Gunther Schuller and Bill Evans

[AllenLowe]

I knew his wife at the time, so it wasn't completely out of left field; but it threw me.

Edited May 12, 2015 by AllenLowe

[marcello]

I had the opportunity to play under the baton of GS for several years in the 1990s - in the Mingus Epitaph Orchestra and the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. Notwithstanding all respects and courtesies due, etc...., there were any number of trying, one could say incredulous, sometimes pathetically hilarious moments. It was instructive to witness how many of the elder statesmen just rolled with it seemingly unperturbed - Eddie Bert, Britt Woodman, Joe Wilder, Buster Cooper, George Adams, Joe Temperley, Don Butterfield...

But just one case in point:

In one of the Epitaph movements, my part began with five bars of rests per stave all the way down the page. In the first rehearsal I'm counting my ass off making sure I don't get lost. As I'm counting I'm listening to the orchestra expecting to hear something having to do with five bar phrases. All kinds of polyphony going on. After a while without success I give up counting altogether and just listen. Sure as shit it's just a goddamn twelve bar blues!

In my opinion, they should have left "Epitaph" in the closet where Charles put it.

[JSngry]

Taking about the whole Evans thing today at a rehearsal, and it was mentioned that what made his so appealing in the earlier days was the tension of holding things in for whatever reason, really making that tautness WORK, and how at some point (somewhere around Peacock/ Isreals definitely by the time of Gomez), it was like all that tension finally exploded his head and what was freed up wasn't some really freaky fascinationbeast like happened with Art Pepper, but just some piano player with a stabby/skittish left hand, a skipperydippery right hand, time that rushed, and songs in sweaters who wanted to host cookouts on the weeknights, you know the ones where the whole family comes and it's over by 10 (11 for you east Coasters) because, you know, work, kids/school, all that, and you go because both your house and your rig are both just a few doors down, and you can be home before the jones gets too strong.

[Chuck Nessa]

[Larry Kart]

Taking about the whole Evans thing today at a rehearsal, and it was mentioned that what made his so appealing in the earlier days was the tension of holding things in for whatever reason, really making that tautness WORK, and how at some point (somewhere around Peacock/ Isreals definitely by the time of Gomez), it was like all that tension finally exploded his head and what was freed up wasn't some really freaky fascinationbeast like happened with Art Pepper, but just some piano player with a stabby/skittish left hand, a skipperydippery right hand, time that rushed, and songs in sweaters who wanted to host cookouts on the weeknights, you know the ones where the whole family comes and it's over by 10 (11 for you east Coasters) because, you know, work, kids/school, all that, and you go because both your house and your rig are both just a few doors down, and you can be home before the jones gets too strong.

There ya go.

[HutchFan]

Taking about the whole Evans thing today at a rehearsal, and it was mentioned that what made his so appealing in the earlier days was the tension of holding things in for whatever reason, really making that tautness WORK, and how at some point (somewhere around Peacock/ Isreals definitely by the time of Gomez), it was like all that tension finally exploded his head and what was freed up wasn't some really freaky fascinationbeast like happened with Art Pepper, but just some piano player with a stabby/skittish left hand, a skipperydippery right hand, time that rushed, and songs in sweaters who wanted to host cookouts on the weeknights, you know the ones where the whole family comes and it's over by 10 (11 for you east Coasters) because, you know, work, kids/school, all that, and you go because both your house and your rig are both just a few doors down, and you can be home before the jones gets too strong.

There ya go.

I guess I'm in the minority, but I really like some of Evans' Fantasy recordings. Not all of them. But I think LPs like Since We Met and I Will Say Goodbye are strong records.

As ever, YMMV. (Perhaps I'm just a boring suburbanite. )

[fasstrack]

Sticks Evans? huh; knew his ex-wife back in the '70s, she was friends with Nan Evans, Bill's wife, though no relation to Sticks.

Didn't know much about him.

Les Spann had also taught in the NYC system, but I haven't found any info about it. Gigi Gryce also taught chorus in the Bronx, under his Muslim name.

Les Spann? I knew Les and it's hard to believe that unless it was years ago. Every time I saw him he was sitting with several beers and slightly disheveled in Washington Square Park. Sorry to tell tales out of school and I genuinely liked the man. Just can't see it.

Matter of fact his friend told me he was really hurt when he said hello to Diz at the latter's concert in the park. "John Birks", he said, and Dizzy turned, eyed him, replied "That's exactly the condition you were in last time I saw you" and stormed off.

[sgcim]

Yeah, Diz was very intolerant of drug or alcohol use by guys in his band. I'm reading Jimmy Heath's autobio right now, and he talked about the time Diz caught him and Specs Wright shooting up on a break in a club in California. He told them, "You junky motherfuckers. You're fired."

I'm guessing he might have done the same with Les.

Les apparently blew his teaching gig, also.

When I read your stories about hanging with Les in WSP, I figured he was a retired teacher in his 70s, rakin' in the bucks with his Tier 1 pension.

I was shocked to find that he passed at the age of 59...

[sgcim]

Taking about the whole Evans thing today at a rehearsal, and it was mentioned that what made his so appealing in the earlier days was the tension of holding things in for whatever reason, really making that tautness WORK, and how at some point (somewhere around Peacock/ Isreals definitely by the time of Gomez), it was like all that tension finally exploded his head and what was freed up wasn't some really freaky fascinationbeast like happened with Art Pepper, but just some piano player with a stabby/skittish left hand, a skipperydippery right hand, time that rushed, and songs in sweaters who wanted to host cookouts on the weeknights, you know the ones where the whole family comes and it's over by 10 (11 for you east Coasters) because, you know, work, kids/school, all that, and you go because both your house and your rig are both just a few doors down, and you can be home before the jones gets too strong.

Very entertainingly put (as usual), but my brother and I made the pilgrimage into the VV to see Bill in about 1979-80, as I mentioned before, and his playing then made Art Pepper's late phase sound like Paul Desmond in comparison.

I remember Red Rodney's pianist was in the audience, and he came up to me and said, 'Wasn't Bill great?', and I just looked at him with my mouth open.

I felt like I was just assaulted by Cecil Taylor for a few hours.

[Larry Kart]

Just picked up a New World CD of three of Schuller's late compositions -- "Of Reminiscences and Reflections" (1993 -- won the Pulitzer), "The Past Is in the Present" (1994) and Concerto for Organ and Orchestra (1994). Have listened to the first two, both memorial pieces -- the first for his wife, the second for his memories of Cincinnati, where he got his start in that city's symphony -- both very impressive. A commentator on Amazon says "Of Reminiscences and Reflections" is Schuller's film-noir masterpiece," and I can see why; the mood is certainly noir and it's often masterly, though maybe it's not a masterpiece because, at least for me, it's a bit "gestural" at times -- i.e. there are some passages where "thrusting" figures thrust forward while the formerly integrated harmonic, melodic, and timbral aspects of the music kind of trail in the wake language-wise for a while and/or seem a bit decorative, like scenery in a play. But that's a minor and mostly descriptive cavil; these are strong works.