Bill Evans Trio

★★★★ The Village Vanguard Sessions AMERICAN JAZZ CLASSICS. CD

Jazz pianist’s landmark early’60s live recordings resurface. Influenced by the lush harmonic vocabulary of the classical composers Debussy and Ravel, New Jersey-born Evans revolutionised the sound of the piano in jazz. He knew how to swing but often preferred playing forlorn romantic ballads defined by soft, impressionistic chords; a perfect example of that approach is his achingly dreamy renditions of the jazz standards My Foolish Heart and My Man’s Gone Now on this 2-CD set, recorded during the Evans trio’s two-week residence in June 1961 at New York’s Village Vanguard. It was an engagement that yielded two classic live albums, Sunday

At The Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby, where Evans, together with bassist Scott LaFaro (who would tragically die in a car crash a few weeks later at the age of 25) and drummer Paul Motian introduced the innovative concept of collective improvisation, which would radically modernise the piano trio in jazz.