Amazon.com: This eight-CD set was recorded at San Francisco's Keystone Korner between August 31 and September 8, 1980, just a week before Evans's death on September 15. With Evans were bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera. It was an unusually well-balanced rhythm team for the pianist, perhaps the best combination of talents since he first developed his trio style with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian two decades before. They provide Evans with responsive support that can shift from the quietest underpinnings to aggressive stimulation. There's often a characteristic movement here from introspective solo passages to vigorous trio dialogues that shows just how hard Evans could swing when he had the right drummer.
Largely a final encounter with Evans's key repertoire, the set includes multiple versions of his favorite pieces, like the ballads "But Beautiful," "My Foolish Heart," and "Emily," and his own "Letter to Evan" and "Turn Out the Stars," perennial stimulants for his profound harmonic imagination. But there are also then-recent compositions that never reached the recording studio, like "Yet Ne'er Broken," the repeating "Your Story" with its subtle underlying movement, and "Knit for Mary F." The signature "Nardis" is heard in six different versions, each of them compelling and each a distinct exploration, from a crisp seven-minute version to a concluding performance that stretches to nearly 20. Evans introduces the third version: "We've learned from the potential of the tune, and every once in a while a new gateway opens and it's like therapy." Each of the longer versions is a structure for extended solos by each trio member. Evans's own improvisations are concentrated in extended unaccompanied introductions, stretching to a sublime seven minutes on the final version.
The set is a treasure trove for Evans enthusiasts, inviting close and extended listening and rewarding it with the subtlest inventions and variations. There are rare depths here that represent some of his greatest recorded work. --Stuart Broomer
Bill Evans Trio . The Last Waltz Anyone who thinks only Bill Evans' early work is his best hasn't listened to Evans' final album, The Last Waltz, the 8 disc box set of the 9 night gig he did at the Keystone Korner in S. F., Sept. 1980, 11 days before his death. The material on this album is as familiar as the song titles, (which have so much to do with the bond he'd established with his listeners), some versions of which he played 2 or 3 times. The artistry and lyricism are equal to his best earlier work, and the emotional intensity exceeds it. although there will never be another Scott LaFaro, bassist, Marc Johnson and drummer, Joe LaBarbera, make this as good a Trio as Evans has ever had.
Evans fans: If you can afford it, get it. If you can't afford it, get it anyway. How could hours and hours of recordings from a dying man's last gig be so inventive, so satisfying, so consistent, so full of life?
How can this band bring something new and fascinating to each rendition? Some songs here are repeated (up to 6 times) over the course of the box set, but I'd be perfectly happy to listen to them back to back (and have!).
It may lack the intense sense of discovery and invention from his early work, but this has all the wonderful interplay and sensitivity of Evan's great trio works from the past, and clearly shows he had plenty of great music left in him when he passed away.
Awesome.... a must for fans of Bill Evans This recording was made in 1980 about a week before Bill Evan's untimely death. He may have new it was coming because he is really at his best in this recording. Every track is incredible!
I particularly like the recording because of the chemistry of the group. Marc Johnson really brings out the best in Bill Evans. I think it was a sound he was looking to create ever since the untimely death of Scott LaFaro.
There is an intensity to Bill Evan's playing a poignancy that is not to be missed. The tone production on this set of albums is also very good.
I'm a Bill Evan's fan and own most of what he has recorded. I have never regretted laying out the cash for this set of albums.
a paen to us I first heard him solo in Conversations with Myself in an old record now scratched beyond recognition and have forever been listening out of the corner of my ear for him on albums - trios, groups, sideman - and always feel that he has been playing in a way that tells us who he is and what it is he wants us to remember. And these CD's, are what I think he wants us to remember. They are truly a thank you - to the people then and the people who would come - and a way of thinking of Bill Evans that will always be in whatever parts of our minds are moved and thrilled by music, skill and art. I can't imagine anyone who puports to love music not wanting these CD's.
I was going to go hear Bill Evans for the first time in Boston at the gig after this one - and he died. At least I have these.
A Picture of a Life Unlived I held off buying this box set for months, asking the same questions I'm sure those considering purchasing "The Last Waltz" want answered. Loving Bill Evans' art as I do, will I like what I hear on these surreptitiously taped performances when the man was literally dying as he was playing that poignant eight-night gig - his last - at San Francisco's Keystone Korner? Do these performances do justice to Evans' musical legacy or was he gasping to the finish, running on creative fumes, rather than drawing from a newly tapped reservoir of inspiration?
Let me allay any concerns and state outright that these recordings represent Bill Evans at his most lyrically imaginative, romantically inspired, and emotional. Make no mistake - these performances are better than anything previously released by Evans. Notwithstanding the synergistic brilliance of the 1961 Village Vanguard recordings with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, they do not match the majesty, musical maturity, and emotional effusiveness of the playing memorialized on these discs. Nor could they, as "The Last Waltz" represents Bill Evans at the end of a life's journey filled with tragedies and bittersweet triumphs.
Evans' gorgeous pianism displays a breadth of experience and wisdom that could not have been possible twenty years earlier. His playing is much more confident, vibrant, and full-bodied. Evans' was always regarded as the Chopin of jazz, and as true as that statement is, what these performances show is that, while his flowing melodic lines have retained their Chopinesque quality, his harmonic textures now compelled comparison to Rachmaninoff.
In addition, Evans rethinks his approach to most of these works in a way that revitalizes them. You can tell he has brought the fullness of his knowledge, experience, and intuition to tap the musical and emotional potential of these songs. All the while, his grasp of a piece's formal architecture imbues it with a rock solid integrity, as well as an unfolding sense of drama in its exposition, development, and climax. In short, Evans creates a musical universe distinct to each work. He instills these works with melodic beauty, harmonic heft, and a palpable yearning.
I'd like to comment on one selection, in particular. Evans is heard playing "But Beautiful," one of his favorite ballads and certainly one of the most stirring ever penned, three different times in succeeding sets. He approaches the opening section of the song (before the middle improvisatory bars) differently in each performance, using chords, voicings, and rhythm to wonderful and evocative effect. How wonderful it is to witness Evans' mind constantly working, seeking an approach not thought of before - never settling into a preconceived mold. His playing on other songs - "My Foolish Heart," "After You," "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," "Noelle's Theme/I Love You, Porgy," and "Your Story" - will break your heart. Those seeking an antidote to the balladry can find it in spades in his rendition of "Some Day My Prince Will Come." Here, Evans displays an explosive virtuosity that is as incandescent as Art Tatum's, as he executes improvisatory runs at lightspeed with every note articulated and exquisitely controlled. Prepare to be astonished.
Evans' fans have cause to be grateful for this live document of a creative resurgence cut short in the middle of its bloom. It is Bill Evan's final bittersweet triumph. In the end, "The Last Waltz" provides a peak into what the future held for Evans' art, and in that sense, gives the world a picture of a life unlived. What a loss it is to no longer be in a world that has Bill Evans in it.
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