First off, a categorical statement: to these ears, there has never
been anything quite like the sound of Bill Evans on a well- tuned
grand piano. That he changed the sound of jazz piano from the mid-fifties
on is well documented and inarguable. That being said, let us look
at the work done by Evans on that “other” instrument he
sometimes used in the seventies, the Fender Rhodes electric piano.
In
that decade, the landscape and language of jazz was changed by
the proliferation of electric keyboards. Other than the Hammond
B3 organ -- whose earliest jazz practitioners included Fats Waller
and later Count Basie -- those who played music on a keyboard,
always played the piano. Years later, Ray Charles use the Wurlitzer
electric piano on “What I Say”. When jazz and “fusion”
music of the 1970s is discussed, established pianists such as
Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Josef Zawinul are always mentioned
as primary proponents of the Fender-Rhodes. The instrument was
hugely popular by mid-decade and it seemed like it was on just
about everyone’s records. Pop bands like the Eagles, Stevie
Wonder, Steely Dan (who still record with it), Earth Wind &
Fire and many more (even the Beatles used it on the “Let
It Be” album) all added a new dimension to their sound from
it. However, make no mistake: in the seventies, a sizable number
of mainstream jazz pianists were utilizing the instrument as well
. Surprisingly, these included post-bop musicians such as Cedar
Walton ("Mobius"), Tommy Flanagan ("Something Borrowed
Something Blue"), Hank Jones ("Rockin' in Rhythm",
The Touch), Ahmad Jamal ("Manhattan Serenade")and of
course, Bill Evans. For those too young to remember this marvelous
instrument, here’s a brief explanation from the website www.fenderrhodes.org:
"The first real full size piano by Harold Rhodes, the Fender-Rhodes
Electric Piano was introduced in 1965. It was a 73-note keyboard.
The 88-note models were not released until 1970, the same year
as the Stage and the Suitcase Pianos were introduced. The 73-note
Stage piano it is the most common model. When people
talk about "the early unique Fender Rhodes sound" they
mostly mean the sound of the old MkI Suitcase piano, even
if the Stage models sounds very close to this. The Suitcase Pianos
are equipped with a cabinet with a power amp and four
speakers and a pre-amp, which is placed above the keyboard,
on the namerail. The active amplification from the pre-amp makes
the sound fat and solid. Therefore some people also state that
the Suitcase sound has more "body" than the sound of
the Stage Pianos ( Given the right treatment, they all have the
same "bite" or "bark" ). The pre-amp
models also has built-in controls for treble and bass and a stereo-tremolo
circuit. The Suitcase piano can (of course!) also be connected
to external amps and speakers instead of the included ones. The
Stage piano can also be equipped with Suitcase pre-amp and speakers,
this makes it sound the same as a Suitcase piano.See
the Rhodes Supersite here for more
details on this amazing instrument.
Bill came by the Fender- Rhodes earlier
than all the others. As Harold Rhodes, the instrument’s inventor
explains liner notes for the pianist’s 1970 release “From
Left to Right”:
"The
ultimate vindication for a lifetime of effort spent in the development
of a new musical i instrument is the thrill of hearing it respond
to the deft and sensitive touch of such an artist as Bill Evans.
I have experienced that thrill in this album. Bill Evans is certainly
the musician’s musician; the pianist’s pianist.
I was impressed by the peculiar way in which I first came to know
this man. It was at a quiet dinner some years ago, in the home
of the well known piano stylist, Eddie Higgins. I was there primarily
to hear some of his latest recordings. After about an hour he
interrupted the proceedings with the question -- Did I know Bill
Evans? I confessed my ignorance, whereupon he announced that he
was the fountainhead of all his inspiration.
What followed was certainly the most memorable evening of exposure
to pure artistry that I have ever experienced. With this as a
background, one can well imagine my feelings when, years later,
I received a phone call from this same Bill Evans, asking is he
could use one of my instruments for an upcoming album. With this
album this album becomes a reality."
The
From Left to Right album, it can be argued, is the least
“jazz” album of all those Evans recorded. Some have even
equated it to a sort of “Muzak” record, but this perhaps
is a bit unfair. Yes, it more commercial an offering than almost
all the other Evans releases (like the unfortunate 1963 “V.I.P.”
