Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the finest jazz piano trio albums you will ever hear, 20 Oct 2001
This album,only Evans' second under his own name was recorded shortly before the historic Kind of Blue sessions with Miles Davis et al, and Evans' approach is quite similar on the two records.
His playing is spacious and delicate, and he is well backed by Sam Jones and Paul Motian. 'Minority' and 'Night and Day' are excellent swinging, uptempo performances, with Evans sounding confident and assured with his choice of material, while his playing on 'Young and Foolish', 'Lucky to be Me' and his own atmospheric composition,'Peace Piece' is hypnotically beautiful.
For all the brilliance of his trio records with Motian and Scott Lefaro which followed and his later solo recordings, this is for me his finest hour. Any Bill Evans fan will probably already have this, but for newcomers this is an ideal place to start.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Making the Piano Sing and Swing, 26 Jan 2003
This is an important Bill Evans album, only the second one under his own name and containing the Evans classic: "Peace Piece". It preceded by a few months the session which produced Kind of Blue - a seminal Miles Davis album in whose music Evans himself was of major significance. It was to be followed by a long series of albums in which Evans transformed the nature of the jazz piano trio, making the pianist, bassist and drummer more a partnership of improvising equals. On Everybody Digs... the roles of bassist and drummer are still the conventional ones of accompanists to the pianist as leader and "star soloist". But the key elements of Evans's musical personality were already in place and it was obvious that his was an important and individual new voice in jazz pianism. The faster pieces such as "Night and Day" and "Oleo" carry echoes of be-bop (emphasised by the driving, intense drumming) and of the cerebral piano style of Lennie Tristano; but they already show a significant development beyond these influences. Evans's invigorating "swing" and rhythmic precision at this kind of tempo was to remain a key aspect of his music; but so was the more elegant and exploratory mid-tempo playing on a piece such as "Tenderly", played as a jazz waltz (another type of piece which was to remain a staple of Evans's music).
But the other key aspect of his music which was to be of key importance was his work on slow ballads. To these he brought a combination of qualities which took jazz piano ballad playing beyond the rather florid, "cocktail lounge" style. These qualities included a kind of distilled, lyrical romanticism, an intense concentration on the essence of the piece rather than an external "decorating" of the theme with extraneous pianistic flourishes, the use of subtle chording (partly influenced by the "impressionist" harmony of composers like Debussy and Ravel) and an ability to make the piano "sing". "What is There to Say?" is a good demonstration of these qualities, and also of Evans's feeling for the structure of a ballad. Equally impressive are the unaccompanied ballads, "Young and Foolish", "Lucky to be Me" and "Some Other Time". The latter, included on the CD as a bonus track, is perhaps more of interest because of what it gave birth to: in working on its introductory bars Evans found himself developing out of them a modal composition he aptly titled "Peace Piece". The use of modal harmony, rather than the conventional chord sequence of a popular song, gives the piece a sense of stillness and tranquillity as Evans weaves a series of hypnotic variations above a few repeating chords. It's similar in approach and effect to "Flamenco Sketches" on Kind of Blue, except that, being a solo piano piece, it also echoes the atmosphere and effect of some of Debussy's piano Preludes and Etudes, and there's a moment near the end where it seems to allude to a piano piece of Ravel's, "Oiseaux Triste" from Miroirs.
But I hope the emphasis in this review on technicalities and on the album's "importance" hasn't suggested that the CD is a "heavy" listening experience. Far from it: this is an enjoyable, varied and communicative album by a major jazz artist enjoying the development of his considerable talent. Confirmed Evans fans will either have it or should acquire it, and there's a lot here which more casual buyers who don't know his music would enjoy.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A glimpse of what was to come, 3 Dec 2001
By A Customer
This is a great album, yet it follows basically the pattern of what everybody else was doing - driving bass and drums, with the pianist being the star. This isn't not neccessarily a bad thing, but considering that Evans went on to become one of the great innovators in the jazz trio medium, it is fairly ordinary. There are some great tracks on it. "Night and Day", "Minority" and "Peace Piece" stand out, the latter especially displaying Bill's legendary crystal touch and feeling, which he was to become known for in later years. Some excellent driving jazz is featured on this record, and it is a good one to have in your collection, but just you wait until later on!!!
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