Customer Reviews

Trio 65

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Is there such a thing as a bad Bill Evans album?? I haven't heard one. This date in particular is beautiful -- swinging, melodic and just wonderful. Here, Bill Evans is in top form. His playing is always definitive, but it seems to me he is playing with particular verve and conviction on this date. Elsa is my favorite tune on this one and the beauty of the playing is indescribable. Listening to this man often brings a tear to my eye, or a wave of inspirational energy. This gentle being expresses the potential of the human soul like no other musician I have ever heard. If you are looking for a date which combines the best of swinging tunes and ballads, this is a great choice!

I have known this album since it came out in 1965, and it is still one of my absolute favorites among the recordings of Bill Evans. Not only is his playing outstanding, but so is the musical cohesiveness of this trio. The album is both very listenable and very danceable -- if you are a dancer it will surely make you dance. This is a true classic, a recording of timeless value.

This album from Bill Evans really is something that every jazz connossoir should own. It is magical! I did buy this one more or less 15 years ago when I first started to really appreciate true Jazz. I was a rock guitarist interested in fusion a little bit in those days. At that time I used to listen to Pat Metheny Group, Lee Ritenour (that was the farest I went in the Jazz territory).. absolutly good music don't get me wrong, but it's not pure Jazz. One LUCKY day I saw Sonny Stitt on tv, blowing a fast bebop blues and that vision completly blew me away. When I saw him I knew what kind of music I would like to play in my life. It was a revelation for me. Some guitar players say that seeing Jimi Hendrix on TV (even adding something like "when he burned his guitar in Miami or Monterey, he was so coooooool") took them to the decision to play the guitar. On the contrary seeing Sonny Stitt playing a bebop blues let me understand that I HAD to play bebop. I was already a guitarist (but Hendrix never said enough to me and I absolutly don't find coooool a thing such as "guitars burning"! =)))) ), but Sonny let me understand that was the language not the instrument. So I started to study Charlie Parker deeply for fifteen years. (Don't know why I'm telling you this story.. but)... Some months later my Sonny Stitt folgoration, I met this album. I found this album extremely difficult to understand at the time. I remember it was so hard for me to listen to it, it seemed to me a homework. Bill Evans work on the piano seemed to me extremely intellectual and hard to get ... but I didn't understand why it should be so difficult. It didn't entertain me because I didn't feel the fire Sonny Stitt had for example. This music is a lot more sophisticated under certain point of views (I still love to death Sonny of course). How things change my friends! Now after 15 years of hard jazz studies this album seems to me light as the wings of a butterfly and PURE GENIUS! Bill plays in a fantastic way with this trio. He plays a little more boppish than what he usually do. I think this album is a perfect gem, a perfect program of interesting and memorable tunes, played as only a master musician such as Bill could do. His musical personality is absolutly evident here and he plays here with a particular concentration and lucidity. This is really a GEM. Probably the best Bill Evans album I own, and I own many of his. And probably one of the best piano trio albums overall! In particular I love this album ALSO because I remember quite clearly how difficult this music seemed to me at first and perfectly testify to me that HARD WORK ALWAYS DO THE JOB. Thanxs for the lesson Bill!

I have known this album since it came out in 1965, and it is still one of my absolute favorites among the recordings of Bill Evans. Not only is his playing outstanding, but so is the musical cohesiveness of this trio. The album is both very listenable and very danceable -- if you are a dancer it will surely make you dance. This is a true classic, a recording of timeless value.

This was one of the few Bill Evans albums I could find in my school's music library. I had never heard of it, so I almost didn't check it out. So glad I did, because it's now one of my desert island discs. It's one of those albums that rewards both casual and close listening. The first half of the album is especially easy on the ears in this way. Included is the definitive version of 'Israel,' which is a driving, energetic opening track. The best improvisation on the album comes on the standard 'Round Midnight,' and I love the coda/tag at the end of that track. I still get goosebumps during 'Elsa' (That tune sends me. I seriously think I want to name my daughter Elsa.) and when the ride comes in half way through 'Love is Here to Stay.' Just great.

