The Bill Evans Trio - On a Monday Evening

It has been more than 35-years since jazz pianist Bill Evans passed away, but because of his status as one of the geniuses of the genre, interest in the man and his music has not waned over the decades. And 2017 in particular is turning out to be an especially fertile time for Evans fans; firstly filmmaker Bruce Spiegel has finished and released his long-in-the-making documentary "Time Remembered: The Life and Music of Bill Evans" and now the archives of Fantasy Records have yielded tapes of a long-lost concert recording that has never been released until now. The show starts with the Evans original "Sugar Plum" where Bill solos for the first half of the song; bass man Eddie Gomez and drummer Eliot Zigmund then join in, but there would have been no complaints had Evans continued to mesmerize all by himself to song's end. Having most often worked in the trio format Evans was extremely conscious of music being a team effort and accordingly he turns over the spotlight mid-song to Gomez on the Robin/Kern chestnut "Up with the Lark;" after the bass man's concise and sublime solo Evans slowly retakes the song, ending with a big piano flourish. Gomez also plays a stunning bass solo on "Time Remembered" where he uses a bow to play his instrument like a cello, and fingerpicks out some incredible runs on "T.T.T. (Twelve Tone Tune)." With three consummate musicians at work here, the playing is flawless, and the set finishes out with "Someday My Prince Will Come," "Minha (All Mine)," a lengthy jam on Cole Porter's "All of You" and a set-closing take on the understated "Some Other Time." As is typical of many live jazz recordings, there is no stage patter. A nice insert features new liner notes from jazz historian Ashley Kahn. Order your copy here.

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