BILL EVANS died in 1980, but 25 years later you hear his sound everywhere, and pianists of all ages and tastes are influenced by his playing.
When the young American jazz pianist Brad Mehldau improvises on the music of Radiohead, you can often hear the sound of Bill Evans in it. When the British teenage pianist Sam Beste accompanies Amy Winehouse, a haunting Bill Evans chord or a delicate Evans turn of phrase may pass by, almost unnoticed. Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett and McCoy Tyner, three of the most famous jazz pianists in the world, all pay their respects to Evans.
For much of his career Evans worked within the simple structure of an acoustic piano-trio. But if he played standard songs, and originals he made into standards, they sounded different every time he played them. Bill Evans made jazz harmonies sound deeper, more mysterious and moving, than almost anybody else in music. His collaborations with drummers and bassists were like equal conversations in which he wasn’t presenting himself as the star and them as the accompanists. Evans’s deep musical thinking lay behind the classic, bestselling Miles Davis album Kind of Blue, and some people have called him ‘the Chopin of jazz piano’.
