VERY
EARLY: Bill’s own arrangement as composed for solo piano
and (2) a transcription of the June 1970 'live' performance, as recorded
on “Montreux II” (First released on CTI , now on Sony)
If you are reading this, it is assumed you’re either a pianist
or musician, or possibly a musically-educated layman. That will help,
since a vastly more significant appreciation of Bill Evans’ work
can be had by understanding some of the theory -- and seeing how it
works on paperh-- how he thinks it, how he puts it together. This includes,
by definition, not only his extraordinary reworking of “Debby”
in A Major, and the two versions of “Early” but also getting
inside the mind of a brilliant improviser, and running through the solos
with him, so to speak. We see what ideas he develops, how the harmonies
connect, what his choices are, and even, at times what he leaves out.
As Mark C. Gridley, author of Jazz Styles: History and Analysis,
9/E” so effectively wrote:
Evans
crafted his improvisations with exacting deliberation. Often he would
take a phrase, or just a kernel of its character, then develop and
extend its rhythms, melodic ideas, and accompanying harmonies. Then
within the same solo he would often return to that kernel, transforming
it each time. And while all this was happening, he would ponder ways
of resolving the tension that was building. He would be considering
rhythmic ways, melodic ways, and harmonies all at the same time, long
before the optimal moment for resolving the idea.
An unheard,
continuous self-editing occurred while Evans improvised. Evans spared
the listener his false starts and discarded ideas. Though he had a
creative imagination, Evans never improvised solos that merely strung
together ideas at the same rate they popped into his head. The results
of these deliberations could be a swinging and exhilarating experience
for the listener. However, they reflected less a carefree abandon
than the well-honed craftsmanship of a very serious performer working
in the manner of a classical composer.
The “exacting
deliberation” Gridley refers to is all more apparent if you read
music and can play through this material. As well as you think you know
Evans, and no matter how long, there are always more surprises. (“Oh,
so that’s how he did that!” or “I see that chord is
X and not Y”, etc.”) After extensively listening to and
playing his music for over thirty-eight years, and seeing him play live
in clubs back in the day, I find it still to be true, and this collection
only brought it home once again. As with all good transcriptions, pianists
will be subject to many “a-ha!” moments – and again,
being able to follow the inner voicings and harmony moves in Bill’s
playing provides many of these,
I
must admit a bias here: “The Bill Evans Album” the Columbia
LP (reissued on CD in 1996 and now sadly out-of-print, yet available
through a few amazon.com's private sellers) was the second Evans album
I ever bought. I played the record over and over in 1971 on my old Koss
headphones until it became unplayable from scratchiness, after a few
months. I got so far into it, (after buying a new copy of course) that
to this day, I can still pretty much sing every solo on that record.
(see my complete review
of the CD reissue here). By then, I had already learned and
played through the original “Waltz For Debby” solo version
(in F) from an Evans folio put out by his publishers back then. That
version, included in this book, was Bill’s own written- out one
which he provided to TRO –and first recorded in 1956. Below is
a look at the first twelve bars:
TRO © Copyright 1964,196 and 1966 (copyrights renewed) Folkways
Music Publishers, NYC, NY. Used by exclusive permission. All rights
reserved.
Excerpt content TRO © 2006 Folkways Music Publisher, Inc. International
Copyright Secured. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The piece has
been subject to detailed musical analysis elsewhere, so another is beyond
the scope of this review. However, in the above excerpt, it is at least
worth noting, if nothing else, the elegance of the simple melody --here
we go, theory buffs --against the chromatic movement in the bass (beginning
in measure 5), alternating between 1st and 3rd inversion, as Evans moves
through the cycle of fifths. The original is still pristine, and beautiful,
and can stand on it’s own as a finely crafted work, jazz or otherwise.
A reasonable
familiarity with this version is necessary in order to appreciate the
wistful, yet grand and quite boldly different approach he takes fifteen
years later for the head, now in A Major. For example, he uses various
voicing techniques-- without disorienting the listener, to approach
basic alterations to the well-known original harmonies, as in the b5
voicings on the II [minor] chords (where there used to be straight minor
7ths) . I wish I could provide the subsequent eight bars that follow
this upcoming excerpt, wherein the second strain of the melody, Bill
arrives at his dominants by way of the half-step above (with the 13th
in the middle mostly) , adding a hint of a bluesy-ness to it all. There
is much more going on harmonically, as the song develops, that pianists
will recognize and be refreshed by. But let’s just look at the
first few bars:
TRO © Copyright 1964,19 65 and 1966 (copyrights renewed) Folkways
Music Publishers, NYC, NY. Used by exclusive permission. All rights
reserved.
