![]() Debussy, Stravinsky, notably Petrouschka, and Darius Milhaud were particularly influential. This enabled him to explore widely in classical literature, especially 20th century composers. That was the musical rage at the time later, however, Evans rarely played blues tunes in his performances or on his recordings.Įvans' mother was an amateur pianist herself and had amassed piles of old sheet music, which the young Bill read through, gaining breadth and above all speed at sight reading. ![]() The idea of doing something in music that somebody hadn't thought of opened a whole new world to me." This idea became the central one of his musical career.Īlso, by the late 40s Evans considered himself the best boogie-woogie player in northern New Jersey, according to an interview with Marian McPartland on the radio show Piano Jazz. It sounded right and good, and it wasn't written, and I had done it. He worshipped his older brother and tried to keep up with him in sports too, and was devastated by his death in 1979 at the age of 52.īy age 12 he was substituting for his older brother in Buddy Valentino's band, where at one point he discovered a little blues phrase by himself during a stock arrangement performance of "Tuxedo Junction." It was only a Db-D-F phrase in the key of Bb, but it unlocked a door for him, as he said in an interview, "It was such a thrill. Harry was the first one in the family to take piano lessons, and Bill began at the piano by mimicking him. Read moreĮvans' older brother Harry, two years his senior, was his first influence. He did, of course, thereby extending the expressive range of jazz piano. Proficiency at these instruments in which great emphasis is laid on tonal expressiveness, might have encouraged Evans to seek the similar gradations of nuance on piano. ![]() He became very proficient on the flute, although he hardly played it in his later years. He also held a lifelong attachment to the game of golf.īill began studying piano at age six, and since his parents wanted him to know more than one instrument, he took up the violin the following year and the flute at age 13. ![]() Bill received his first musical training in his mother's church both parents were highly musical. Evans' Russian side accounts for the special feeling many of his Russian fans have for him that he is one of them. The result was sordid living conditions, a brilliant career, two failed marriages (the first ending in a dramatic suicide), and an early death.īill Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1929, of a devout Russian Orthodox mother and an alcoholic father of Welsh origins, who managed a golf course. He believed he lacked talent, so had to make up with it by intense work, but to keep the whole churning enterprise afloat he took on a heroin addiction for most of his adult life. Tall and handsome, literate and highly articulate about his art, he had a "confidence problem" as he called it, while at the same time devoted himself fanatically to the minute details of his music. Yet Bill Evans was a person who was painfully self-effacing, especially in the beginning of his career. His inescapable influence on the very sound of jazz piano has touched virtually everybody of prominence in the field after him (as well as most of his contemporaries), and he remains a monumental model for jazz piano students everywhere, even inspiring a newsletter devoted solely to his music and influence. He spawned a school of "Bill Evans style" or "Evans inspired" pianists, who include some of the best known artists of our day, including Michel Petrucciani, Andy Laverne, Richard Beirach, Enrico Pieranunzi and Warren Bernhardt. He recorded over fifty albums as leader and received five Grammy awards. Bill Evans, one of the most influential and tragic figures of the post-bop jazz piano, was known for his highly nuanced touch, the clarity of the feeling content of his music and his reform of the chord voicing system pianists used.
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