Bill Evans interview 1976

[@pocopico7409]

8:10 to 9:00 is absolute gold! His answer and the ability to verbalize his thoughts and feelings about what his craft means to him, in less than a minute, further shows the exceptional degree of his intellect. Truly a beautiful mind.

[@SteveSmith-pr3jw]

The world needs more Bill Evans.

[@AlScottkeys]

Light years ahead still today, his music will never ever fade. I own all is recorded works and adore his playing as a jazz piano player all my life he brings the best out of anyone who plays jazz and particularly piano.

[@AlanSenzaki]

I grew up in Minneapolis listening to radio station KPOL jazz with Leigh Kammen in the fifties and sixties. Great educator and d.j.

[@hank1519]

He was so sincere and articulate

[@ronnethercutt6254]

Always enjoying hearing Bill.

[@charleswinokoor6023]

Evans was one of the most articulate jazz musicians to have lived, notwithstanding his terrible troubles with drugs. More artists and entertainers in general should emulate that sort of discipline.

[@andyloftube]

The amounts he smoked would have gotten him in mid fifties even clean from drugs.

[@andyloftube]

1976 Evans was I think 1-year old and Bill was probably cleanest from drugs since he was...fifteen. This is not a drug head talking. He is always intelligent and very articulate in all interviews. Let us hope they will find more of them!

[@iandodds2195]

Very interesting, thanks.

[@MarkSeibold]

