Gil Evans was one among jazz’s most essential arrangers, and it was obvious from early on that Evans would pursue a profession in music. Born on Might 13, 1912, as a teen, Evans was preoccupied with music, enjoying in a band in addition to transcribing information, writing down songs and preparations. Evans was turned onto jazz by a pal’s father who performed him Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Fletcher Henderson information. Seeing an Ellington live performance in 1927 set Gil on track for a profession in music.
Gil Evans’ first band
He performed tea-time piano within the Grand Lodge, Stockton and the primary document he purchased was Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines’ No One Else However You. Evans’ first band was shaped in 1933 and so they performed the preparations he had transcribed of songs by Don Redman, Ellington, and Henderson. In 1935, that they had made sufficient progress to be on the identical invoice on the Palomar Ballroom as Benny Goodman.
Evans turned good associates with arranger Claude Thornhill and after he returned to New York, Gil quickly adopted. With the approaching of World Battle II, Evans was posted to varied military bands, primarily play bass drum. It was throughout this time that he turned acquainted with bebop.
After the conflict, Evans returned to New York to rearrange for Thornhill’s reformed orchestra, and moved right into a small furnished basement at 14 West fifty fifth Road. The spot turned a drop-in place for fellow musicians, composers, and theorists to hang around and swap concepts, “I rented the place for two years. I never knew who was going to be there when I got home and I didn’t care.” Regulars calling by have been Gerry Mulligan, who ended up transferring in completely, Lee Konitz, George Russell, and John Lewis. Charlie Parker principally got here to sleep, typically accompanied by Miles Davis.
Beginning Of The Cool
Davis and Evans shaped a nonet in 1948, consisting of French horn, trombone, tuba, trumpet, alto and baritone sax, and rhythm part, to play the preparations based mostly on Gil’s “fast and light and no vibrato” blueprint. The band performed on the Royal Roost on forty seventh Road, which featured on three radio broadcasts that at the moment are included on The Full Beginning Of The Cool remastered and reissued on Blue Observe, together with the unique dozen studio sides that they lower in 1949 and 1950 for Capitol.
Following his marriage, Evans labored briefly with Charlie Parker in 1953, but it surely wasn’t till 1956 that he bought one other massive break when he organized Helen Merrill’s album, Dream of You for EmArcy, after which bought a name from Davis that will result in a succession of good albums like Miles Forward (1957), Porgy and Bess (1958), Sketches of Spain (1960), and Quiet Nights (1962).
The second and solely different time Evans and Davis carried out dwell was at Carnegie Corridor in 1961, with Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb, and the Gil Evans Orchestra. Their live performance included Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez from Sketches of Spain, Ahmad Jamal’s “New Rhumba” from Miles Forward, and Sonny Rollins’ “Oleo.”
Going solo
Evans was feted as a genius, which in flip afforded him the chance to document his personal albums. These included Gil Evans And Ten (1957), New Bottle, Outdated Wine (1958) with Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, its follow-up Nice Jazz Requirements (1959), Out Of The Cool (1960), and The Individualism Of Gil Evans (1964). Different albums he organized throughout this era included Guitar Varieties (1964) with Kenny Burrell, and Look To The Rainbow (1966) with Astrud Gilberto.
After remarrying, Evans slipped from the scene however by the Nineteen Seventies he was planning on collaborating with Jimi Hendrix. This intriguing concept sadly didn’t come to move, as Hendrix handed away earlier than they may correctly work collectively. Evans did launch The Gil Evans Orchestra Performs the Music of Jimi Hendrix (1975), an instrumental album of his songs that brilliantly integrates rock and jazz components, with guitarists John Abercrombie and Ryo Kawasaki.
Touring with legends
Turning away from the studio, Evans took a touring orchestra of as much as fifteen musicians on the highway, typically performing not less than one Hendrix tune in every live performance. On events, a live performance could be constructed round a visitor soloist, for instance, John McLaughlin at Ravenna in 1986, and Sting at Perugia in 1987.
From 1984 till his demise on March 20, 1988, Evans and his Monday Night time Orchestra performed weekly on the Candy Basil membership in New York, and the ambiance at their performances may be relived through Stay At Candy Basil, Vol. 1 & 2 (1984), and Bud And Chook (1986), the latter profitable his one-and-only Grammy Award, for Finest Jazz Instrumental Efficiency, Massive Band. He additionally scored the soundtracks for Absolute Inexperienced persons and The Colour Of Cash.
Henry Lowther, a trumpeter in Evans’ band throughout his later years, stated, “Gil was an absolutely lovely man. He was modest and unassuming, but he was terribly disorganized and a chaotic bandleader…[nonetheless] there’s no doubt in my mind that Gil was the most important writer in jazz history after Duke Ellington.”
Hearken to one of the best of Gil Evans on Apple Music and Spotify.
