Bill Evans: Everybody Digs Bill Evans [CONCORD JAZZ]

Why you'll love it

Everybody Digs Bill Evans holds "Peace Piece," one of the most beautiful solo piano recordings in jazz, made just before Evans joined Miles Davis for Kind of Blue. The cover carries praise from Miles, Cannonball Adderley, Ahmad Jamal and George Shearing.

This edition

• Single LP, 10 tracks
• Concord Jazz pressing of the 1959 Riverside album
• Trio with Sam Jones on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums

About the album

It's hard to argue with a cover like this one. Producer Orrin Keepnews plastered the sleeve with glowing quotes from Miles Davis ("He plays the piano the way it should be played"), Cannonball Adderley, Ahmad Jamal and George Shearing, and the ever-modest Bill Evans asked why they hadn't got one from his mother, too. Recorded in December of 1958 for Riverside, it was only his second album as a leader, and it caught him right on the cusp of greatness: within a few months he'd be in the studio with Miles making Kind of Blue.

With Sam Jones and Philly Joe Jones swinging hard behind him, Evans tears into "Minority" and "Oleo," then turns tender on "Young and Foolish" and "Lucky to Be Me." And then there's "Peace Piece," a solo improvisation over a gently rocking two-chord vamp that floats for nearly seven minutes and sounds like nothing else in jazz. Late-night listening of the highest order.

Also at Kops: more Bill Evans on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Concord Jazz, a reissue of the 1959 Riverside album.