Jazz Icons: Bill Evans features five separate performances by one of the most revered pianists in music history. This collection covers an 11-year span, highlighting Evans’ ever-deepening artistry as he performs with four different all-star rhythm sections, including the stunning duo of bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and drummer Alan Dawson. This DVD includes for the first time on home video Evans’ renditions of the rarely performed “Sareen Jurer,” “Blue Serge” and “Twelve Tone Tune Two.” Among the many surprises in this collection is a live performance of “My Melancholy Baby” with saxophonist Lee Konitz.
Features:
24-page booklet
Liner Notes by Robert Doerschuk
Foreword by Maxine Evans
New Interview with Chuck Israels
Cover photo by Jan Persson
Booklet photos by Jan Persson, Lee Tanner, David Redfern, Ray Avery
Memorabilia collage
Total time: 99 minutes
It’s funny the things you remember when you look back at your childhood. As far as I was concerned our life was normal growing up. I knew from early on that my Dad was a musician and my Mom was a housewife. They traveled together a lot before my brother Evan was born. I got postcards from all over the world. (I stayed with my grandparents while they were away.)
There was always music in the house, but not from the radio. Going to the Village Vanguard to hear my Dad play into the early hours of the morning seemed normal for me even though I was probably only eight years old and I just knew that I was going to get a Shirley Temple. Other things were normal to me as well—going to the track (Dad loved the trotters), baseball games, and having several musicians jamming at our house. I remember going to the Mike Douglas Show in Pennsylvania. We rode there from New York in a limo with Tony Bennett. Normal stuff for an 11-year-old. Dad always came to my school choir recitals. When we drove places he used to test me by playing classical music on the car radio and asking me to pick out the individual instruments. I still try and pick out instruments when I hear classical music.
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