Bill Evans Conversations With Myself

The inventive and expressive pianist Bill Evans made significant and lasting impact in the jazz realm during a career that stretched from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1929, his father’s alcoholism caused a disrupted childhood, though his musical talent was spotted early, leading to a scholarship at the Southeastern Louisiana University and the Mannes School of Music, where he majored in composition. Moving to New York in the mid-50s to work with George Russell, Evans’ breakthrough came via his membership of Miles Davis’ sextet, where his intense and melodic playing helped make Kind of Blue an outstanding landmark, during a time when he was also contributing to Chet Baker’s self-titled LP. Evans formed a popular trio with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, which was cut short after LaFaro tragically died in a car crash, leading to the creation of a new trio with Chuck Israels. Then, following collaborative albums with Cannonball Adderley, Eric Dolphy, Shelly Mann, Jim Hall and others, Evans recorded the concept album Conversations With Myself for Verve Records. Produced in a permissive atmosphere with Creed Taylor and engineer Ray Hall in February 1963 and subtitled A Searching Look into the Genius of Bill Evans, the album features a multi-tracked Evans playing only with himself on piano, with each track featuring an improvised second and third piano line, overdubbed atop what Evans laid down first. Reconstructed renditions of Theolonius Monk’s “‘Round About Midnight” and “Blue Monk” give way to “Theme From Spartacus” and Evans’ own “NYC’s No Lark”; this edition features two bonus tracks, the first a re-organized take of Monk’s “Bemsha Swing,” the second a rendition of the Broadway show tune, “A Sleepin’ Bee.”