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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Correspondence: On Discovering Bill Evans

September 18, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Many of the numerous comments about my Bill Evans article in The Wall Street Journal this week have been touching. None has been more moving or more extensive than this one from Rifftides reader Mark Mohr. The staff agreed that Mr. Mohr’s account of discovering Evans should be an item of its own because it parallels the experiences of so many other listeners.

I first saw Bill Evans in concert at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1974. He and his trio (Eddie Gomez and Marty Morrell) were touring in support in the newly-released Fantasy album Since We Met. I was a fledgling disc jockey at the campus radio station, KCSB-FM. The station had made a serious commitment to extensive jazz programming, and I was just beginning to experience and enjoy jazz. There were quite a few students at the radio station who said a Bill Evans concert was not to be missed. I didn’t know anything about Evans at the time but the station had received a few promo records and I seriously listened to Since We Met to find out what all the buzz was about. From the first note of the concert untilSince We Met.jpg the to the audience applause at the end, I was spellbound and struck by the quality of the music. Tender, sad, introspective and wonderful. I attended the Evans’ concert at the university’s Campbell Hall with some friends from the radio station. We had good seats and sat close to the stage. Evans, Morrell and Gomez walked out in matching slacks, dress shirts and sport coats. (It was the style at the time.) For the next forty-five minutes, the music and the musicians mesmerized me. I had never heard anything like it and I was hooked. At intermission, the radio boys and I went backstage and I nervously introduced myself to Bill and the other members of the trio. He was polite and friendly, but somewhat shy. The second half of the concert was even better than the first, if that’s possible. Afterwards, the band left for their next gig in whatever town was next on their touring schedule.
The audience filed out and I went back to the radio station and replayed the album, listening even more closely. The next day, I found a few more Evans records in the station’s library, and began to enjoy his earlier recordings. I told my parents about my extraordinary discovery and they wound up seeing him in concert a few weeks later at the Hollywood Bowl. I only saw him perform live once more, at the Catamaran Hotel in San Diego. It was four years later but by then, I had developed quite a collection of his records and later on I began collecting his CD’s. His music always struck me as very, very special but I could never quite understand how such a talented musician and such a special man had fallen victim to drug use and abuse. This week marked the 30th anniversary of his passing. I’ve spent the past few days listening to a lot of his music, but I still think my all time favorite is Since We Met. My parents were deeply touched by his music, too. After they died, I spread their ashes into the Pacific Ocean at sunset and played some of their favorite Bill Evans music: “Seascape,” “Dolphin Dance,” “Peau Deuce” and fittingly, “I Will Say Goodbye.” Bill Evans may be gone, but his music will live forever.

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Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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All About Jazz
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Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
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Jazz History Online
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Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
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Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
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Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
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Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

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