Gil Evans

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Gil Evans (left) with Ryō Kawasaki

Gil Evans (born May 13, 1912 as Ian Ernest Gilmore Green in Toronto , Ontario , † March 20, 1988 in Cuernavaca , Mexico ) was a Canadian jazz musician ( arranger , composer , band leader and pianist ); From 1940 to 1970 he was a major innovator in concert big band music in the styles of cool jazz , modal jazz , free jazz and jazz rock . Evans introduced orchestration as a new quality to jazz; For example, he has expanded the timbre spectrum of this music with changing combinations of unusual or unusual wood and brass instruments such as oboe , french horn and tuba . He became known in the 1940s for his arrangements in the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. His work with Miles Davis , which began with the Birth of the Cool sessions in 1949, culminated with orchestral productions such as Miles Ahead (1957) and Sketches of Spain (1960), which “most perfected the Miles Davis tone transformed into orchestral sound - into sound ”. His band projects from the 1970s, such as the Monday Night Orchestra with its sessions in the New York Club Sweet Basil and numerous European tours, brought him renewed attention .

Life

He was the son of Margaret Julia McConnachy, who had Irish-Scottish roots, and was born Ian Ernest Gilmore Green . She was married five times; her fourth husband, a Canadian doctor, was Gil's father, who died before Gil was born. He took over the family name Evans from his stepfather John A. Evans, a miner. During his childhood, the family moved to several times, first to Spokane in Washington State , then to Saskatchewan , Idaho , Montana , Oregon and finally to California , where she most recently in Stockton settled where Gil high school and college attended. It was there that he heard jazz music on the radio for the first time.

Gil Evans was a highly talented self-taught person ; he took the opportunity to play the piano with a school friend and to listen to the family's record collection. He discovered his weakness for jazz, especially for the music of Louis Armstrong . Other influences came from the Casa Loma Orchestra , the bands of Claude Hopkins and Don Redman and the early records by Duke Ellington . With friends from school he founded the first band in 1929 that played contemporary dance music and numbers like China Boy and Limehouse Blues . Gil's first arrangement was based on the then popular hit Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider in the version of Red Nichols and His Five Pennies.

Stockton, University of the Pacific, Burns Tower

After graduating from high school, Evans went to the College of the Pacific in September 1931 , to move to Modesto Junior College the following year, which opened up new opportunities for the first band to be formed; so in 1932 the Brigg Evans Band was formed with bassist Ned Briggs.

After first experiences with his own bands, membership in the Thornhill Orchestra and the years of World War II, which Evans spent in army bands, he lived and worked in New York from spring 1946 , where he married Lillian Grace in 1950. In the early 1950s, Evans lived with his wife Lillian at 345 West 45th Street in Midtown Manhattan, where many musicians lived. In the early 1960s, Evans began body-centered therapy with the Reichian therapist Carl Tropp (which ended unfinished after Tropp's death). In 1961 the couple separated; Evans then moved into an apartment on the Upper West Side on 86th Street, near Central Park . Through his Bud Powell friend Francis Paudras , he met the young African-American Anita Powell in October 1962, whom he married in spring 1963 and with whom he had sons Noah (* 1964) and Miles (* 1965).

In 1970, Evans and his family were one of the first tenants to move into the Westbeth Apartments, a Bell Laboratories facility on the Hudson River in the West Village that had been converted into lofts for artists . During the last trips Evans became ill in 1987; his doctor had tried unsuccessfully to talk him out of the Paris trip. After his return to the USA he performed again with a band at Sweet Basil; Evans looked tired. Finally, the further appearances were canceled for January 1988. When he finally had his exam in January, prostate cancer was diagnosed and routine surgery was performed at New York University Hospital. After this treatment, Evans felt very bad; the family decided that he should leave New York for recreation. Maxine and Dexter Gordon owned a vacation home in Cuernavaca, Mexico, with an extra bungalow, which Evans and his son Noah flew to in late February. He also brought a synthesizer and a number of arrangements that he hoped to work on; Another European tour was planned for May. But Gil Evans got peritonitis ; he died in the presence of his two sons, Noah and Miles.

Act

Start of career

At 21, Gil Evans had in 1933 a nine-piece band in Stockton, for which he wrote the arrangements modeled after the Casa Loma Orchestra and finally - unusual for dance bands - instruments like oboe , flute and English horn included.

