Product Description

This collection includes for the first time on commercial video Bill Evans renditions of the rarely performed or recorded Sareen Jurer, Blue Serge and Twelve Tone Tune Two. Bill Evans performs with four different rhythm sections - all of which are excellent - including the stunning duo of bassist Neils-Henning Orsted Pedersen and drummer Alan Dawson.
Among the many surprises in this collection is a live performance of My Melancholy Baby by Bill Evans and saxophonist Lee Konitz.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19100 in DVD
• Brand: Evans
• Released on: 2008-09-30
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Best of, Color, Dolby, DVD, Live, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Jazz Times Magazine
Jazz Icons is doing for jazz what the Criterion Collection has done for classic and important films.

Newsweek Magazine
The sound quality is first rate, and the performances are extraordinary.

The News & Observer, Owen Cordle, November 2008
Thanksgiving weekend marks 40 years since the Bill Evans Trio, with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell, appeared at Raleigh's Frog and Nightgown. The pianist's "Live '64-'75," part of the third group of Jazz Icons DVD releases, arrives just in time for the anniversary.

Tracks recorded in 1970 in Denmark and Sweden capture the personnel from the Frog gig. The bassist and drummer on the other tracks include Chuck Israels and Larry Bunker (Sweden, '64), Neils-Henning Orsted Pedersen and Alan Dawson (France, '65) and Gomez and Eliot Zigmund (Denmark, '75).

Evans' trios were the antithesis of show biz. Evans, with head bowed, rarely looked up from the keys. Bass and drums were all business, all interplay. Evans was the most romantic of pianists. His harmonies have affected almost every jazz pianist since the late '50s. And if you were lucky enough to have been a teenage jazz fan and first heard him then, your harmonic sensitivity was set for life.

Highlights of the disc include "Detour Ahead" ('65) and "Alfie" and two swinging, technically brilliant versions of "Someday My Prince Will Come" (all from '70). The third group of Jazz Icons also features discs by Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, Lionel Hampton, Nina Simone, Oscar Peterson and Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

Customer Reviews

A great collection of Bill Evans footage
Just finished watching this dvd and it is a great collection of material spanning 11 years. I'm just a casual jazz fan and not a musician so I cannot make any relevant remarks on the actualy playing but I have been a fan of Bill Evans for a couple years now and thoroughly enjoyed the performances. The first 3 performances are in black and white with the last two performances in color.

Overall, the sound and video are great. The France footage is grainy but doesn't detract from the performance at all. My only gripe would be the Sweden footage. This one is a bit grainy (which doesn't bother me in the slightest) but whoever directed this decided to include random footage clipped into the performance. You'll be watching the trio perform and then you're watching a woman walk down a city sidewalk, back to the trio, then there is a closeup of a aluminum can on a sidewalk, back to the trio, then you're watching out of focus car lights on a street at night, etc.

I would highly recommend this vdvd to any Bill Evans fan or anyone interested in him. Getting to watch five shows from an eleven year span with different trios makes this dvd worth purchasing without any second thought.

Sweden September 29, 1964
1. My Foolish Heart
2. Israel

Chuck Israels (bass) , Larry Bunker (drums)

France 1965
3. Detour Ahead
4. My Melancholy Baby (with Lee Konitz on alto sax)

Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (bass), Alan Dawson (drums)

Denmark 1970
5. Emily
6. Alfie
7. Someday My Prince Will Come

Eddie Gomez (bass) , Marty Morrell (drums)

Sweden February 20, 1970
8. If You Could See Me Now
9. 'Round Midnight
10. Someday My Prince Will Come
11. Sleepin' Bee
12. You're Gonna Hear From Me
13. Re: Person I Knew

Eddie Gomez (bass) , Marty Morrell (drums)

Denmark 1975
14. Sareen Jurer
15. Blue Serge
16. Up With The Lark
17. But Beautiful
18. Twelve Tone Tune Two

Eddie Gomez (bass) , Eliot Zigmund (drums)

An indispensable DVD for jazz pianists
I am on the outer edge of jazz fans and pianists, being now over 70 and with a 65 year experience of playing the piano. I have been playing and analysing Bill's music for over forty of those years. Recently my enthusiasm for practising has fallen off but this DVD has fired me up again. I have all his commercially published CDs, transcriptions and videos but this DVD brings me closer to his magical mastery than anything else. It is really the icing on the cake of my BE collection. In this DVD his sad personal life is mirrored in his playing and in his dress. This DVD gives us some idea of how he must have looked and played on the Vanguard sessions but also hints at the growing aggression of the cocaine-driven later years. As a pianist and a life-long jazz fan he is my hero and this DVD makes me realise that he deserves to be. Nothing can detract from his achievement.

Outstanding!
If you're even a casual fan of Bill Evans, you've got to pick this up. The film quality ranges from decent to very good; the sound is uniformly fantastic, with kudos, once again, to the folks at Reelin' In The Years for their considerable efforts on that front; and Evans's playing shines throughout. This is really something special.