Theme” album from 1963). And yes, there are the often saccharine
string arrangements behind Bill’s mellow Rhodes right hand
and the Steinway left hand. However, there is the laid back, melodic
simplicity and soloing on some tunes like Lullaby For Helene
and Why Did I Choose You, yet there remains a pianistic
integrity, and a cautious maturity in the use of the electric piano.
It’s in the phrasing; the way Bill made a melody sing, and
the sustaining bell-like quality of the Rhodes just adds to the
artistry. Arranger-Composer Michael Leonard (known best for a Broadway
show “The Yearling”) took Bill’s actual solo on the
bossa- nova track The Dolphin” and scored it for flutes, doubling
Evans’ original solo line. The pianist’s touch on this
and other tunes, makes this earlier ( and more hollow-sounding)
Rhodes sing beautifully, and yet with a certain percussiveness.
(The only way to truly appreciate this record is to hear the CD
reissue, and some of the tracks without the string arrangements,
as well as the alternate takes. It is far more satisfying than the
original 1970 release)
Bill’s next record, “The Bill Evans Album”, also
featured the electric piano prominently and was his first for Columbia
Records. All the selections were Evans’ own compositions, and
he won two Grammies for it. (See my review of that album here) Some
critics denigrated Bill for playing the Rhodes, calling it ‘gimmicky’
and worse, being that he had such an identifiable touch on the “acoustic”
piano, and almost single-handedly pioneered a new approach to the
piano’s tonal vocabulary from the late fifties on. Yet, one
listen to “Comrade Conrad” on that record, for example,
shows Evans being quite attentive to the Rhodes sonorities. Listen
to how he subtly moves from piano to the Rhodes during the bass
solo. He spaces the chords on the last few bars of Gomez’ solo,
sustaining on top and playing staccato on the bottom. The tune alternates
3/4 and 4/4 for each chorus, so when it reaches the 3/4 chorus Bill
adds short little two-measure melodic figures, followed by displaced
chords in a kind of dreamy dissolve. His voicings are economical
here, so he’s obviously using chordal constraints on the electric
that he doesn’t on the acoustic. Marty Morrell’s cymbal
swishes usher in the outgoing chorus, and the transition back to
the Steinway is quite dramatic and just feels so right.
On the album’s reworking
of “Waltz For Debby”, Bill starts on the acoustic piano
in the key of A major, adding superb newly reworked harmonies to
his original conception, until modulating down to F major, where
tempo begins, as he reiterates the theme on the Rhodes, using little
fragments of it, in short phrases. This change adds new and playful
colors to his well-known signature tune.
Others came down hard on Evans by comparing his use of the Rhodes
to that of Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Joe Zawinul -- three
superb jazz pianists who each had a very distinctive Rhodes sound.
Each of them is from the generation after Bill, each first played
it in groups led by Miles Davis, and each took the Rhodes far more
seriously than did Bill.. Each also was far more conscious of the
sonic possibilities of the studio and new recording techniques than
Evans was. Corea developed a sparkling, percussive, and far more
personal style on the Rhodes on such recordings as Light as a Feather
and the Return to Forever album on (what was then) Polydor Records.
The instrument was (wisely) recorded with a somewhat thinner, more
distant and less 'midrange-y' sound than anything Bill did, and
Chick’s personal style of Latin-infused, percussive, rhythmic
playing was perfect for the Rhodes. In the early seventies, his
group, including the Brazilian talents of Airto Moriera and Flora
Purim, was doing it’s high energy Spanish-tinged tunes --this
was before the harder jazz-rock fusion of RTF.
Herbie Hancock preferred a more mellow, stereo-vibrato sound that
enhanced his rich chordal sonorities, often creating beautiful colors
and textures, yet within the context of his emerging R&B- funk
style. Herbie’s work on the Rhodes was inventive and original,
and he recorded extensively on it well into the eighties. Around
this time, Joe Zawinul had inaugurated the first edition of Weather
Report with fellow Miles alumni Wayne Shorter, and was far more
interested in the electronic tonal possibilities of the Rhodes,
as well as his pioneering work with early synthesizers such as the
ARP 2600 and the Prophet 5. Zawinul added phase shifter, ring modulator,
fuzz pedals and other electronic devices -- primitive accessories
by today’s standards -- to the Rhodes, creating new tonal possibilities
for his electric soundscapes. But none of the the three were playing
straight ahead jazz on the Rhodes piano as Evans was, so these comparisons
by some critics were basically unfair. But the aforementioned post-bop
players like Flanagan and Walton were doing just that on the Rhodes,
perhaps at the suggestion of their record companies, or simply because
it was just so ubiquitous in those heady days of experimentation
and innovation. The results were mixed. Other pianists who were
comfortable in both straight ahead jazz as well as funk, like George
Duke and Joe Sample (with the Crusaders) also produced some fine
work playing the electric piano with their own very distinctive
sound.