Trumpeter Jimmy Maxwell recalls:

“Gil had a penchant for writing a ten-piece ensemble in such a way that it sounded like a twelve or thirteen-piece band. So the trombone should play the fourth saxophone part or one of the saxophonists would join the brass section so that we could create all kinds of timbres with the use of dampers. [...] "

In the winter of 1933 the first recordings were made for a local radio station; 1934/35 increased popularity gave them performance opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area ; in the summer of 1934 they had an engagement at a resort on Lake Tahoe . In his arrangements he now also incorporated influences from impressionist music by Ravel and Debussy as well as the Spaniard Manuel de Falla .

1936/37 he played with his band Gil Evans and His Youngsters in Balboa Beach, where they performed in the Rendevouz Ballroom and their concerts were broadcast on the radio; nevertheless the band was financially in a precarious situation. Evans recorded a band singer, Elizabeth Tilton, Martha Tilton's younger sister, in the summer of 1937 ; Vido Musso also came along . When a blizzard made it impossible for the Duke Ellington Orchestra to travel to Seattle, the Evans Orchestra stepped in; her appearance in the Trianon boosted her popularity on the west coast. Still, there were conflicts in the band as Evans demanded more rehearsal time for his arrangements. For lack of commercial ambitions, he finally left the band management to the band singer Skinnay Ennis in April 1938 , while he remained musical director. The band then appeared on Bob Hope's The Pepsodent Show (there are no recordings of the show). In autumn 1938 he had the opportunity to make his first recordings; for Victor Records he recorded the Johnny Mercer songs Garden of the Moon and The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish . At this time the pianist Claude Thornhill came as a further arranger in the band; when Thornhill left the group in the fall of 1939 to start his own formation, Evans followed him, but continued to work for Ennis. In February 1940, the new Thornhill band had their first appearances.

Claude Thornill, approx. 1947.
Photo Gottlieb .

Arranger at Claude Thornhill (1941–1948)

After initially loose collaboration in 1940, Thornhill Gil Evans hired when he had a successful engagement at Glen Island Casino on the east coast; Evans worked in 1941/42 and again after the Second World War from 1946 to 1948 as the arranger of current dance and entertainment pieces for the orchestra, which included Buster's Last Stand , There's a Small Hotel and I Don't Know Why . Evans used the instrumentation Thornhill had expanded to include French horn and tuba to create new, fuller and warmer timbres. There are already experimental approaches to his later chromatically broken harmonies (e.g. intro “La Paloma” on Adios ) or references to classical music such as Arab Dance (1942), which he took from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker .

Evans said: “At first sight the band's sound was almost like bringing music back to inactivity, to silence. Everything was moving at minimum speed to create sound ... The sound hung like a cloud. "

When the United States entered World War II , Thornhill's phase ended when most of his musicians were drafted into the military. Evans became the pianist of the HQ band of the Southern California Sector Headquarters and played on three radio shows a week, then in the spring of 1943 organized the army band at Camp Santa Anita , which also included the young pianist Jimmy Rowles . At Camp Lee Evans arranged a few battles of bands between Afro-American musicians from the former bands of Cab Calloway and Coleman Hawkins and the white musicians from Camp Santa Anita . Further stations were camps in Miami, Atlanta and Fort Gordon in Georgia , where he met Lester Young . Young's degrading treatment by the military made a deep impression on Evans, who smuggled whiskey, marijuana, and barbiturates for the saxophonist. In late December 1945, Evans was discharged from the army and decided to move to New York.

The post-war period (1946–1948)

From 1946 Gil Evans continued to work with Thornhill, who wanted to reorganize his orchestra. Thornhill and Evans encountered a crisis scenario (economic recession): Within a short time, many well-known and expensive white big bands of the swing era had to give up, such as the orchestras of Benny Goodman , Woody Herman , Harry James , Les Brown , Jack Teagarden and Tommy Dorsey . The black bands were able to hold up better because they only paid their musicians per performance.

Evans maintained an open-door style in his simple one-room basement apartment at 14 West 55th Street, which he had moved into in the summer of 1946 ; it was a discussion meeting point for musicians from the Thornhill band and musicians from the bebop scene, including: George Russell , Johnny Carisi , Louis Mucci , Jake Koven, Lee Konitz , Miles Davis , Charlie Parker , Gerry Mulligan , Jay Jay Johnson , Bill Barber , Al Haig , Max Roach , Kenny Clarke , John Lewis and others. am Evans, a good decade older than most of them, was in a way the musical mentor of this scene, and his apartment at the time was a kind of “creative kitchen” for the musicians who met there. In the absence of suitable premises, rehearsals were occasionally outdoors.

