On An Overgrown Path

Milestone Record’s extraordinary 8 CD set ‘ Bill Evans Trio the last waltz’ was recorded on eight successive evenings at Keystone Korner in North Beach, San Francisco in September 1980. Just thirty-two different compositions are featured in the nine hours of music, and nine of those are Bill Evans (right) originals. This is literally music making on the brink. Miles Davis’ Nardis makes five obsessive appearances. Several of these include epic piano solos, and the longest Nardis cut lasts for seven seconds short of twenty minutes. Evans knew he was on the edge, and he wanted to leave his definitive version of Nardis before he went over. The final Keystone session was on September 8th 1980. Seven days later Evans was dead from the effects of cocaine dependency. It is a mark of the importance of Bill Evans that Gyorgy Ligeti cited him as one of the influences on his seminal Etudes for solo piano. The other eclectic influences credited by Ligeti are traditional African music, th...

A recent CD took me down a really rewarding overgrown path . Carol Lian (photo right) is an East Coast based pianist who has been associated for some time with the Composer's Theatre of the New School for Social Research. This school became known in the late 1930's as the "University in Exile" due to the many refugees from Nazi Germany who were either on the staff or student body. During the early '40s the luminaries teaching there included the musicians Hanns Eisler , Otto Klemperer , George Szell , Jascha Horenstein , Rudolph Kolisch, and the theatre directors Erwin Piscator , Herbert Graf , as well as many economists, sociologists, writers and psychologists who went on to become highly influential in their fields. Later Aaron Copland was another distinguished name on the faculty. The very first track on Carol Lian Plays told me that this was going to be an interesting journey. For this, her first CD release, Ms. Lian opens (and closes) with mood setting i...

Improvisation is a recurring thread on An Overgrown Path. Keith Jarrett is already well woven into the postings, and the colossus of Bill Evans (whose influence reaches as far as Gyorgy Ligeti ) awaits. But today it is the turn of jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani. First, let's get the obvious out of the way. Osteogenesis Imperfecta, the so-called "glass bones" disease meant that Michel Petrucciani grew to just three feet tall, weighed a mere fifty pounds, and was left fatally vulnerable to illness, resulting in his death in 1999 at the age of just thirty seven. He made his impact before making allowances for those with disabilities quite rightly became the norm.But Michel Petrucciani needed no compromises, he was a giant of the keyboard in everything except stature. He was born in the land of the Gods, provence, to a French mother and Sicilain jazz pianist fatehr. Like Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, who he is often compared to, Petrucciani had a classical training, and h...

Back in January 2005 I wrote about legendary jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani (right), and that article remains high in my 'popular pages' listing after fifteen months. Since writing that piece Overgrown Path reader Andrew Nathan and I have been tracking down Petrucciani video footage, and just this week Andrew came up with an absolute gem that is available free on Google video. In my original article I wrote that Michel Petrucciani was a 'pianistic genius' , and it is no coincidence that he is buried in the Pierre Lachaise cemetery in Paris alongside Chopin. This 38 minute video with excellent sound (and a bonus guest appearance from the gorgeous Charlotte Rampling ) is not just essential viewing for jazz fans, it should be watched by all students of the piano - whatever their discipline. Just click here to view this important document. (The video is not hosted by On An Overgrown Path , this is a link to an external site). And to set the video into context here is m...

That is Michel Petrucciani in the photo; he made his first appearance On An Overgrown Path eleven years ago and in 2016 I derived many hours of listening pleasure from the 7 CD anthology Michel Petrucciani: The Blue Note Albums . Despite suffering from the genetic disorder bone disorder osteogenensis imperfecta which limited his height to 3' 0" [ 0.91 m ], Michel Petrucciani became a renowned jazz pianist. Originally influenced by Bill Evans and to a lesser extent Keith Jarrett, he went on to develop his own unique voice - watch a full length concert video via this link . Michel Petrucciani died in 1999 aged just 36 and is buried alongside Frederic Chopin in Paris' Père Lachaise cemetery. Michel Petrucciani's resting place acknowledges the close links between jazz and classical music, and there are notable examples of the influence of jazz. George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was originally commissioned for solo piano and jazz band by Paul Whiteman, and on...