But why Bill Evans? Let me first explain what he told me when I
visited his NJ home in 1978-79. (I was in my mid- twenties at this
time, and Bill had purchased a home in my parents home town) We
discussed the then-controversial topic of electric keyboards in
jazz, and Bill told me that younger pianists like myself “grew
up with electric music and were more accustomed to hearing that
kind of sound” in rock and rhythm and blues music. He felt
it was far more of a natural cultural progression for younger players
to want to gravitate toward the newer electric keyboards. He also
told me (as he was to say in many interviews) that he liked the
Rhodes only occasionally, but considered it only “an auxiliary”
to the piano. This was similar to what he told Downbeat magazine
in June 1980: “I’m of a certain period, a certain evolution.
I hear music differently. I mean, as for me, comparing electric
bass with acoustic bass is a sacrilege. Maybe I’m just of another
generation. ..[electric piano ] is just limited. You couldn’t
put it in the same universe as the acoustic piano.” In the
same article, we hear his frustrations in trying to find a decent
one at NYC instrument rental shop. Yet despite these misgivings,
he recorded with the Rhodes on no less than five studio albums,
and a “live” one (Montreaux III).
Evans’
next project for Columbia Records, and with electric piano, was
the controversial Living Time. As Bill himself acknowledged,
it was pretty much composer- arranger George Russell’s record,
with Bill as featured soloist. He had done a few recordings with
Russell back in the fifties, and the two remained friends since.
Much has been written about the incongruities of Russell’s
revolutionary avant-garde musical constructs paired with Evans’
more conservative tonal concept --and how they meshed, or didn’t
mesh, as the case may be. With its unconventional groupings of orchestral
players, and use of rock rhythms and instrumentation, suffice it
to say that it is for many, a difficult album to listen to. It also
caused fans of the pianist to write letters to Bill, stating their
displeasure, and warning that they would stop buying his albums.
(See Pettinger. pp.211-212). Bill alternates between the Rhodes
and the Steinway, but generally the keyboards are recorded more
distantly in the mix, and though Bill plays well, the performance
of both doesn’t merit much comment. It seems that as a performer,
Bill Evans on this record comes off as almost subsidiary to the
Living Time composition itself.
The
next intended recording for Columbia was a January 20, 1973 trio
performance in Japan, but the label passed on it, and Evans’
association with Columbia was over. Manager Helen Keane negotiated
a new contract with Fantasy Records, which released it as “The
Tokyo Concert”. Another live recording, this time at the Village
Vanguard (“Since We Met”) then followed, and it wasn’t
until the “Symbiosis” album with veteran composer- arranger
Claus Ogerman begun in February 1974, that Evans once again returned
to the Fender Rhodes.
Symbiosis is abeautiful
and vastly overlooked album in Evans’ prolific canon, yet one
that needs to be seriously reckoned with. Ogerman, who had worked
with Bill on two previous albums in 1963 and in 1965 (Bill Evans
With Symphony Orchestra) , composed an adventurous and often
hauntingly gorgeousl work in two parts. In the third section of
the first movement, working over a slow and gentle jazzy swing,
Bill plays long and fast- moving lines on electric piano that catch
your ear with their shimmering beauty and complexity. Ogerman writes
lush but never maudlin strings (and a few flutes) here in dense,
often whole-tone and poly-chordal fashion underneath -- creating
a perfect cushion for the pianist’s swirling right-hand lines.
