Bill Evans Trio: The Village Vanguard Sessions (2LP) [WAX TIME]

Why you'll love it

This 180g 2LP set gathers the trio's legendary Sunday sets, adds "I Loves You Porgy" and an alternate "Alice in Wonderland," and was cut with Direct Metal Mastering. The music first appeared on Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, two of the most celebrated live albums in jazz.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Remastered
• Direct Metal Mastering
• Bonus alternate take
• Stereo mix

About the album

On a Sunday in June 1961, a piano trio played two matinee sets and three evening sets in a Greenwich Village basement, and the way people thought about the jazz trio changed. Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian had stopped treating bass and drums as accompaniment; here all three players talk at once, finishing each other's sentences. It was the last time the three played together; LaFaro died in a car accident eleven days later.

Orrin Keepnews recorded the day for Riverside, which split it across Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, and in 1973 Milestone first combined the two as The Village Vanguard Sessions. The ballads are breathtaking: "My Foolish Heart" barely rises above a whisper, and "Some Other Time" and "Detour Ahead" glow. LaFaro's own "Gloria's Step" and "Jade Visions" show his melodic, guitar-like bass, "Solar" and "Milestones" swing hard, and "My Man's Gone Now" turns Gershwin into a slow, aching meditation. You can hear glasses clink and conversation hum in the room, which adds to the intimacy.

The Penguin Guide to Jazz has given Sunday at the Village Vanguard its crown in every edition since 1992, and Colin Larkin placed it in his All Time Top 1000 Albums. The bar staff that afternoon, we suspect, were mostly worried about the glassware.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Wax Time (cat# 772297), a reissue of the 1961 live album.