Evans took up the suggestions from 52nd Street in arrangements for Thornhill with Charlie Parker's Anthropology , Yardbird Suite or Charles Thompson's Robbin’s Nest and merged the fiery bebop with the restrained sound of the Thornhill orchestra, which was not commercially successful, but with musicians- Colleagues noticed, especially Miles Davis:

“Davis expressed his admiration for Evans' work early and often - Thornhill's music was the link. In 1947, and especially in 1948, the friendship and working relationship of this strange couple grew, one 36, the other 22, one white, the other black; both were interested in fusing different styles and influences to expand the breadth of their expression. The musical connections and personal friendship between the two then lasted forty years, until Evans' death in 1988. "

In 1948 Evans gave up arranging work for Thornhill when his sound ideas were too gloomy ('somber'); he was succeeded by George Russell .

Birth of the Cool (1948-1950)

Davis in the mid-1950s

With Lewis, Mulligan, John Carisi and George Russell, Evans worked on new sound concepts from the spring of 1948, and Miles Davis was soon included. With the end of the Thornhill band, former musicians such as Konitz, Mulligan, Joe Shulman , Sandy Siegelstein and Bill Barber had the opportunity to put their musical ideas into practice in a rehearsal band, in which Miles Davis soon emerged as director, as he was responsible for the performance possibilities of the Nonets worried.

In September 1948 Davis managed to play with the nonet for some appearances at the Royal Roost jazz club , some of which were also broadcast on the radio; Symphony Sid announced the performance as "Impressions in Modern Music". Capitol's new musical director Pete Rugolo , who was new to New York, was curious about new developments in modern jazz and wanted to present them on his label; he attended almost every concert of the Davis Nonet. When the band stopped rehearsing for lack of further appearances, he was able to convince the Capitol management to sign Davis for twelve sides of the record.

Half of the arrangements came from Mulligan, the rest from John Lewis, John Carisi and Evans (his under the pseudonym Cleo Henry with Davis composed "Boplicity" and Johnny Mercer's "Moon Dreams"). Outside of musical circles, the recordings only received due attention later as the LP Birth of the Cool (1957).

Evans as a freelance musician (1950–1956)

Charlie Parker with Tommy Potter, Miles Davis, Max Roach around 1947, photo Gottlieb .

Evans now worked as a freelance arranger for radio and television shows, as well as for well-known singing stars such as Tony Bennett , Peggy Lee , Pearl Bailey and others. a. he also arranged for the short-lived big band of former Thornhill singer Gene Williams . 1950/51 he was a pianist in a strip club; from 1952 he played for a while as a pianist with Mulligan at the Club Basin Street East and arranged for Billy Butterfield (Singin 'the Blues) . In 1953 Charlie Parker wanted to make a recording in the style of Paul Hindemith's Kleiner Kammermusik - with several woodwinds, a vocal group and a rhythm section. His producer Norman Granz selected Evans, who, under time pressure, arranged several tracks that were to be recorded with a studio ensemble with vocalists Dave Lambert and Annie Ross as well as Charles Mingus and Max Roach . However, the session was disastrous and was prematurely broken off by Norman Granz, as the musicians were overwhelmed with Evans' "subtle" arrangements and no time was scheduled for previous rehearsals; only three tracks were recorded ("In the Still of the Night", "Old Folks" and "If I Love Again"). Evans did not manage to establish himself as a studio arranger during this time. In early 1956 he got George Avakian , producer at Columbia Records , to arrange some pieces for the debut album by Johnny Mathis . In the same year he arranged the standard You Go to My Head for Teddy Charles , wrote and orchestrated two tracks for Hal McKusick's RCA Jazz Workshop and recorded the album Dream of You with singer Helen Merrill , with a jazz combo, brass section and strings. It was the first album that Evans had completely arranged.

Working with Miles Davis

In 1955 Evans was for Miles Davis 'quintet Monks " ' Round Midnight arranged", was not mentioned on the album cover. From 1957 there was also officially another deepened collaboration after George Avakian had approached him to record an orchestral album for Columbia. The album Miles Ahead was recorded in large cast ; under the band name "Miles Davis + 19" Davis played flugelhorn as a soloist, surrounded by five trumpets, four trombones, two french horns, tuba, four flutes / clarinets, double bass, drums - and Evans as composer, arranger and conductor. "For the first time since Duke Ellington we are confronted with a kind of big band arranging that is logical and makes use of the innumerable possibilities of such a group", André Hodeir enthused about the music on Miles Ahead in 1957 . "The album broke new ground in various respects, although the musical and tonal innovations are now common places." In a loose stylistic connection to the 1957 records Birth Of The Cool , Round About Midnight and Miles Ahead , successful albums were created with critics and audiences, which Evans 'and Davis' names widely established: Porgy and Bess (1958) and Sketches of Spain ( 1960), inspired by old folk tunes up to Rodrigo's “Concierto de Aranjuez” . What contemporary composers like Stravinsky or Gershwin had tried before, Evans' works from this period actually presented - a fusion of classical and modern jazz inspired by composers like Manuel de Falla , Rodrigo, Delibes, Debussy and Ravel, “a novelty in this one Time, decades before the record industry hooked up with world music ”.

