Bill Evans: Evans in Norway: The Kongsberg Concert

Editor's Choice

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Eddie Gomez
Bill Evans
Marty Morell (d)

Label:

Elemental

December/2024

Media Format:

CD, 2 LP, DL

Catalogue Number:

5990547

RecordDate:

Rec. 26 June 1970

By the time this was recorded, Evans had been working with Eddie Gomez for the best part of four and a half years, and the empathy between them is well established. Not only does Gomez use the whole range of the instrument in his lines behind the piano, but such is the trust between them that Evans frequently opens up more space than hitherto, for him to take extended bass solos, which mix dexterous speed and lyricism. Also, whereas on some albums from this period, Gomez suffered from the recorded sound of his instrument, the Norwegian engineers have perfectly caught his full-toned playing, as I remember hearing it live a few years later.

This sound quality is perfectly demonstrated on his low notes during the intro to ‘What Are You Doing the Rest of your Life’, and then on his accompanying forays into the highest register. In his 1970s concerts, Evans often returned to earlier repertoire, and Gomez is his ideal foil here for revisiting ‘Gloria’s Step’, originally recorded with Scott LaFaro exactly nine years and one day before this concert.

Morell shows that it’s possible to bring an approach to the drums here that is very much his own, rather than nodding at Paul Motian, and Gomez’s fleet solo also takes a very different approach from his illustrious predecessor.

The centre of the concert consists of standards such as ‘Autumn Leaves’ and ‘Who Can I Turn To.’ Then as the audience clap and stamp their feet for more, the trio produces a vintage Evans performance to finish, when it revisits ‘Nardis’ from that earlier 1961 trio. This achieves perfectly what that previous group managed, which – sandwiching a fine solo bass outing – is a three-way conversation between the participants, where each musician carries equal weight.

Once again producer Zev Feldman and his team at Elemental have uncovered a marvellous aural document, and applied their usual meticulous production values to create a valuable addition to the Evans library.

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