Bill Evans Portrait In Jazz CD

Digitally remastered by David Luke (1987, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California).

Digitally remastered by JVC using XRCD (Extended Resolution Compact Disc) technology.

Digitally remastered using 20-bit K2 Super Coding System technology.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

An indisputable jazz classic, Bill Evans's PORTRAIT IN JAZZ was originally released in 1959, issued on CD in the early `90s, then remastered and re-released in 2008. The crisp remastering is a joy, and brings the glorious music made by the legendary pianist and his trio into sharp, gorgeous relief. Evans's treatments of standards and classics such as "Come Rain or Come Shine," "Witchcraft," and "Someday My Prince Will Come" are startling and moving, but it's the originals--"Peri's Scope" and the seminal "Blue in Green"--that stand out.

PORTRAIT IN JAZZ introduced the justly acclaimed Bill Evans Trio, the innovative little group featuring bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian that would forever change standards of jazz playing, introducing a new kind of swing based on a flexible sense of time and interplay. Evans had already established himself on EVERYBODY DIGS BILL EVANS and, of course, the Miles landmark KIND OF BLUE. Now it was time to share the wealth.

PORTRAIT IN JAZZ represents the beginning of this process, which wouldn't see full flower till the freewheeling Village Vanguard sessions more than a year later. In the meantime there are energetically abstract takes on "Come Rain Or Come Shine" and "What Is This Thing Called Love?" as well as two equally fine takes of "Autumn Leaves"--one is a CD bonus track--on which Evans swings his heart out. The disc closes with two takes of the delicately somber "Blue In Green," a collaboration with Miles also featured on KIND OF BLUE and a welcome reminder of Evan's considerable skills as a composer.

Bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian weren't Bill Evans' first trio partners (they replaced non-brothers Sam and Philly Joe Jones), nor were they his longest-lasting (the lineup lasted barely 18 months). Nevertheless, the Evans-LaFaro-Motian partnership became the yardstick by which all future jazz piano trios were to be measured. Their astonishing collective improvisation, best heard on two takes each of the standard "Autumn Leaves" and the Evans-Miles Davis collaboration "Blue In Green" (first heard on Davis' epochal KIND OF BLUE), demonstrates the remarkable intuition of this trio. Here Evans, LaFaro and Motian play as with a single guiding consciousness, which makes these moody, low-key renditions of popular favorites ("Witchcraft," "When I Fall In Love," "Someday My Prince Will Come") sound as fresh as the pair

Recorded at Reeves Sound Studios, New York, New York on December 28, 1959. Originally released on Riverside (1162). Includes liner notes by Orrin Keepnews.

Bill Evans Trio: Bill Evans (piano); Scott LaFaro (bass); Paul Motian (drums).Down Beat (1960) - 5 Stars - Excellent - "..If there's any doubt that Evans is one of the freshest things to happen to the piano in the last few years, this album should dispel any such feelings...Here is an album with meaning--here is truth.."
Down Beat (1960) - 5 Stars - Excellent - "...If there's any doubt that Evans is one of the freshest things to happen to the piano in the last few years, this album should dispel any such feelings...Here is an album with meaning--here is truth..."
Down Beat (1960) - 5 Stars - Excellent - "..If there's any doubt that Evans is one of the freshest things to happen to the piano in the last few years, this album should dispel any such feelings...Here is an album with meaning--here is truth.."
Jazziz (1/95, p.89) - "...Evans was a one-of-a kind musician who took standards and made them his own...There is more feeling in that unmistakable Evans style than in any of the myriad technical doo-dad oriented players we get saddled with today..."
Jazziz (1/95, p.89) - "...a one-of-a-kind musician who took standards and made them his own...There is more feeling in that Unmistakable Evans style than in any of the...players we get saddled with today. It's uncanny what DCC has done to the sound of this disc--nothing could have sounded that good 35 years ago..."
Jazziz (1/95, p.89) - "...Evans was a one-of-a kind musician who took standards and made them his own...There is more feeling in that unmistakable Evans style than in any of the myriad technical doo-dad oriented players we get saddled with today..."