In May 1961 he performed with his orchestra and Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall on, recorded for the Columbia album Miles at Carnegie Hall . From July 1962, Davis made the somewhat dragging recordings of Quiet Nights (1963): These were Evans 'and Davis' processing of Spanish impressions and the Brazilian bossa nova , which conquered the USA from 1963, especially after the hit successes of Stan Getz . The album is considered the "stepchild" of the Evans Davis productions and is the last album together. - Finally, while Davis was already concentrating on a new quintet in 1963, incidental music for Peter Barnes' The Time of the Barracudas was created in October as a joint commission ; however, the play never made it to Broadway.

In early 1968 he worked again with Davis ("Teo's Bag", with George Benson ); Another work was Falling Water , "an improvised work with electrical instrumentation and a flowing, rock-inspired rhythm." In April 1968 Evans and Davis appeared together for the first time since their Carnegie Hall concert in 1961; they played three new Evans arrangements, an Indian raga, Aretha Franklin's hit You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman and Wayne Shorter's Antigua at the Berkeley Jazz Festival . With Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968) the collaboration between Gil Evans and Miles Davis temporarily ended; his arrangements and compositional parts for this Davis album remain anonymous. Most recently, Evans contributed arrangements for two tracks ( It Get's Better and Stars on Cicely ) from Davis's Star People album in 1982 .

The Gil Evans Orchestra

Elvin Jones (1977)

From 1957 Gil Evans produced the album Gil Evans and Ten for the first time in twenty years with his own band for Prestige , among the musicians also Lee Konitz and the young Steve Lacy . It is regarded as the 'prelude' to a development which was completed in the following years with the albums Out of the Cool and The Individualism of Gil Evans . First, however, two more albums New Bottle, Old Wine - The Great Jazz Composers Interpreted by Gil Evans and His Orchestra (produced by George Avakian for Pacific Jazz in April-May 1958, including with Cannonball Adderley ), in which he chronologically describes jazz history interpreted by WC Handy , Jelly Roll Morton , Fats Waller to Monk, Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Great Jazz Standards followed in February 1959 , u. a. with Elvin Jones , Budd Johnson and Johnny Coles , after a two week engagement with the band at Birdland . The album also contained the heavily improvisational piece La Nevada , which would play a central role in Evans' band repertoire for the next few years.

He also arranged a jazz album by Don Elliott in the late 1950s , again for Billy Butterfield ( Singin 'the Blues , 1956), for Benny Goodman and for the now forgotten vocalists Lucy Reed and Marcy Lutes . In April 1959, a television feature (The Sound of Miles Davis) was created in which the Evans Orchestra and the Miles Davis band played So What .

After the sales success of Sketches of Spain in the early 1960s, the management of Columbia tried hard to get an exclusive contract with Evans, which he did not enter into. In the fall of 1960 he had a six-week engagement with his band in the Jazz Gallery ; after which he took in December programmatic album Out of the Cool (with "La Nevada") for the by Creed Taylor newly founded label Impulse! Records on.

“The musical breakthrough is revealed when you hear the first version of La Nevada (which was written two years earlier) compared to the new version. In the earlier recording, the musicians are pushed into the reef-shaped background lines, even if Evans' phasing is original, it has the feel of a standard hardbop game. The later photo shows a major redesign; there is a new flowing quality carried over from the rhythm section . Evans' piano begins with an atmospheric, compelling riff. Elvin Jones follows on the shaker , which he plays with an unbeatable rhythmic constancy in the next 18 minutes of the title. Ron Carter plays an ostinato figure on bass, a stark contrast to the more bop- oriented attitude of Tommy Potter in the previous version. "

In 1961 Evans separated from his wife Lillian, who died in 2000 after a long illness. He had ceded the rights to his compositions to the music publisher, which had previously been run with his wife; this also included the work for the Miles Davis albums, which earned the most royalties. After the divorce, he left the publishing house and the titles published there to his ex-wife.

In 1961 the Impulse contract forced him! record another album, but he got his own way out of the contract of: He had no material to record a new LP, he offered instead as formal head of Into The Hot under his name projects the younger musicians (Impulse!) Johnny Carisi and Cecil Taylor have a platform for each side of the record, provided with a cover with Evans' photo similar to that of Out of the Cool . When asked why this "waste product" was produced, Evans said it was the only way to hear the music of the artists he admired.

