Search - Bill Evans :: Autumn Leaves

Worth a place in any Bill Evans collection

MikeG | England | 04/09/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There's some mystery about the source of this 'bootleg' recording. The CD packaging, which is short on relevant information, gives no producer or engineer credit. Nor does it specify the location of the concert from which the tracks come. It's credited to the Evans-Gomez-Morrell trio of 1969 but I came across the suggestion, on a Bill Evans web site, that the date is more likely to be a few years later. I have several of the tracks on a French "Le Jazz" CD (titled 'Quiet Now') which gives Amsterdam as the concert venue, but another suggestion on the web site is that the remaining tracks might come from a different concert. Probably all this only matters to Evans specialists; to my ears the quality of the playing and the recording is consistent enough for all the pieces to be credibly from a single concert, and if they are not, your enjoyment of the music is unlikely to be affected.



Is it worth buying? I would say emphatically: yes - mainly for four reasons.

1. It captures the trio in good form, full of spirit and vitality in the faster pieces, but with Evans also typically concentrated and lyrical in the slower pieces.

2. In about 60 minutes playing time there's a good range and variety of material, with warm, tuneful mid-tempo pieces ("Emily", "Sugar Plum", "A Sleeping Bee" and "Very Early") striking a nice balance between the lively faster numbers ("Autumn Leaves", "Nardis" and "Twelve Tone Tune") and the slower ballads.

3. The ballads are especially well done. There are poised and well-shaped readings of the Evans favourites, "Some Other Time", "Turn out the Stars", and "Quiet Now" and a particularly eloquent "What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" which for me is one of his very best ballad performances - it's a lovely example of how he could make the piano sing, and he sustains the piece through its changes of moods and feelings as if on a single breath. Every Bill Evans fan should hear this track.

4. For a live, "bootleg" album it is notably well recorded, the trio being captured with good fidelity and balance. It sounds as if Evans had a particularly good piano for the concert, and maybe it was partly this that inspired him to such committed playing. The piano sound is especially well served by the recording, with a greater range and fullness of tone than Evans often received even on some of his better-known albums: his mid-to-low registers are nicely resonant and the occasional high register flourishes come across without distortion.



If you're not put off by the fact that most of the material is familiar Evans repertoire I would warmly recommend it as worth a place in any Bill Evans collection, and it could appeal to the more casual buyer too."

Exquisite and tender

MikeG | 04/18/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"a rare and very relaxed concert of the third trio of this master,with eddi gomez and marty morrel!. a must for every jazz lover and those of us who love Evans music."

"What Are You Doing Hesitating To Get This CD"?

MikeG | 07/10/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I found a series of CDs on the "Jazz Time" label on sale at a local department store a few years ago. They included Getz, Coltrane, Mingus, Basie, etc, and one called "Autumn Leaves, A Jazz Hour With Bill Evans". These were imports, mostly of European concerts, along with some amazing blues collections. Despite some rough recording hear and there, they were the best quality CDs for the least cost that I have ever come across.... At that time I had not heard anything by Evans other than along side Miles. Autumn Leaves blew me away!!! It is all excellent, but the whole CD is worth it for just this version of "What Are You Doing For The Rest Of Your Life". It is a recording of unparalleled beauty. Although the album pictured above has a different cover, I am sure that this is the same recording, since it includes the same songs in the same order (two additional here), and the samples sound the same, as far as I can tell through the limited download sample quality. A real gem!"