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Bill Evans Trio Moon Beams Jazzmp3 320h33tschon55

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Bill Evans Trio - Moon Beams
Original Release Date: May 17, 1962
Audio CD: July 1, 1991
Label: Ojc
Bitrate: 320 kbps

Bassist Scott LaFaro's death in the early summer of 1961, just 10 days after the Bill Evans Trio's triumphant Village Vanguard engagement was a devastating personal and musical, loss to the pianist, after which he took nearly a year off from recording or playing in public. (The Vanguard performances can be heard on SUNDAY AT THE VILLAGE, WALTZ FOR DEBBY and AT THE VANGUARD.) It fell to another bassist, Chuck Israel, to bring Evans out and re-establish the Bill Evans Trio as a going concern. Possessed of a warm tone, Israels' essentially supportive playing with the Trio made for a studied contrast with the brashly virtuosic LaFaro, which was not necessarily a bad thing.

As if to make up for lost time, the newly reconstituted trio recorded two albums' worth of material in June and May of 1962. MOONBEAMS is the "softer" of the two and introduced two graceful Evan's originals, "Re: Person I Knew" (an anagram of producer Orrin Keepnews's name) and the lyrical fugue "Very Early." While any of the early Riverside albums make an excellent introduction to Bill Evans, MOONBEAMS is perhaps the most exquisitely romantic of the bunch, much like Coltrane's BALLADS in this respect. ~ CDUniverse.com

Moonbeams was the first recording Bill Evans made after the death of his musical right arm, bassist Scott LaFaro. Indeed, in LaFaro, Evans found a counterpart rather than a sideman, and the music they made together over four albums showed it. Bassist Chuck Israels from Cecil Taylor and Bud Powell's bands took his place in the band with Evans and drummer Paul Motian and Evans recorded the only possible response to the loss of LaFaro — an album of ballads. The irony on this recording is that, despite material that was so natural for Evans to play, particularly with his trademark impressionistic sound collage style, is that other than as a sideman almost ten years before, he has never been more assertive than on Moonbeams. It is as if, with the death of LaFaro, Evans' safety net was gone and he had to lead the trio alone. And he does first and foremost by abandoning the impressionism in favor of a more rhythmic and muscular approach to harmony. The set opens with an Evans original, "RE: Person I Knew," a modal study that looks back to his days he spent with Miles Davis. There is perhaps the signature jazz rendition of "Stairway to the Stars," with its loping yet halting melody line and solo that is heightened by Motian's gorgeous brush accents in the bridge section. Other selections are so well paced and sequenced the record feels like a dream, with the lovely stuttering arpeggios that fall in "If You Could See Me Now," and the cascading interplay between Evan's chords and Israel's punctuation in "It Might As Well Be Spring," a tune Evans played for the rest of his life. The set concludes with a waltz in "Very Early," that is played at that proper tempo with great taste and delicate elegance throughout, there is no temptation by the rhythm section to charge it up or to elongate the harmonic architecture by means of juggling intervals. Moonbeams was a startling return to the recording sphere and a major advancement in his development as a leader. ~ AMG

Bill Evans is a musician you never tire of listening to. He has the ability to play a tune freshly, every time. This recording is, in my opinion, his finest. The first date after the untimely death of Scott LaFaro, this album is beautiful ,melodic and haunting. Every tune is played with typical Evans genius, but on this session he seems to be expressing his musical ideas with even more flavor and emotion. The first cut is the most expressive and emotive I have ever heard in the trio setting. I am sure it was dedicated to LaFaro, even though it supposedly is an anagram for the producer of the date, Orrin Keepnews. Evans expresses his passion, joy and grief for his young bassist in every note and the result is, to my mind, stunning. I love Chuck Israels' bass lines and the chords Evans plays quietly over the bass solo are beautiful and ephemeral. Every tune on this CD is wonderful, the playing of everyone is at such a high level of creativity that this music will live on forever. This is a can't miss choice if you like piano music. ~ Kenneth James Michael MacLean

Personnel: Bill Evans Trio:
Bill Evans (piano);
Chuck Israels (bass);
Paul Motian (drums)

Bill Evans Trio - Moon Beams tracks:
01 Re: Person I Knew (B.Evans) 5:42
02 Polka Dots And Moonbeams (Burke-Van Heusen) 4:57
03 I Fall In Love Too Easily (Styne-Cahn) 2:39
04 Stairway To The Stars (Parish-Malneck-Signorelli) 4:48
05 If You Could See Me Now (Dameron-Sigman) 4:27
06 It Might As Well Be Spring (Rodgers-Hammerstein) 5:59
07 In Love In Vain (Kern-Robin) 4:59
08 Very Early (B.Evans) 4:58

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