Undercurrent

Product Information

Some reissues include four bonus tracks, including two alternate takes and previously unheard versions of "Stairway to the Stars" and "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You.

It gets all the stars because is is a great modern jazz album performed as only the late, lamented Mr Evans could arrange and do. Bill Evans catapulted to the top of the jazz world in June 1961 after reeling off three straight masterpiece sessions at New York's Village Vanguard with his trio.Yet the emotional highs came to a screeching halt shortly thereafter when bassist Scott LaFaro died in a car accident. If not for an inspirational collaboration of tremendous creative outpouring, one wonders what fate may have befallen Evans. I was chilling to this disc the other day, nodding my head to this oh-so-natural music and wishing I had half of Evans' talent. The still strikingly modern looking cover uses the image of “A model floating in the water at Weeki Wachee Spring, Florida. At the time it was as distinctive as the record it contained, indicating — as far as jazz was concerned — we really were no longer in Kansas.

My favourite pieces at the moment are Evans' own composition "Romain", which is an extraordinarily melancholy piece of NY bedsit music. Later, the album was reissued on the Blue Note label; both Blue Note and United Artists Records have been part of the same catalog for many decades.Già la perfetta fattura e la cura nel dettaglio dell'intera copertina lascia presagire qualcosa di eccellente che si comprende appieno dopo aver ascolto anche solo il primo brano del side 1. I assume that there are shortcomings in the original recording, but I can't help but feel that more could be gotten out of this record. Whether it owes to the intimate pairing, he and Halls' brotherly chemistry, or the exquisite selection of program material, the results consistently come across as the equivalent of a private meditation, such is the level of introspective depth and quietly shaded interplay throughout.

There is more variety than expected on the fine set with some cookers, ballads, waltzes, and even some hints at classical music. I think I can safely say, though, that UNDERCURRENT is the current "hot ticket" out of all my jazz discs. Even though it only features two instruments for the whole duration, it never ever becomes one-dimensional or repetetive.

But there was a danger attached to their proposed recording; as Peter Pettinger points out in his Bill Evans biography, How My Heart Sings, both the guitar and piano are chordal instruments and a duet presented the risk of overcrowding and acoustic collision. I have a nearly perfect copy except for smudges and I don't know how to clean it, or if that is possible.