Village Vanguard session with Bill Evans

1. If the recording took place in a studio with a typical studio atmosphere (a bit sterile), would you still hold it in high regard?
2. Would you classify this recording as "great" because of it's highly "organized" character with implementation of notes in an "economic", almost Zenlike way, like Kind of Blue, Out to Lunch and A Love Supreme?

Chris

1) Yes.
2) I don't understand where you are trying to take this thread, or perhaps I'm just missing the point of this thread.....

Are you talking about the quality of the recordings, or are you tralking about the music and trying to make some sort of comparison of Evans music/style and that of Miles Davis?

BTW, what does "Zenlike" mean to you? It makes me think that you just happen to enjoy Davis' style more than you appreciate Evans style and, more importantly, what he contributed to the evolution in jazz.

It's OK if you don't like Evans........I haven't pulled out Kind of Blue lately either.

FWIW.

Hi Newbee, I'm just trying to find out a reason why this is a great recording. Cincy bob has already given his explanation, which is to me a very insightful one. Many thanks!
No, it's not that I don't like Bill Evans. In fact I like his style of playing very much and I think the Village Vanguard recordings are wonderful. I'm comparing the Village Vanguard sessions with Kind of Blue because I can draw some parallels between these two. For example: Bill Evans Trio played as if there is only one "corpus" and one mind playing. The same holds true for the Miles Davis Quintet in Kind of Blue. Both ensembles played as much notes as needed, not more (this is what I call Zenlike). You can hear the same qualities in Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch and John Coltrane's A Love Supreme.

Chris

Chris, if the only reason I liked the Sessions was the audio reproduction aspects, I'd probably listen to Jazz at the Pawnshop. The sense of a live acoustic, the background voices, the tinkling of glasses, are all much more obvious. But then, I think the music value suffers. Now if it were Evans playing there with those recording techniques, wouldn't that be great. Interestingly, one of the biggest problems I have with Davis (and quite a few others for that matter) is the recording quality of jazz music in the 50's and 60's), especially in comparison to classical. Pop has always been dreck. :-)

Chris, I know this may be an intereting exercise for you, but I would no more compare the music of Evans, Davis, Coltrane, Monk, and many others all the way back to its origins, than I would the music of Bach, Beethoven, Sibelius, Mahler or Part. The threads are all there for the scholar, but I typically listen only for immediate enjoyment. Sorry I can't add more of value to your thread.

I hope you don't mind a little jazz humor, but it is said that Miles was upset about the length of the solos Coltrane was playing (live, not on Kind of Blue). So Miles confronted Coltrane about it. Coltrane explained that once he started on an improvisation he had to get it all out, he didn't know how to stop. Miles replied, "Take the horn out of your mouth."