Excerpt content TRO © 2006 Folkways Music Publisher, Inc. International
Copyright Secured. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
For this reviewer,
having played that first version and having been immersed in the 1961
Village Vanguard trio recording of it as well – I’d bet
few of you can imagine --or maybe you have yourself experienced -- the
delightful shock, if you will, upon the first hearing this new, richly
rhapsodic A major arrangement on the Columbia album in '71.
After this
exposition of the tune, Evans modulates, of course, by whole steps,
down to the original ky of F for the solos, as bass and drums enter.
Bill’s first solo, on electric piano, (while comping on the acoustic
and still in ¾) shows gooed use of space, all while snippets
and subtle rhythmic variations on the melody in a playful and capricious
way, and it provides great contrast to the opening. After Gomez’
bass solo, Bill makes an aggressive return while the trio swings hard
in 4/4. Reading through Bill’s lines and patterns and seeing some
of his familiar vocabulary unfold here –like the locked hands
rhythms, the flowing triplets against the beat) is exciting, as usual.
As quoted previously, Mark Gridley’s assertion: “…an
unheard, continuous self-editing occurred while Evans improvised. Evans
spared the listener his false starts and discarded ideas”. Wetzel’s
accurate transcriptions bear this out, and since we’re reading
Evans’ soloing over his own material, perhaps it adds a bit more
interest, than might be with a standard. Some folks find some of Bill’s
early seventies period uninspired -- and yes, there are some records
less successful than others. But as this transcription shows, there
is sometimes much more going on during this time than meets the eye
(or the ear, as it were)! Pascal Wetzel's work is accurate here (Playing
along with the CD, I found only one possible left-hand note wrong, but
it can go either way)
The solo version
of "Debby" that Bill played on Ms. McPartland’s radio
show in 1978 is quite similar to the original, with a few tasteful but
definitely not insignificant embellishments (that Bo7/C --a substitutionary
dominant, at the cadence is a nice touch). l In the text before each
song, Mr. Wetzel also provides a brief but often revealing history of
both tunes, sprinkled with some musical highlights to look for. For
example, the fact that Bill composed “Very Early” in 1949
as an exercise for his college theory studies is in and of itself, simply
astounding, considering its compositional integrity, and this from a
then 19- year old. It’s still a mystery why he waited until 1962
to first record it.
The
maturity of how the harmonic sequences work makes "Very Early"
worthwhile for study*: three groups of sixteen bars each, with two resolutions
away from the tonic. It’s also always amazed me how he arranged
the ongoing descending thirds embedded within the melody on the second
sixteen bars. You’d think he must have had them in mind when first
coming up with the melody itself, since they work together so seamlessly
-- considering the changing tonalities. The second transcription of
this composition is taken from the trio's Montreux II recording
from 1970, and as some may recall, Bill noticeably speeds up, as he
sometimes did in live prformances in later years. In fact, Wetzel cites
a metronome marking of ¼ note =160, then up to 1/4 note = 194!
It’s a spirited performance which Wetzel has transcribed here,
and challenging to read, but not necessarily one I would have chosen.
Bill even plays wrong chords in two bars (and Wetzel shows where they
came from) and the performance, even seeing it on staff paper, was rather
frenetic, though not without Evans’ consistency in his line construction.
My only complaint
about this book is that, like many others of course, there are no numbered
bars, so referring to any particular measure(s) is difficult. But all
in all, this is a fine folio, though more of a micro-study than some
of the other fine transcription books of Bill Evans’ work, in
that it’s only two tunes . It is for the serious student of the
pianist's work to see how he approached these two of his earliest and
perhaps best known originals in some quite diverse ways several over
the span of years. For ten dollars and change, it’s a small amount
to pay for this close-up look we get inside Bill’s creative methodology.
For further
study on several more Evans originals, including extensive and in-depth
analysis of some of the later compositions like "T.T.T." and
"B Minor Waltz, there's none better than Jack Reilly's critically
acclaimed "Harmony of Bill Evans" book, available here,
or through Hal Leonard Publishing Co.
*An analysis of the tune (and "Debby" as well, in fact)that
goes measure by measure and runs six pages can be found in the special
Bill Evans issue of of JAZZ IMPROV, Vol. 3 No.1.
Special
thanks to Judy Bell of The Richmond Organization (TRO) in NYC for allowing
us to reprint excerpts from both ”Waltz for Debby” and “Very
Early".
Her cooperation and ongoing encouragement are greatly appreciated.
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WALTZ
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