Big thank you to Serenade in Green for noticing that György Ligeti was not the only contemporary composer influenced by Bill Evans . Now see some more gorgeous, and original, album covers here. Undercurrents by Bill Evans and guitarist Jim Hall was first released on a Blue Note LP in 1963. Osvaldo Golijov's Oceana was released by Deutsche Grammophon in July 2007. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The five seconds of silence that precede the music on any ECM album may be the most important statement a record company could make. The pause is a recognition that music exists within silence; only by acknowledging it can a listener become wholly involved. Manfred Eicher is the author of that silence, and of the silence that appears to surround all the recordings produced on his remarkable label. The quality of that silence is intended to lead us towards a heightened awareness, a contemplative state where we are encouraged to listen harder and more acutely to the music, and to the spaces between it. When he was asked, almost forty years after founding ECM, if he had any patterns or models in mind when he started the label, Eicher's answer was straightforward: "A very good model, all the time, was for for me the sound of Miles' Kind of Blue and Bill Evans, how he sounded there". Richard Willams writes in The Blue Moment , a new book which seems to have slipped under...

Theme From M*A*S*H (AKA Suicide Is Painless ) is on Bill Evans' classic 1981 solo LP You Must Believe In Spring . In 2009 you must believe in hype. More on the late, great Bill Evans here . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Organ loft view of yesterday's gig at Wymondham Abbey by 2010 Mercury Music Prize nominees and musical hot property the Kit Downes Trio . All three young musicians are graduates of the Royal Academy of Music and pianist/composer Kit Downes acknowledges jazz musicians including Bill Frisell and Skip James among his influences as well as Béla Bartók . At last night's concert Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans were also there in the mix, at which point paths converge as György Ligeti cited Evans as an influence on his Etudes for piano . Last night's concert was the first live music that I have heard since my recent illness ; it sounded quite magnificent and I can recommend hospitalisation as a very effective form of ear-candling . Wymondham Abbey, which dates from the 12th century, is now a High Anglican church and the exuberant reredos in the former Benedictine Abbey was designed in 1913 by the Gothic Revival architect Sir Ninian Comper . Wymondham Music Festival continues...

'I was recently running a jazz workshop in a primary school in London. I asked the children how jazz music made them feel and one of them said, 'it feels like I've got blue electricity in my tummy' . Jazz pianist and composer Pete Letanka writes in the sleeve notes of his first CD Afrostocracy . Pete Letanka is one hell of a jazz pianist, and Afrostocracy has spent a fair amount of time in my CD player since it arrived in the post a few days ago. Two Letanka compositions are coupled with ten standards in straight but tight treatments. Letanka's hero is Oscar Peterson and it shows, but Bill Evans fans will find a lot to savour here as well. He may work at Aldeburgh and Glyndebourne , but Pete Letanka can also make Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson swing. The final cut of the Letanka Trio's take on Brian Wilson's God Only Knows is the standout. Read about Pete Letanka at Aldeburgh here. And while we are on the subject of blue electricity and great tunes le...

Two of the compositions introduced on 'Brubeck plays Brubeck' are now recognized as jazz standards: They have been recorded and performed many times by many different artists, most notably by Miles Davis with Gil Evans' orchestral arrangements and by Bill Evans solo piano . My publisher has informed me that at last count there were over 60 different versions of 'In Your Own Sweet Way' recorded by various jazz artists. 'The Duke ,' which might be the first jazz composition to have the bass line go through all 12 notes of the musical scale in the first 8 bars, has been a challenge for many musicians. My original title for the piece was 'The Duke Meets Darius Milhaud' . Dave Brubeck writes in his supplementary 1998 note for the CD release of ' Brubeck plays Brubeck' . Dave Brubeck was a pupil of Darius Milhaud, as were Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Karlheinz Stockhausen. They all put in an appearance in On the path of Stockhausen's teach...

Fascinating but chance convergence of genres in that 1962 album by jazz legend  Bill Evans . The model on the cover artwork is Christa Päffgen. Better known by her stage name of Nico , she had roles in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita  (1960) and Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls  (1966). At Warhol's instigation she sang on the Velvet Underground's 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico . Nico went on to a successful solo career before dying tragically young in Ibiza in 1988.  In the intervening years moonbeam has become a portmateau word. A Google search for 'Moonbeam' reveals that "Moonbeam is an Ethereum -compatible smart contract platform on the Polkadot network that makes it easy to build natively interoperable applications... the Ethereum compatibility allows developers to deploy existing Solidity smart contracts and dApp frontends to Moonbeam with minimal changes".  Listening again to Bill Evan's sublime album with its inspired...