One could have some beef with this album because at least four tracks (that I can count) also appear in earlier albums. Thankfully, all but one, I believe, improve upon the previous edition. The exception which I believe makes no improvement is 'Come Rain or Shine,' which was a superb opening tune on "Portrait in Jazz." Also, Chuck Israels leaves something to be desired with his bass playing, but though he is no Scott Lafaro, he is more than adequate here. And 'How My Heart Sings' is too short!!

These setbacks aside, "Trio '65" rewards both types of listening and has many "goosebump moments." I just love this album. Highly recommended.

Enjoy!

Based upon the other reviews I bought this album. I should have done "due diligence". I did not realize that all of the tracks but two had been recorded before on other albums (which I already have). So I was not listening to anything new, except in the sense that Bill never plays any tune the same way twice. Also I felt rather cheated by Verve in that the amount of music on this CD amounts to about 35 minutes. 35 minutes?! Bill's earlier albums were all generous with material, with most coming in at 50 minutes or more. I think I've reached the limit on my Bill Evans buying. The last three albums have been disappointments in various ways. The Paris 1 concert for example - not the classic Bill Evans. This one as already noted. And 'You must believe in Spring'. I really don't like that one at all. I think I must have all the really good ones now (all early) except for New Jazz Conceptions (1956). I might go for that one just to see what REALLY EARLY was!

Although many view Paul Motian as the quintessential percussionist while in Bill Evans' trio, my money is on Larry Bunker. His brush work on Israel is terrific, and clearly shows why he was considered a virtuoso on the instrument (he also played vibes and piano and was a percussionist with the the LA Philharmonic, as well as a sought-after studio musician). The relative coolness of Evans' superlative technique and the quiet intense fire of Bunker is a perfect match for the bass chords of Chuck Israel. This is by far my favorite trio release by Evans.

"Elsa" just sends me into orbit. This is a melodic, urbane, sophisticated and listenable mid-60s jazz record of the highest rank. Bill Evans is one of those well-kept secrets who shouldn't be a secret at all.

Musically, I actually prefer this trio to its immediate successor, which brought to every musical discussion practically as much activity from the bassist as the pianist (if Gomez' bass solos are so vital, why aren't there transcriptions of them available from Hal Leonard and other publishers?). Still, the price the listener has to pay for a session such as "Trio '65" is exhorbitant: the Rudy Van Gelder piano, which has no relation whatsoever to a Steinway, Bosendorfer, Beckstein, Baldwin, Mason-Hamlin, Chickering, or even Wurlitzer--maybe an entry-level Casio or Yamaha digital at best. I was deluded enough to think that I might be spared the insult to the human ear, not to mention Bill, since this was a Verve, not a Blue Note, recording. Alas! Rudy's services were in such great demand--by Prestige, New Jazz, Impulse, Verve, and who knows how many other labels--that the first piano notes I heard on the disk were unmistakable Van Gelder, not Bill.

I thought jazz was about diversity, but here the melting pot prevails--Bill's touch sounds like Red Garland's, which sounds like Wynton Kelly's, which sounds like Kenny Drew's, which sounds like Sonny Clark's, which sound's like Herbie Hancock's, which...

What would the fate of "Kind of Blue" have been had the engineering been done by Van Gelder? The primary reason I hold Evans in such high esteem is because of the Vanguard sessions (Riverside) and any of the recordings of his final year (Fantasy). This disk is painful after awhile--not because of Bill's playing but because you're constantly aware of how much better it could have been had the piano been allowed to sound like itself.

Van Gelder was ideal for Horace Silver, Art Blakey, and practically all of the hard bop groups because he enhanced each horn player's sound (reverb), brought the drums front and center (again, with reverb), and put the bass player in your living room (assuming it's fully carpeted and and sound-proofed with absorbent walls and ceilings). But these gains came at the expense of the piano with its complex harmonics, frequencies and overtones along with any sort of spatial imaging or acoustic ambience. After "Trio '65," the chatting customers who can be heard in the background (yes, actual depth) on the original '61 Vanguard date are a welcome relief.

Come to think of it there's an early Evans' date that's an alternative to both "Everybody Digs" and the "Vanguard Sessions"--especially for the listener who simply wants to hear straightahead, blowing, swinging piano as played by a master. It's "On Green Dolphin Street" on Riverside, with Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones basically just staying out of Bill's way while laying down a vibrant air-stream for each of his solos to travel on. The session's only "flaw" is that Bill did not play another tune or two on the date.