Album Reviews

While a great deal of attention rightly gets paid to Bill Evans' legendary Village Vanguard recordings early in his career, this superb set recorded in Paris, France shortly before his passing is equally worthy both musically and sonically.

Originally issued in 1983 in two editions on Elektra/Musician (E1-60164/E1-60311) the source is a superb Radio France recording of a performance at l'space Cardin in Paris on November 26th 1979 featuring young bassist Marc Alan Johnson (26 at the time) and drummer Joe LaBarbera (then 30), both of whom have gone on to have very successful careers.

Evans died less than a year later on September 15th, 1980 but he was in fine form here and the trio, which had been together for around ten months, was arguably as fine as any group with which Evans was associated.

He'd lost bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Eliot Zigmund about a year earlier. Johnson joined while Philly Joe Jones had taken over on drums but when he left Evans started looking for a replacement. He tried out LaBarbera at a Village Vanguard gig and the new trio was born. Evans felt this new trio was "karmic" and meant to be. The security gave Evans the confidence to explore in ways he hadn't for some time.

Evans' playing here is more fiery and percussive than on the early Riverside recordings, particularly the Village Vanguard sessions, where his introspective, low key approach continues to inspire listeners and musicians alike. Yet the Evans "essence" remains intact, making this concert as vital and essential as any he'd recorded in his career.

The tunes are not presented in the original playing order. Instead this first edition concentrates on romantic themes opening with Paul Simon's "I Do it For Your Love". Other selections are Michelle LeGrande's "Noelle's Theme", "My Romance", "I Loves You Porgy", and "Beautiful Love".

Elektra/Musician was an imprint started in 1982 by the late Bruce Lundvall (who lived down the block from me--something I unfortunately didn't find out about until he was too ill to be interviewed, but we did speak twice) shortly after he left Columbia to become president of Elektra Records.

While the producer of this concert is listed as Yyes Abiteboul, he was actually the recording engineer. The producer was André Francis (see the recent "Larry Young In Paris" review).

Columbia Records veteran recording engineer Frank Laico (who recorded Tony Bennett, Miles Davis and dozens of others for Columbia and other labels) remixed the original multitrack tapes for the original release. Those tapes were used here as well but the sound here on double 45 mastered by Bernie Grundman kills the original.

While we all wait for reissues of the early career original Village Vanguard sessions (one from Mobile Fidelity and one from Analogue Productions), this first edition of what turned out to be one of Evans' final live performances, is currently available and very highly recommended for both music and sound. Edition Two has yet to be released.