on. This is quietly creative jazz at its finest. Evans' genius is his inchoate ability to invest almost endless emotion in his work. It is also much more than that. All the listener need do is let the notes and harmonies flow in, and the spell is cast; there is deep feeling on this record, and many unique meloodic and harmonic choices.
Sadly, to me, it does not hold up there either, and it's not just the loss of Scott LaFaro (later recordings prove that). I own many Bill Evans CD's, including every one he did before this. The best way to understand the result to describe what it is not. However, I reach for it to deal with road rage, not when I want to hear Bill Evans at his finest.
The result comes across as mainstream, with nothing daring or edgy going one. Of course, mainstream pays the bills - this was one of his most popular CD's. It's still Bill Evans, and he's still great, but the gunslinger checked his best guns at the door here. This was his first all-out attempt to pull the heartstrings.
Paul Motian really eases up here. Perhaps that was inevitable - Evans had already tamed the frontiers of innovative voicings, modal music, rhythmic displacement and three-way simultaneous improvisation and was said to hate recording because he did not have much new to say. Bill set out to be lyrical on this all-ballad record. Those CD's have a sophistication and subtle drama that draw the listener in; this recording seems ordinary by comparison.
So then, how does it compare to the more subdued Village Vanguard recordings and Explorations. It is nothing like the rowdy cuts on New Jazz Conceptions and Everybody Digs Bill Evans - no up tempo numbers. No dancing on a tight rope like Portrait.
|
