Search - Bill Evans :: At the Montreaux Jazz Festival (Dig)

Plenty to Like Here, A Few Warts

Fly By Light | Atlanta, Georgia | 12/31/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Bill Evans plays with some real firepower on this CD, then lays back into some sweet ballads. The quick, aggressive playing of Eddie Gomez and playful, dancing drums of Jack DeJohnette sit nicely with the upbeat numbers. Bill gets to take some ballads by himself as well. This is really some good stuff from monster performers. It left me wanting more - unlike some of my other Bill Evans re-mastered CD's, there are no bonus cuts on this one.



Numerous good points aside, it did surprise me that this album earned a Grammy from the Recording Academy. Listening to this CD as a recording enthusiast was frustrating to me. In the full band numbers, the most prominent sounds were the clicking of the bass and the stick hitting the ride cymbal. The tone of the piano and bass were kind of buried in the background. The state of the art in live jazz recordings was well beyond this point (listen to some of the live recordings of Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington on Ultimate 16:Jazz Cafe ASIN: B000BF0E00), so the sound quality falls short of my expectations. Also, as wonderful a bass player as Eddie Gomez is, I don't enjoy a lot of long bass solos, especially when they are difficult to hear. Finally, repeated listening suggests some rhythmic tugs-of-war between Evans and DeJohnette - neither one plays "wrong", but their "beat placements" (front of the beat, back of the beat) seem to diverge a lot.



These points aside, this CD is a fine effort by Bill Evans and his band that gives a better perspective on his broad range of expression than his more subdued works."

Fantastic!

Nicholas Fox | 10/25/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"We are fortunate to have a wealth of fine performances by Bill Evans to enjoy. Standouts are almost all of the Riverside trio performances (including the benchmark Village Vanguard discs with Scott Lefaro and Paul Motian), as well as the superb "Turn Out The Stars" box set with his last trio featuring Marc Johnson on bass and Joe Labara on drums.
"At The Montreux Jazz Festival" ranks with these stellar recordings. Jack DeJohnette is, in my opinion, one of the finest drummers (and musicians) we have, and even at this early stage (1968)he is mature and musical like almost no one else can be. Gomez was at a career high, and Evans's playing exceeds his usual fantastic standards.
Verve did a fine job with the 20 bit remastering, and included the entire set list.
Any fan of jazz piano trios should have this disc!"