Bill Evans was born on 16 August, 1929. Read why he was more than a jazz pianist in Ligeti's Etudes fit the Bill . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

...when committed to the sublime sounds of Tomás Luis de Victoria. Ninety of Victoria's sacred works in acclaimed recordings by Ensemble Plus Ultra directed by Michael Noone can currently be bought in a 10 CD Archiv box for the suicidal price of £27 in beleaguered HMV stores in the UK. Suicide is Painless aka Song from M*A*S*H is a personal favourite on Bill Evan's album You Must Believe in Spring . And that mention of Bill Evans takes us from Tomás Luis de Victoria to György Ligeti . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

A new online and UK digital radio jazz station launched on Christmas Day. Playing bepop to contemporary, theJazz is coming from the same stable as Classic FM. With 6.3 million listeners Classic FM is the UK's most successful commercial station, and the audience grabbed by its its smooth classics format has been a major factor in the dumbing down of BBC Radio 3. If theJazz follows Classic FM's easy listening formula it isn't going to push the envelope too far. But let's give it the benefit of the doubt. You can listen via this link , and to be totally cool theJazz is offering some free downloads until January 2nd. They include Bill Evans , John Coltrane and Miles Davis , just follow this link. Now push the envelope a little more with A jazz supreme. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missi...

If you are gay , black or female the good news is your chances of making it big in classical music are definitely improving. But the bad news is if you are the wrong side of 40 your chances of hitting the big time are not looking so good. Institutionalised age discrimination in classical music has been around for a long time. One of the most famous examples was the forced retirement of Sir Adrian Boult from the position of Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra when he reached the BBC's mandatory retirement age of 60 in 1949. But more insidious is the underground age discrimination that is now starting to appear. To get a buzz going about new classical talent they must be under 40, sport an iPhone and be on Facebook , play uptown venues without seats, and have hip-hop remixes on YouTube . The problem is all due to classical music's obsession with attracting younger audiences. (I wonder if rock musicians spend their time obsessing over how to attract older audiences?...

Dylan is cool and Simon and Garfunkel are not. But in the days when file sharing meant copying LPs onto reel to reel tape the folk duo were most definitely cool. I still cannot listen to Old Friends on CD without missing the wow and flutter from the Elizabethan 1/4 inch tape machine that was my student equivalent of an MP3 player. Much wow of a very different kind on the free jazz improvisations on Paul Simon's Old Friends by pianist Marc Copland and his five piece band on the 2003 CD above. Other masters who receive the improvisation treatment include Miles Davis/Bill Evans, Charlie Parker and Herbie Hancock. Next to my CD player is a shelf where I keep music I return to time after time: there are seven Marc Copland discs there. Marc Copland And.. is on the Swiss label Hat Hut Records which also brought us Lou Harrison's Fifth Simfony (yes, that's right) for percussion. Also on Facebook and Twitter . Marc Copland And... was bought at retail. Report broken links, ...

Went to hear the Bobo Stenson Trio (left) in Norwich last night. Technically wonderful but curiously uninvolving music. They are one of a growing number of identikit jazz piano trios. They all come from Scandinavia, are all squeaky-clean superb musicians, all have ECM recording contracts, all play somewhere on a continuum between Bill Evans and free jazz, and all drink the same brand of mineral water between numbers.

Who touched more people's lives, Oscar Peterson or Karlheinz Stockhausen ? Not a rhetorical question, but one prompted by reading a fascinating book over the Christmas break. Both Peterson and Stockhausen were consumate musicians who created seminal works in the 1960s. Night Train was recorded in 1962 and Stimmung was composed in 1968. But they were polar opposites in their approach to music making, and they were polar opposites in their propensity to disturb people. White Heat, A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties by Dominic Sandbrook is a superbly researched social history which follows on from the author's survey of Britain in the 1950s . Sandbrook's central thesis is that 'the sixties are best understood not as a dramatic turning point, interrupting the course of the nation's history and sending it off in a radically new direction, but rather as a stage in a long evolution stretching back into the forgotten past'. His conclusion is echoed by a ...

My suggestion in a recent post that we are using a too narrow definition when discussing new audiences in particular and classical music in general leads me to Lalo Schifrin's Jazz Mass . In a Facebook comment on this thread Joshua Cheek astutely observed that "'crossover' is a dead end... it has become a genre unto itself". In crossover the imperative of the audience takes priority over the imperative of the music. But in the Jazz Mass art most definitely takes priority over audience despite Lalo Schifrin's reputation for acclaimed movie soundtracks . His Jazz Mass fearlessly challenges comfort zones: it incorporates contemporary modes, improvisation is a key feature and the Credo is aleatoric, with breathing cycles determining changes in vocal pitch and dynamics. The multifaceted and mystical flute virtuoso Paul Horn commissioned the Mass - which is sung in English - in 1964. His LP recording seen above, which was titled Jazz Suite on the Mass Tex...