This is one of the videos where the time bar shows what's remaining instead of how far it has run into the video total time. So to make that reference it's interesting to note with about 7 minutes and 30 seconds remaining to play is when the interviewer, Leigh Kamman asked Bill Evans if he'd ever considered the visual arts in architecture as an interest. Bill responds with when other kids are asked in grade school what do you want to be when you grow up? Other others would respond with firemen or pilot, or nurse or something, then he said he would consider being a visual artist-architect. This is the first time I've heard him mention this in an interview, but it's interesting to my studies, when hired as an Adjunct professor to teach observational astronomy in a local University, they put us as the new faculty through a special class about the human brain, and this is where the nurse who was teaching the class, as a wife to a husband that was a brain surgeon, disclosed to me the cause of left-handedness as believed by many medical studies, to manifest in the individual at 6 weeks after conception due to certain conditions of testosterone presence in the mother's amniotic fluid, which suppresses the left lateral side of the brain and the right lateral side then becomes more active and grows more neurological wiring through the corpus callosum to the left side brain hemisphere, or otherwise about eight months before birth. I've always leaned toward the visual arts and later been awarded and published as my astronomy technical art has been featured in NASA websites and I've been asked a lecture about it but I also have a tremendous appreciation for music and I'm self-taught on several instruments but I've never really excelled as much as I like to especially with piano I can play some jazz and classical lines by ear, but I don't practice enough to perfect it. Again I've leaned heavily and more toward the visual arts and the science of observational astronomy. Another good example is the famous left-handed baseball pitcher in the early 1960s, Sandy Koufax. During a sabbatical from baseball where he stepped down for a time, he returned to Art and architectural school to become an architect. But he also returned back to baseball because his left handed pitching was so needed by his team. I was also a left-handed picture in Little League and I had always wanted to go on to play professional baseball. As a left-handed person, I was delighted to find out years ago that Bill Evans was a born left hander, as many great genius musicians, and visual artists are born preferring the left hand, predominantly in hand-writing, which over history as many will know they are persecuted for, because of archaic and religious beliefs, used to be that Catholic nuns would scold or admonish and force left-handed children to train to write right-handed, because left handedness was viewed as an evil or sign of the devil. Just to note this following list - Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Picasso, MC Escher, and Vincent van Gogh. Then scientists such as Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, and Dr Linus Pauling, and Dr Carl Sagan, as usually considered by many historical figures, as four or five of the most brilliant scientists of the 20th century, which also later include interestingly noted as the four greatest computer scientists - Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft, and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple. Three of these four computer sciences individuals, have also been diagnosed with moderate Asperger's as left-handed individuals. Most people know that have seen such genius musicians in the modern-day era as Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney playing left-handed guitar but others may not be aware that many left-handeed musical geniuses also play right-handed guitar, such as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, David Bowie, David Byrne, Bob Geldof, Robert Fripp, Mark Knopfler, then other great pianists as Bill mentions in another interview that I just heard, that he was fortunate to be interviewed and recording in a Columbia studio that had Glenn Gould's piano present, as many may know that Gould was one of the most famous modern classical pianists of the late 20th century, as left-handed, and was diagnosed with severe Asperger's as a young genius prodigy pianist. Other great jazz musicians such as John Coltrane, and pianist Oscar Peterson. Erroll Garner Was actually attacked by his own record label managers because they complained about his character and manner which was reported and misdiagnosed relating to a possible mental disorder, but later learned that they were harsh and insensitive for wrongfully attacking him because of his genius musical capabilities, as if you've read in the history books, he played totally by ear and never read a sheet of music. It is known in the medical and scientific papers as professionally documented that left-handed people run a higher incidence of autism, Asperger's, dyslexia, and bipolar. When Bill made the example of what musicians as artists are expected to adhere to in life, it was interesting to note that he mentioned they were discussing the Beatles with some others one day. And he noted that after they made all their billions in money, a couple of them went off to live on a farm or do other things, where you're expected as a professional musician to stick with your music for life. It was sad that atvthis interview time of 1976 that Bill must have been unaware that John Lennon was still recording some of his finest music right up the final moments of his life when it was wrongfully taken away in a sudden murder in 1980. Then George Harrison who was also still quite active with others and collaborating with many musicians and helping them out, sadly died of lung cancer suddenly at the young age of 58. If Bill Evans were still alive today he would probably be proud to see that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still very active in the music world as they near the age of 80 now. If Bill had lived this long, I'm sure he would have been still quite active and producing so much more amazing jazz piano works, as he is so dearly missed today, we can only wonder what he would have to say about too much music going electronic or into a sampled loops, and overproduced in the other end of the spectrum that we hear so much criticism about. But in the final minute of this interview he did express that many young people today are rediscovering great classical and jazz music, which I think was really superb for him to make notice of, at the time of this recording. Bill Evans is also a great articulate speaker, as he could have been a great lecturer-teacher of music in colleges and universities. He's tremendously multi-talented as an individual, as we all eventually learned to understand. There's so many great interviews such as this one today that we have to appreciate now and learn from him in conversation, as he was a National [and International] treasure to the jazz music world. This interview is so priceless and timeless. Thank you so much for posting it.

[@ricksniegowski1574]

Agreed! Kinda stings a little bit to hear him dump on the beatles, but (if I'm honest with myself), I'd probably have felt the same way, at that point in time, if I were living his experience. Additionally, I think he underestimates the privilege most jazz musicians have of being classically trained in their early youth. Being someone born into a mostly non-musical family, who didn't truly pick up an instrument until age 16, I may never be able to develop the faculty to perform what Bill would call "true jazz music". That makes me less of a musician? Nah, Bill. I think we've all dedicated our hearts to it just as much as the most technical players. To me, being a musician is an approach to life...a mindset. It's not necessarily contingent on one's abilities. That said, I've never truly focused on one instrument (guitar, keys, drums, bass, lapsteel, vocals). My goal's to be the jack of all trades, master on none. With the advent of modern recording technology, I'd rather be able to layer 5+ instruments on a track, proficiently enough, then to record a solo piano masterpiece. Lastly, I do write left handed! Least I have that goin' for me;) Sweet interview nonetheless.

[@pierrechaouat]

Albert Einstein was right-handed. I don't know if to be left-handed has any impact on creative capacity, but as a MD, I know that the age when you start music is crucial to develop your ability (4 to 10)...

[@piotr8853]

Very good interviewer

[@brendaboykin3281]

Thank you.

[@TheLeighKammanLegacyProject]

My honor and pleasure to present these interviews. Thanks for listening.

