Since my stereo receiver is down to one channel, I haven't been listening to my vinyl and CDs that I know so well. That should change soon. I hope. I have been exploring EMusic.com instead. I have been finding many gems that I had missed the first time around. These three albums are over 40 years old but I am discovering them for the first time. Their power to amaze has not dimished with their age.

The August 13, 2001, issue of The New Yorker had an article on this session, written by Adam Gopnik. Unfortunately it is not on the web.

Exactly forty years ago this summer, on June 25, 1961, three young jazz musicians--the piano player Bill Evans, the bass player Scott LaFaro, and the drummer Paul Motian--went down to a New York basement, smoked, yawned, joked a bit, and got to work. The trio played thirteen songs, most of them slow:"My Romance,""I Loves You, Porgy," and even a waltz from the Walt Disney movie "Alice in Wonderland." The music they made was recorded, and was released later that year by a small independent label called Riverside. The albums title was "Sunday at the Village Vangard." Later in the year, another record from that afternoon was released, called "Waltz for Debby," after one of the songs. Since then, the same two and half hours has been repackaged and released and remastered and reconsidered, in albums called, among other things, "The Village Vanguard Sessions." and "At the Village Vanguard."

Bill Evans had played on Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" in 1958. By 1959 he has discovered the great bass player Scott LeFaro and formed a trio with Paul Motian on drums.

On that Sunday afternoon in New York in 1961, the trio played five sets, about two and a half hours' worth of music. The numbers ran between five and ten minutes a turn. In the first three sets, knowing that the machines were running, they didn't repeat numbers, playing a lilting "Waltz for Debby," a hushed "My Foolish Heart," a floating "Alice in Wonderlans," and an up-tempo "My Romance." Then for the first time that day, Evans played "I Loves You, Porgy." In the last set, the run back over numbers from the first few sets. By then, it was late, a long day's hard work, and they finished with a number by LaFaro, a strange 9/8 Zen thing called "Jade Visions." Throughout the recordings, you hear the crowd noise: glasses tinkle and conversation goes on, a counterpoint of forty-year-old flirtation and talk. Orrin Keepnews said, "I remember listening to the tapes and saying, 'There's nothing bad here!' Normally, you can cut one or two things right away, and there was nothing bad."

Two weeks later, on July 6, 1961, Scott LeFaro was driving Route 20, a back road in those days, to his parents place in Geneva, upstate. The car skidded and hit a tree, and he was killed instantly.

Get a copy of this article at a library.

Listen to the music. It's truly classic. It's truly beautiful. At the Village Vanguard is a compilation of Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby. Paul Motian, in the New Yorker article mentions that "I got one hundred and thirty-six dollars for the famous legendary record, one hundred and ten for the gig, and one hundred and seven for the second record."

EMusic.com also has, among other recordings of Bill Evans, the 12 disc set of "The Complete Riverside Recordings," the 9 disc set "The Complete Fantasy Recordings," and the 8 disc set of his last recording "The Last Watz."

Bill Evans (1929-1980)

The Bill Evans Webpages

Bill Evans Trio
At The Village Vanguard

Bill Evans

Bill Evans' Discography