It was not until 1963/64 that Evans took up again under his own name, for Verve Records the aptly titled The Individualism of Gil Evans (with the title "Las Vegas Tango", which was nominated for a Grammy). The album contained u. a. Compositions by Evans and Evans / Davis (like Miles Davis' Time Of The Barracudas, which was not published at the time ) or a Brecht - Weill song.

Other projects (1964–1969)

Kenny Burrell

At the presentation of the Grammy Awards in 1964, Evans discussed an album idea with Louis Armstrong, who was also nominated and who was not averse to a joint project, focusing on his creative early years; however, the matter failed because of Armstrong's manager. In 1965 Evans recorded for Kenny Burrell , who had already played with Verve on Evans' The Individualism , on his album Guitar Forms .

In 1966 a Latin album by his orchestra with Astrud Gilberto (Look To The Rainbow) followed, possibly because of the two popular names suggested by the Verve managers, but nevertheless audibly Evans-influenced . In May 1968 Evans had the opportunity to appear with his band in a series of concerts at the Whitney Museum of American Art . These concerts became the typical template for his future work as a band leader. In 1968 Evans received a Guggenheim grant , which he used for further compositions.

In 1969 he made his first album since Individualism (1964), in which Evans first used electric instrumentation, electric piano and Joe Beck's electric guitar . However, Evans' attempts did not become an emblem of visionary jazz-rock fusion like In a Silent Way or Bitches Brew . A project requested by Evans with Jimi Hendrix - who was tired of the pop hype and whom Evans called an outstanding guitarist and songwriter - was discussed in advance with the manager through Davis' mediation in 1970, but failed because of Hendrix's sudden death in London.

The 1970s

Hannibal Marvin Peterson

From 1971 onwards there was an upward trend: Gil Evans was able to put together a working band to which u. a. Howard Johnson , Sue Evans , Herb Bushler , Billy Harper, and Hannibal Marvin Peterson included. In the summer the ensemble went on their first European tour with the support of the Nederlands Jazz Foundation . In November Evans came to Germany to present his arrangements at the Berlin Jazz Days with the large-format Berlin Dream Band . This was followed by a one-week tour through Germany with a smaller band of their own, which included Lew Soloff , Steve Lacy and Howard Johnson.

On the album Where Flamingos Fly Evans first used synthesizers , which were played by Don Preston and his friend Phil Davis; they contributed to "giving the sound of the ensemble more depth". The use of vocal timbres was also new ( Flora Purim ). In 1972 (after 1960) his first club engagement took place at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC , which promoted his rank as a founding artist . Now he was able to enlarge the band to 16 members, including Joe Henderson and Trevor Koehler . He did not use the extension to further differentiate the wind instruments, but to reinforce the rhythm section with two guitarists.

In June 1972 Evans made his first trip to Japan . He gave a concert at Koseinenkin Hall in Tokyo with two of his musicians; They then went to the studio with Masabumi Kikuchi and other Japanese musicians. In 1972/73 other musicians joined his orchestra, such as George Adams , Arthur Blythe or David Sanborn , to be heard on the live album Priestess . An important supporter of his band projects until 1975 was the artist Kenneth Noland , who lent Evans money, procured instruments and equipment and found him an amateur sound engineer for test recordings. At concerts in New York's Trinity Church and the Philharmonic Hall, recordings were made for the album Svengali (an anagram by Gil Evans ), which was nominated for a Grammy. To promote the album (which the Atlantic label didn't), Evans went on a short tour of the United States with his orchestra, which ended with a performance at the Newport Jazz Festival West in Los Angeles . After appearing in 1973 at Village Vanguard and with the NY Jazz Repertory Company , he worked on his Jimi Hendrix project in 1974 . He was signed to RCA Records for two albums; the Hendrix album (1974) and There Comes a Time (1975) were created.

In 1978 Gil Evans put the band back together for a UK tour; the concert in the Royal Festival Hall was recorded. A second tour led again to West Germany (Little Wing) , but it was a financial disaster. Evans' fusion music didn't fit into the music industry's marketing templates.

Live at Sweet Basil

George Adams (1990)

After he was unable to organize any further performance opportunities in 1979, Evans worked in a duo with saxophonist Lee Konitz (Heroes) in early 1980 , after he had been arranged a rehearsal room through the mediation of John Synder. After a tour of Italy with Konitz, an orchestra performance in the Public Theater followed .

