LIVE BROADCASTS from the VILLAGE VANGUARD
"Live at The Village Vanguard" is a brand new monthly series from WBGO, NPR, and The Village Vanguard that presents jazz programming in a completely fresh way, using multi-platform media to heighten the jazz experience. Visitors to the WBGO website are able to listen to the concerts online in real time, and chat with WBGO's Special Projects Coordinator and host, Josh Jackson in a live conversation via the WBGO chat room, to discuss the performances as they happen. Photos are shot and uploaded during the performance, giving a complete live musical experience to visitors. Jackson also blogs live to www.WBGO.org/blog.
Upcoming shows in the "Live at The Village Vanguard" series:
Kenny Barron Quintet - August 27.
Paul Motian, Bill Frisell & Joe Lovano - September 03.
Bill Charlap Trio - October 08.
Ravi Coltrane Quartet - November 19.
Cedar Walton Quartet - December 17.
Link to WBGO stream: http://www.wbgo.org/listennow/
Wow, great find Rich. I'll be tuning in for sure. Bill Evans Trio at the VV is one of my fave albums ever. The recording is sublime and it's on JVC's K2 mastering. It really catches the band at the height of their powers, unfortunately 10 days before their incredible bassist, Scott LaFaro died in a car accident.
Quote from: miklorsmith on August 03, 2008, 08:03:03 AM
... unfortunately 10 days before their incredible bassist, Scott LaFaro died in a car accident.
And so did the genius of Bill Evans. With Scott's death Bill became severely depressed, his drug habit turned for the worse and he never really recovered.
I'm most looking forward to Bill Charlap and Kenny Barron for some traditional hard core bebop.
According to the liner notes, there was already a rift in the band when VV was recorded and LaFaro was quite concerned about Evans' drug use. Even without the accident it's fully possible LaFaro would have left the band and Evans would have wound up in the same place.
Bring the bop!
Yep, True. I thought Evans had cleaned it up, living with wife in a nice house, gigging, optimistic prior to SL death. Maybe that was earlier. Something snapped and made him go back in. Sad time for jazz. He was one of the important ones.
One day when I was a wee lad, I was visiting James Williams in Boston, he was music director of Jazz Messengers then. I mentioned Bill Evans, his eyes rolled like he knew a bad secret, a terrible shame on the art. He said I was too young (16) to hear that story. Same thing happened with my trumpet teacher talking about Chet Baker, and with drummer Alan Dawson talking about KD. Bad shit back then. Amazing the music survived it.
But James did tell me a story about Evans, went to NJ to visit George Shearing one Sunday afternoon, to hang. Shearing knew of him, but thought he was just another hot young fad... So Shearing put up a classical piano Sonata, I can't remember what James said it was, but Evans read it down like he had played it all his life, and told Shearing he had never played it before. After 100 tellings of the story, probably not much truth in there, except that they did meet and Shearing, the king of swing piano, was mighty impressed. But James probably heard it from 2nd or third hand. He knew everyone and always had great stories to tell.
Julie and I listened to 'Waltz for Debbie' album on a long drive home tonight.
Miles Davis held Mr. Evans in The Highest Regard - I can't think of any better endorsement.
Of course Mr. Davis had his drug issues as well, maybe following in the footsteps of his idol, Charlie Parker. Reading the Miles Davis autobiography certainly made me think that in the 40's - 50's jazz world heroin was more the rule than exception. In the 60's Miles found cocaine and spent a lot of time indoors. The book didn't have as much information about "the scene" during that period.