The Rhodes fits in well here, as it does sparingly in and out through
Symbiosis’ framework. It is often used as punctuation at the
end of a written ensemble phrase, or as an ensemble texture. Evans’
choices as to when to use the Rhodes or the Steinway are wise indeed,
and not without great sensitivity, integrating seamlessly within
the composition. Claus Ogerman as composer-arranger succeeds marvelously
here with a work of great harmonic expression and rhythmic interest
that showcases Evans’ lyrical expression and his obviously
inherent classical strengths, yet within a composition that represents
much of what jazz is about. (Ogerman would later do the same for
tenor sax virtuoso Michael Brecker for his Cityscape album.)
If we consider the aural comparisons to the other albums Bill did
with orchestral accompaniment, it is far and away the most superior
achievement, and may represent his best use of the electric keyboard
in context. “Symbiosis” is far too important to be neglected
as often as it has when jazz writers discuss Bill Evans albums.
As biographer Keith Shadwick noted: “Evans brings to the work
the consummate artistry and sensitivity that occurs when he is stretched
and stimulated. His rubato playing in the opening and second movement
sometimes alone, sometimes in unison with the strings, is both moving
and immensely accomplished in a way that few jazz or classical pianists
could have countenanced."
This brings us to Intuition,
the 1975 duo album with Eddie Gomez. The Rhodes is now used prominently
for solos, and even whole tunes like Bill’s own “Show-Type
Tune”. In Peter Pettinger’s excellent Evans biography,
his brief discussion of the album misses the mark somewhat, and,
it can be argued, his background as a professional classical pianist
less familiar with jazz idioms colors his observations regarding
Bill and the electric piano. He states:
“The grand piano has developed in parallel with the European
classical repertoire that was the source of Evans’s dense harmonic
language.”
On the face of it, this is debatable, since in addition to Bill’s
formal classical piano education, he also spent many of his formative
years playing in in dance bands and small pop groups -- as well
as absorbing Bird, Nat Cole, Charlie Parker,Teddy Wilson, George
Shearing, Bud Powell et al. As might be expected, Mr. Pettinger
seems to be far too stern in his appraisal of the tools Bill used,
and the music he was surrounded with, and the fact that Evans spent
countless hours studying and playing these styles. In explaining
the swirly phased sound of the Rhodes on Intuition, Pettinger is
mistaken also in calling it “a trick on the Fender-Rhodes shown
to him by engineer Don Cody...” Having owned one myself and
used it extensively back on the seventies, I can tell you that what
was connected to the instrument was a little device called the Maestro
Phase Shifter. The short-lived electronic company Mutron also made
one, (pianist George Duke was, in fact an early endorser in their
in ads in Downbeat at the time) and offered various electronic “sound
boxes” such as the Stereo Chorus. These accoutrements -- the
wah-wah pedals and all the rest, were all the rage in those heady
days. Rhodes players were hooking up these sound- modifying units
all the time. Fantasy engineer Don Cody commented that the phase-
shifter was already connected to the Rhodes in the studio from a
previous session when recording for Intuition began in
November 1974 -- and Bill just went with it. It is the same sound
on all tracks every time the Rhodes is played. Less fortunate is
the fact that a simple click of the on-off switch on the phase-
shifter before a take may have given a different sound to various
tunes. But apparently neither the engineer, the artist nor the producer
were too concerned about it. Nonetheless, it produced an often thick,
syrupy sonority on the recording when combined, as it is, with the
Rhodes stereo vibrato effect. The result is sometimes fun, as Bill
seems to dart in and out of the left and right channels. The sound
seemed to work most effectively on Ellington’s “Blue Serge”,
where Evans sustains the tune’s longer notes in the right hand,
while comping with the left hand on piano. He phrases this way in
his solo too, with great effect. His “Are You All the Things”
(a reworking, of course of Kern’s “All The Things You
Are”) scampers along swingingly, though Bill’s comping
for the bass solos is spare and careful; his touch very light and
cautious. Though somewhat disparaging sentiments were sometimes
expressed about Bill’s choice of the Rhodes, he thought it
all to be “kind of fun”, and although it can be occasionally
a distraction, none of it takes away from the almost telepathic
camaraderie and musical chemistry of the Evans-Gomez duo. They had
been together eight years by the time of this album, and whether
Bill is on electric or acoustic piano, their uncanny interplay shows
brilliantly throughout this most satisfying session.
-- Jan Stevens is the webmaster of The Bill Evans Webpages,
and a professional pianist and piano teacher.