In 1982 he put his band together for a guest performance at the Kool Jazz Festival ; concerts in Europe followed. Evans first accepted the offer to teach a master class in arrangement at the City University of New York , which he did again in 1983 and 1987. In early 1983 his regular concerts began on Mondays in the New York jazz club Sweet Basil , arranged after the model of the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Big Band , which had emerged from the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra . These were mostly spontaneous get-togethers of musicians around him who considered it an honor to play in the Gil Evans Orchestra. Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote:

“Evans, the great arranger of laissez faire , gathered every Monday [...] a big band with the best jazz musicians around him in the 1980s and gave them every imaginable freedom to improvise. The musical results of this Monday Night Orchestra - freer and 'more open' than anything that the then 70-year-old Gil Evans created in his rich career - are among the best orchestral music ever created in the field of jazz rock . "

Recordings of various quality were made from the numerous concerts ( Live at Sweet Basil , Bud and Bird, Farewell) . In 1987 he celebrated his 75th birthday with a concert in London's Hammersmith Odeon ; Guests of honor were Airto Moreira , Steve Lacy and Van Morrison . This was followed by appearances at the Umbria Jazz in Perugia in July 1987, u. a. with sting ; a reworking of the album Dream of You (1956) with Helen Merrill (collaboration) , a tour of Brazil in the fall and a stay in Paris, where he made recordings with Laurent Cugny's band and the Orchester National de Jazz . Also in Paris he recorded his last album Paris Blues on November 30th and December 1st in a duo with Steve Lacy.

Awards (selection)

As best composer, Evans won the Down Beat Readers Poll in 1960 and the Melody Maker first prize as a composer. Together with Miles Davis he was awarded for Sketches of Spain in the Grammy Awards 1961 in the category Best Jazz Composition . In 1962 he won the International Jazz Critics Award ; 1964 again the Downbeat Readers Poll . In the same year, his album Individualism was nominated for a Grammy. In 1971 and 1978 he was honored as a Founding Artist in Washington DC. In 1981 his hometown of Stockton presented him with the STAR Award from the Stockton Arts Council . In 1997 he was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame .

Appreciation

"His mother told him he had fallen from a star," says Stephanie Stein Crease, starting her biography about Gil Evans. “Indeed, there is something ethereal about [him]. He crossed numerous borders - musically and personally - which restricted many of his contemporaries. His sense of freedom and challenge made him a relentlessly innovative arranger and composer. ”Stein Crease elaborates on the reasons that often left him in the shadow of Miles Davis; “Jazz history has always focused on the star musicians and soloists. Gil mostly worked behind the curtain, invisible to all but those who are familiar with the nature of this work. ”Stein sees another reason in Evans himself; he was mostly reserved and had no interest in business matters and his own doctorate.
Even if his life was not as spectacular as that of Charlie Parker or Charles Mingus , it would still be “full of pathos. There were the lows: his artistic plans were slashed left and right, he was linked by the record companies, and ignored by critics and promoters who would rather hear Porgy and Bess than his current developments. ”He lived hand to mouth for years ; He turned down commercial offers that did not interest him. His resolute decisions also brought him “priceless heights: a harmonious family life, long lasting friendships with creative people like Davis and Lacy; Musicians who adored him were willing to play for him even without money, and the opportunity to create a work of incomparable power, the freshness of which was increased as he grew older. "

According to Martin Kunzler , Gil Evans “introduced orchestration as a new quality to jazz”; In doing so, he has broken the strict structure of big band sections ( woodwinds , trumpets, trombones); Changing combinations of instruments that are unusual in jazz have "expanded the timbre spectrum of this music." Evans did not see himself as a songwriter or melody inventor, but primarily as an arranger and discoverer of new orchestral colors : "Characteristic of his impressionistic arrangements are sound layers and the combination of extreme pitches under Emphasis on the lower registers . ”Also typical is a“ mostly stretched dynamic structure and the mixing of tonic and modal notes in the harmony . ”Only comparable to Duke Ellington or Charles Mingus , he says , for the“ improvisers, despite all the complexity like a natural flowing soundscape ”.

