Evans and Coltrane vs. Sex Music

It's funny, over the years there have been times when I've swooned over the music of Bill Evans, and at other times felt a little lukewarm towards it. Over the past couple of days, as I've listened to four of his recordings on vinyl--Interplay; Everybody Digs Bill Evans; Portrait in Jazz; Explorations--I've been digging it quite a lot. It was a real pleasure to come home from facing the hordes today and listen to Explorations, Evans's lovely collaboration with Scott La Faro (bass) and Paul Motian (drums). This was the classic Evans trio (broken up after the tragic death of La Faro in a car accident, ten days after recording Live at the Village Vanguard. Hey, I used to own that! Who did I loan it to?). Dig them on Miles Davis's "Nardis."

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise from re-listening to these Evans records is Interplay, a quintet collaboration with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet; Jim Hall on guitar; Percy Heath on bass; Philly Joe Jones on drums; Evans on piano. The criticism from some (myself at times as well) is that Evans sometimes flounders in his own sound, isn't driving or swinging enough. The guys on this record really push him to move it, and so there is a nice mixture of the introspective Evans sound with a bit of forceful passion (although Evans was doubtless filled with too much bottled-up passion). Especially fine is Evans's title composition I'm going to spin this record some more.

Uh oh, my ceiling is shaking. My upstairs neighbor, Mr. Salsa, must be entertaining a lady visitor. Pretty early in the evening for him. I wonder if he enjoys my playing of Disc three from the Coltrane Village Vanguard box. Thanks to "Chasin' the Trane" and "Greensleeves" for masking the embarrassing noise (not to mention his sex music of choice, which usually seems to be Alicia Keys (sp?)). Titanic stuff (the Coltrane, I mean). Wowee, I wish I could have seen these shows with Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and the other musicians. Spiritual music of the highest order, at least as far as I'm concerned. Too bad disc two skips on one of the tracks. Anyway, I'm going to close this entry as "Impressions" fights it out with the thumpedeethump of upstairs r&b and other "activities."