Bill Evans

Pianist Bill Evans' highly sophisticated, classically-informed compositions marked him as an influential figure in jazz. A New Jersey native, he began studying music seriously after winning a scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana University, where he studied flute and also played varsity football. He was drafted upon graduation and performed with the Fifth Army Band while stationed near Chicago, again playing flute. After leaving the Army in 1955 he moved to New York and began pursuing a jazz piano career in earnest. His first recording was on an obscure big-band revival album, Tops in Pops: Designed for Dancing, by clarinetist Jerry Wald and his orchestra. More rewarding was a stint with the pianist and musical theorist George Russell, which resulted in Russell's "Concerto for Billy the Kid." 1957 brought Evans' first album as a leader, New Jazz Conceptions, which had the first version of one of his signature pieces, "Waltz for Debby." The following year he contributed to bop composer Art Farmer's Modern Art album on Blue Note. Both albums introduced Evans' trademarks of intricate melody lines and lyrical improvisation, bearing out his love of the French composers Debussy and Ravel. Evans made jazz history the following year when he was recruited to join the Miles Davis Sextet. His tenure with Davis lasted only eight months, but produced the landmark album Kind of Blue, on which Evans' playing was a key to the album's cool elegance. As the cowriter of two tracks, he is the only composer besides Davis to be credited on that album. After leaving Davis' group, Evans did his most acclaimed work as a leader. His original trio, with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, was known for its intuitive interplay, with all three players given equal space in the musical conversation. The trio hit a glorious peak during a 1961 session at the Village Vanguard, which ultimately produced three albums. Yet the band abruptly ended just ten days later, when LaFaro was killed in a car crash. Evans was shaken and hid away for most of a year, but after his return in 1962 he'd record prolifically for the rest of his life, usually with different trios. An exception was 1963's Conversations With Myself, which used the then-novel technique of overdubbing to turn Evans into a trio of pianists (A sequel, Further Conversations With Myself, came out four years later). The '70s brought notable collaborations with Tony Bennett and Stan Getz, and an album with a symphony orchestra. Though Evans added electric piano later in the decade and recorded the occasional modern pop song (Paul Simon's "I Do It For Your Love"), he never embraced fusion or strayed too far from the acoustic format. Evans' addiction to cocaine caused multiple health issues that took his life at age 51. Yet he remained creative to the end, performing three nights with a new trio (Marc Johnson and Joe LaBarbera) a week before his death; these recordings later comprised the box set The Last Waltz. Virtually every major jazz pianist has since claimed Evans' work as a touchstone.