Jelly Roll Morton, 1917

For Raymond Horricks, Evans emphasizes individuality, which he sees primarily in his Janus-headed attitude towards jazz tradition: “'He's looking back at the same time as looking forward'. Again and again he uses Jelly Roll Morton's King Porter Stomp to analyze it and then recreate it in his own way. [...] He composed sounds by combining various instruments that his colleagues had thought for decades would not work. […] When asked about his direct influences, he replied: 'Everything I've ever heard. The good and the bad. With the bad being especially important because it teaches you what to avoid. But it isn't just music. As a boy it was the sounds in the street, police sirens, all of that. '"

For Joachim-Ernst Berendt , the Gil Evans Orchestra was “the large orchestral realization of Miles Davis' trumpet sound.” In his opinion, Evans is not a “hardworking” arranger like Quincy Jones ; “He lets the music mature for a long time and he doesn't write anything finished. While recording, he refines and changes and often rebuilds entire compositions and arrangements. Often his arrangements only emerge when they are played - almost like the early Ellington. "

Miles Davis paid tribute to his friend as follows: “He never wasted a melody, he never wasted a phrase… Students will discover him, they'll have to take his music apart layer by layer. That's how they'll know what kind of genius he was. "

Evans, a "musicians' musician"

Personal freedom and concentration on music were more important to Evans than star glamor and big money; so his public and financial career in the land of the "big showbiz" took a somewhat mixed course. For example, in 1979, his main sources of income were Social Security's monthly check for $ 330, approximately $ 2,000 annually in royalties from the BMI and loans from Local 802 musicians' union . The musicians unanimously praised his honest, humble and friendly manner; also his generosity towards others - as long as it wasn't about musical precision. Even if there were negative aspects to his relationship with Miles Davis such as the royalty issue, Evans maintained the friendship and, at the insistence of those around him, refused to approach him for money:

“Well, Miles needs the money. It makes him feel good. He needs the car and the big house and the clothes and all the money to feel good. I don't need such things. I don't need anything at all. "

His instrumentation and the arrangements subtly worked out in melody and rhythm, with the harmonies down to the inner voice guidance (sometimes rather recompositions of the templates) and his own compositions always gave the players an ideal space for solo and improvisational development. If necessary, however, he could convincingly notate even the most difficult 'improvisations' and knew exactly how an instrument came across to a particular player - Evans was a real and highly valued “musicians' musician”. He was very familiar with the traditions and always had a 'scouting' ear for 'new notes'.

Criticism sees him as a pioneering innovator alongside Ellington / Strayhorn or Mingus. When asked later whether his masterful Davis albums were more classical or jazz, he decided soberly: "This is a sales problem, not mine."

Discographic notes

collection

Compositions (selection)

  • Again and Again and Again , 1956
  • Alyrio , 1980
  • Arab Dance , 1942
  • Bilbao song , 1959
  • Bud and Bird , 1983
  • Concorde , 1963
  • El Toreador , 1963
  • Flute Song , 1960
  • Gone (= Orgone ), 1958
  • Hotel Me (= Jelly Roll ), 1963
  • Jambalangle , 1956
  • La Nevada , 1959
  • Las Vegas Tango , 1963
  • Makes Her Move , 1959
  • Petit Machins (= Eleven ), 1968, with Miles Davis
  • Proclamation , 1964
  • So Long , 1964
  • Song # 1 , 1962
  • Song # 2 , 1962
  • Solea , 1959
  • Spaced , 1969
  • The Time of the Barracudas , 1963, with Miles Davis
  • Zee Zee , 1971

literature

  • Tetsuya Tajiri: Gil Evans Discography 1941–1982 . Tajiri, Tokyo 1983, ill., 61 pp.
  • Raymond Horricks: Svengali, or the Orchestra Called Gil Evans Spellmount, 1984, 96 p., English
  • Laurent Cugny: Las Vegas Tango - Une vie de Gil Evans . POL / Coll. Birdland, 1990, 416 pp., French
  • Stephanie Stein Crease: Gil Evans: Out of the Cool - His life and music . A Cappella Books / Chicago Review Press, Chicago 2002, ISBN 978-1-55652-493-6 .
  • Larry Hicock: Castles Made of Sound - The Story of Gil Evans . Da Capo Press, 2002, 306 pp., English

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Recordings of the Thornhill Orchestra from 1946/47 can be found at: Gil Evans Adios (compil. 2000 A&R).
  2. ↑ Rugolo also gave musicians such as Tadd Dameron , Babs Gonzales , Lennie Tristano , Dave Lambert and Buddy DeFranco recording opportunities at Capitol; see. Stein, p. 160.
  3. ↑ The title (but without Davis) then took Evans on in 1963 for his album The Individualism of Gil Evans .
  4. ↑ Joachim-Ernst Berendt had already put together the Berlin Dream Band in previous years from musicians from West Berlin radio big bands ( RIAS and SFB ) , for example with Don Ellis as well as Stan Kenton and Oliver Nelson , who later released their performance with the band as a record had. Evans was the fourth to receive this award from Berendt; Evans planned to have the concert recording appear on Capitol. Billboard Jan 15, 1972 In the magazine Musik und Bildung (Volume 4/1972) the Berlin Evans formation with its three trumpets, three trombones, four or five saxophones or flutes, three oboes, three bassoons, three horns plus a rhythm section as “A mixture of jazz big band and romantic symphony orchestra without strings”. See Music and Education, Scott, 1972, Volume 4 on Google Books

