If you tune into my David and Art Christmas Jazz show later this week, one of the tunes you’ll hear is a version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by pianist bill Evans.
Bill Evans is one of those players well known to the cognoscenti—often idolized—but whose name is pretty much unknown to the general public. But he was a remarkable player. I recommend him and his trio to your playlist.
Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey in August 1929. His mother, Mary, whose family name was Soroka, was a second-generation immigrant from the same ethnic national group as Andy Warhol. His father ran a golf course and was abusive and a heavy drinker.
Bill had an older brother with whom he was very close and who started taking piano lesson before Bill himself did, but once he started at age six, his musical talent was obvious. He could also play the flute and the violin.
He graduated high school in 1946 and went to Southeastern Louisiana University on a flute scholarship but soon switched all his musical attention to piano. On his senior recital in April 1950, he played Bach, Brahms, Chopin, and Beethoven. That summer, he landed a gig backing Billie Holiday on a three-month tour that took him to venues in Harlem, Baltimore, Philly, and Washington. That summer was also when North Korea invaded South Korea and the next year, Bill wound up drafted.
He was in the Army from 1951-54. He was stationed at Fort Sheridan, north of Chicago, where he played in the Army band and hosted a jazz show on the post radio station. He was generally unhappy though and carried a lot of trauma and insecurity from those years.
After he was discharged, he moved to New York City in 1955. It was a good time to be a player there. He fell in with a fellow pianist and composer there named George Russell. Two years before, Russell had published a groundbreaking book, writing about music theory that was rooted in jazz rather than in traditional western musical styles. Russell’s ideas were said to open the door to a kind of music called “modal jazz.”
Evans started playing gigs in Greenwich Village clubs, and one night at the Vanguard looked up from his piano to see Miles Davis watching him. Yikes. He recorded his debut album called New Jazz Conceptions in 1957. He had to be talked into it; at this point in his career he mostly wanted to be a sideman, not a leader. It didn’t sell too well.
Let’s carry his story on a little more next week.
