I knew a lot of people with those kind of facilities, and they don’t know what to do with it often. Bill brought the amazing singer Max Mutzke from Germany to guest on the recordings only vocal track. Says Bill “I had the honor of being a guest at a festival hosted by Wolfgang Haffner around September 2019 in Nuremberg Germany that Max was also a guest on. He’s a guy that will turn his mind toward certain areas of music or certain people and decide that there’s somebody or something or an area of music that he can learn from, and then he will. And it seems like those kind of people that have to really develop more analytically and consciously and dig into themselves and more or less the late arrivers, they don’t have the kind of facility — I know Miles has spoken about how he didn’t have the facility that a lot of trumpet players had, and fast tempos and all this stuff, and Bird would just tell him “Just get out there and do it,” but that kind of person, when they finally do arrive at their own expressive level, to me, seem to contain so much more.
But I think one thing we do know is it’s a good thing, because we intuitively committed to ourselves to it for that reason.BILL EVANS: Oh, I first heard Miles on the very first records he made. In the summer of 1979, my good friend from Phoenix, the great drummer Lewis Nash (then 20 years old) was staying with the family of a friend of his in Bronxville NY, and studying with Freddie Waits, Billy Hart, and Andrew Cyrille, and hearing as much music as possible. And he loved Blossom Dearie, who I love also. George Russell, the godfather of modal jazz, presented Bill Evans to Miles Davis when he was looking for a new pianist. in his career that [? And I don’t know who all he listened to, but that’s the way he would sort of pick up things, and I don’t think; I think he certainly did listen. I don’t know what it was, really, y’know?
He has been playing jazz professionally since 1975 and is featured as a soloist on over 50 recordings. Bill Evans, that’s who.Recent highlights include touring and/or performing with his own Bill Evans Band, Bill toured extensively with the Randy Brecker/Bill Evans Soulbop band (formed in 2003) for over 15 years, which incorporated the many influences they both have had in their careers in the Jazz arena. I was comparing jazz in general, or the jazz discipline, to that kind of thing because you can’t go back. But that’s kind of a picture of the date, and it was all done in one afternoon as far as I can remember. So, I mean, how far can you go in that direction? I think there was a point, in my own opinion, where he made a turn, reaching for a large audience, I don’t know, or what, with the bands, and I have often wanted to speak to Miles about that period and find out how he felt about it, what he thought he possibly had developed or learned or whether that was a direction he’d like to go farther in or what. ‘Cause first take feelings are generally, if they’re anywhere near right, they’re generally the best, and if you don’t take that one, generally you take a dip emotionally. He didn’t have a copy, so I sent him a CD-R of it. I went by his apartment and he had liked “Peace Piece” that I did and he said he’d like to do that. But Miles is truly a stylist, but that’s mainly because he’s a strong, independent personality, and does things his own way, and always has, and just what we were talking about. He’s up there giving you his soul and you want him to do the acrobatics, stand on his head and what?INTERVIEWER: There’s a film out where he plays “So What” and almost as intense as seeing a live concert, just watching him, he’s so, he’s thinking so hard about the solo, just watching him with the other members of the group solo.BILL EVANS: Yes, true.
This CD is called “Common Ground“. Transcribed by Allan Chase, 3/24/19-5/8/19. I didn’t have Miles’ number because he changes it quite frequently. Price New from Used from Audio CD, Import, Live, September 15, 2017 "Please retry" $16.96 . I’ve really enjoyed it, and we’ve been talking to Bill Evans and before we let you off, is there anything else you’d like to say about Miles or any [?] He (Miles) said, "What about him?" And I don’t think we would have had Coltrane or known Coltrane’s potential or the great contributions that he’s made, except for Miles and Miles’ belief in his potential. And that may account for some of the success of this album, that all of those takes are the first takes.INTERVIEWER: You had spoken in your liner notes about comparing those sessions to Japanese paintings in which you have to lightly draw or else it breaks through the parchment.BILL EVANS: Yeah.