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 , p. 351.
  2. ^ A b Joachim Ernst Berendt , Günther Huesmann: Das Jazzbuch . Fischer TB, Frankfurt / M. 1994, p. 136
  3. ↑ quoted from Martin Kunzler: Jazz-Lexikon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 , p. 351.
  4. ^ Joachim Ernst Berendt , Günther Huesmann: Das Jazzbuch . Fischer TB, Frankfurt / M. 1994, p. 519
  5. ^ Canadian Music Hall of Fame - Inductees. Canadian Music Hall of Fame , accessed August 6, 2017 .
  6. ^ Raymond Horricks: Svengali, or the Orchestra Called Gil Evans . Spellmount, 1984, p. 13, 96 p., English
  7. ^ Joachim Ernst Berendt , Günther Huesmann: Das Jazzbuch . Fischer TB, Frankfurt / M. 1994, p. 518 f.
  8. ^ Quoted in Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X , p. 215.
  • Stephanie Stein Crease: Gil Evans: Out of the Cool - His life and music . A Cappella Books / Chicago Review Press, Chicago 2002, ISBN 978-1-55652-493-6 .
  1. ↑ Stein, p. 2
  2. ↑ Stein, p. 4 ff.
  3. ↑ Stein, p. 8 f.
  4. ↑ Stein, p. 171 f.
  5. ↑ Stein, p. 244 ff.
  6. ↑ Stein, p. 323 f.
  7. ↑ Stein, p. 12.
  8. ↑ Stein, p. 12.
  9. ↑ Stein, p. 16 f.
  10. ↑ Stein, p. 34 f.
  11. ↑ Stein, p. 49 f.
  12. ↑ Stein, p. 59 f.
  13. ↑ Stein, pp. 65-71
  14. ↑ Stein, p. 84.
  15. ↑ Stein, p. 91.
  16. ↑ Stein, p. 98 f.
  17. ↑ Stein, p. 108 f.
  18. ↑ Stein, p. 121 f.
  19. ↑ Stein, p. 129 ff.
  20. ↑ Stein, p. 154.
  21. ↑ Stein, pp. 143 ff, 156 ff.
  22. ↑ Stein, p. 158.
  23. ↑ Stein, p. 159.
  24. ↑ Stein, p. 159 f.
  25. ↑ Stein, p. 161.
  26. ↑ Stein, p. 174.
  27. ↑ Stein, p. 178 f.
  28. ↑ Stein, p. 183.
  29. ↑ Stein, p. 188.
  30. ↑ Stein, p. 190.
  31. ↑ Stein, p. 191.
  32. ↑ Stein, p. 194.
  33. ↑ Stein, p. 207.
  34. ↑ Stein, p. 249.
  35. ↑ Stein, p. 264.
  36. ↑ Stein, p. 264.
  37. ↑ Stein, p. 267, 293
  38. ↑ Stein, p. 368.
  39. ↑ Stein, p. 228.
  40. ↑ Stein, p. 225 ff.
  41. ↑ Stein, p. 229.
  42. ↑ Stein, p. 232.
  43. ↑ Stein, p. 236 f.
  44. ↑ Stein, pp. 232, 244 f.
  45. ↑ Stein, p. 248.
  46. ↑ Stein, p. 253 ff.
  47. ↑ Stein, p. 255.
  48. ↑ Stein, p. 265.
  49. ↑ Stein, p. 269.
  50. ↑ Stein, p. 288 ff.
  51. ↑ Stein, p. 270 ff.
  52. ↑ Stein, pp. 274f.
  53. ↑ Stein, p. 276 f.
  54. ↑ Stein, p. 282.
  55. ↑ Stein, p. 289 f.
  56. ↑ Stein, p. 302.
  57. ↑ Stein, p. 299.
  58. ↑ Stein, p. 303 ff
  59. ↑ Stein, p. 322
  60. ↑ Stein, p. 255.
  61. ↑ Stein, p. 297.
  62. ↑ Stein, p. 302.
  63. ^ Stein, pp. Xi-xii
  64. ↑ Stein, p. 296
  65. ↑ Stein, pp. 130, 296
personal data
SURNAME Evans, Gil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Evans, Ian Ernest Gilmore; Green, Ian Ernest Gilmore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Toronto , Ontario
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1988
Place of death Cuernavaca , Mexico