[@stuartdryer1352]

A great interview. I wonder how Bill Evans first taught himself to improvise and voice. I have never found an interview where he was asked about that.

[@TonyTelfort]

Watch the universal mind of Bill Evans. kzbin.info/www/bejne/h6i7cqR_lrqUnqs

[@wadecottingham]

The question at 5:30 brings this topic up in a general way. Bill surely taught himself "music-building" in a way that fits all the things he describes in his answer. Also I know I have seen in some interviews or books how he practiced taking phrases through many levels of harmonizing - 2 voice harmony, 3 voice harmony, 4 voice harmony, 5 voices, etc. That was probably in the Jack Reilly books.

[@laurieverchomin8638]

A treasure

[@frankdambra]

Nice one

[@vova47]

Good to hear Bill's voice, though nothing really new for Evans students. Great comment on Beatles and pop music.

[@andyloftube]

MorbidManMusic Why can’t the Beatles be critiqued? It is like they are globally immunized, saint declared. When Quincy Jones said they were terrible musicians (by jazz standards), he got really fried by that by everyone. And he was right, it is the truth. Especially Harrison and Lennon were quite weak in terms of musicianship. Mccartney and Starr are solid. Listen to the Let it Be session tapes...like a high school band...Beatles secret was gelling band play in their uniquely limited way. They naively and instinctively discovered universal beauty...of which Bill himself spoke. Bill steered and controlled his creative process totally musically and had the techical and esthetic capacity to realize music as the highest art form. The Beatles fumbled into greatness by intuiting and sensing. Both paths to beautiful lasting art work. Bill did not believe in fumbling intuition. He found avantgarde jazz too loose as a creative framework. Bill is wrong on the Beatles, though, on their whole catalogue and impact. Beatles were not about money at all. Yes, they broke up on silly money and people quibbles, which was ”unprofessional”. Later on Bill liked Earth, Wind and Fire for their harmonies. Why then not Beatles for their, we must agree, lovely harmonies? Bill recorded a Paul Simon tune too as a small concession to pop and may even have liked it. A bit.

[@rillloudmother]

@@andyloftube Dude, ringo is by far the worst musician in the beatles. rock is not about being a great or even good musician, it's about being good enough to get your point across as long as you have the right haircut.

[@andyloftube]

rillloudmother Right - form (&looks and attitydes) matters more than substance. The Beatles did have excellent substance, though. Produced by their remarkable intuitive creative musical abilities.

[@pierrechaouat]

I wonder what Bill could have brought if he had had an educational activity. He could have trained a generation of pianists and left a broader musical heritage

[@mngermanshepherd]

Are you sure about the year? The Longhorn didn't open until 1977

[@TheLeighKammanLegacyProject]

Yes.. I'm pretty sure It opened in about 1974 or 5 after the Poodle burned down. I think Mike Elliott was booking the room. I have a couple other interviews from those years also and though I was living in Boston at the time, I visited and went to the Longhorn sometime around 1975 or 6 to hear jazz.

[@AllenBDumont]

@@TheLeighKammanLegacyProject 1976 seems correct. My wife insisted that we see this show as she was a Bill Evans fan. We were still childless at the time as our daughter was born in 1977. I remember that Bill sat quietly and alone at a small table between sets. I also remember noticing that his hands were quite swollen.

[@nononouh]

90 6 9

[@fusionhar]

Bill cautious, how do you describe shit>?

[@georgemcfetridge8310]

The real question is not about the Beatles' success, but about why did culture-not just music- drift to youth so drastically? What is our culture so afraid of to allow this foolishness? It's beyond marketing demographics, or more people under 21. 'Dumbing down' comes up here - perhaps 'immaturing-down' is a better term. I'd put forward the decided loss of questioning, which underlies the success of the great fraud of 2020, to take a terrible example. Loss of questioning equals loss of the human being. Part of this is the ruination of music underway in BE's time. In fact music is a good indicator of this wretched trend.