At the Village Vanguard [Live]

Bill Evans | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 1, 1991)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: Fantasy
• ASIN: B000000XH4
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #266,068 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential, but don't be fooled., August 16, 2001

By 

Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: At the Village Vanguard (Audio CD)

This is the album to purchase for the listener who doesn't insist on having every note Bill played on that now-celebrated Sunday on June 25, 1961. Originally released as 2 albums--"Sunday at the Village Vanguard" and several months later as "Waltz for Debbie"--the session has been distilled to this single, remastered CD, which omits "Alice in Wonderland," "Detour Ahead," and "Some Other Time." On the other hand, if you had purchased the two original vinyl recordings, you would not have access to "I Loves You Porgy," which is on this single disk. Pricing, too, can be highly erratic (one of the original "Waltz for Debbie" albums is going for twice the price of this consolidated album). For current background on this rare, priceless recorded moment in jazz history, see the article by Adam Gopnik in the 8/13/2001 "New Yorker." How reassuring it is to find that, despite the digital din and MP3 madness that now consume us, the legacy of Bill continues to be with us. Any representative collection of Bill Evans' music must include this seminal recording, as vibrant and scintillating today as when it was first released. At the same time, because Bill was an artist who experienced an incredible surge of creative energy in his final days, "The Paris Concert" is no less essential to an appreciation of his romantic genius.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Telepathic Trio Music Ever Recorded, April 5, 2000

By 

Stephen Silberman "writer, Wired Magazine" (SF, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: At the Village Vanguard (Audio CD)

This album is the reason why Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, and Paul Motian are celebrated as the inventors of the modern piano trio vocabulary: everyone from Herbie Hancock to Keith Jarrett to Chick Corea to Brad Mehldau to Fred Hersch totally *copped* their approaches to playing from this recording. Scott LaFaro, the young bass player, reinvented the bass as a co-lead instrument (Jaco Pastorius, Phil Lesh, etc etc followed in his footsteps) at these shows -- and then tragically died in a car accident a week later. This is the most telepathic trio music ever recorded. And the subtlety and lyricism of Evans was at its peak -- after this, everything else was an attempt to hike back to the summit reached here. It's lovely, heartbreaking, eternal music.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Great Indeed, but don't buy it!, December 29, 1999

By 

"s_molman" (CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At the Village Vanguard (Audio CD)

Get Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debbie instead because, if you buy this and love it (and you will), you will want the complete documentation of these sets, not a compilation of "most" of it.