Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to the great Bill Evans’ album, You Must Believe in Spring. It’s going to be Bill Evans for the next day or two because I watched a wonderful documentary on Amazon Prime entitled Time Remembered. There has, in my mind, never been a jazz pianist like Bill Evans. He was completely unique, and I’ve written many times of how I discovered him with Conversations with Myself, where he overdubs his original piano tracks two more times – a brilliant album the won him his first Grammy, the first of seven wins. It was a life-changer for me, that LP. After that, I bought almost every Evans album that came out. He was introspective, poetic, and his chord voicings were unlike anyone else’s. He had a difficult life and died way too young – he began using heroin early on and it was his demon throughout his life – clean for a while, then back on. The documentary looks at all of it, has lots of wonderful interviews and although it has its tragic moments, in the end what you’re left with is some of the most beautiful music ever recorded, an amazing legacy of sixty albums that are classics. There was lots of stuff I didn’t know about, there are some great clips of him playing live or on TV, and I just enjoyed all of it. When I decided to resurrect jazz covers of Broadway shows by doing the series of Sondheim in jazz albums, I talked to a lot of different pianists about it, but none felt right to me. Then Terry Trotter was recommended to me, he came in to meet me and left me a CD he’d done. I put on the first track and a minute later I called his machine and told him he was it. Why? Because he had the same musical sensibilities as Bill Evans – poetic and not a show-off. And when he put together his trio, I didn’t know the bass player at all – Tom Warrington – but how amazing was it that his choice of drummer was Joe LaBarbera, who’d happened to be Bill Evans’ final drummer for several years. I never had the good fortune to see Evans live, a great regret of mine. But I’ve never stopped playing his albums, not since Conversations with Myself way back in 1962. The documentary is highly recommended by the likes of me.
Yesterday never quite felt like a Sunday. It was a weird hybrid kind of a day in that regard. I didn’t sleep so well but I think I managed to get between five and six hours. Once up, I answered e-mails, and as soon as I had my faculties about me, I began futzing and finessing the previous day’s writing and there was a lot to futz and finesse, since I’d written twenty-three pages. So, that took quite a lot of time, but I smoothed out a lot of stuff, added and subtracted a few things, then wrote two new pages.
After that, I moseyed on over to the mail place and picked up the second important envelope, then went to Stanley’s and got a Caesar salad with chicken to go. I came home and ate that all up and it was very good. I told them no bread, so that was good not to scarf down very heavy bread slathered in very heavy butter. Then it was back to writing and I did another ten pages or so, then watched the documentary.
After I finished that, I wrote another couple of pages for a total of sixteen. I may try to write another two before I go to bed, but we’ll have to see. I did start chapter three. I’ll also probably try to finish my sequence for the project with David Wechter, as soon as I post these here notes, which will hopefully be within the next five minutes.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven, I may try to go do my banking, and hopefully it won’t be too crowded, then I’ll come home and futz and finesse, write new pages, eat something – maybe another salad – write more, maybe have a Zoom thing with David Wechter, hopefully pick up some packages, write, and then at some point I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow is more of the same and then I’m seeing a presentation of a new play over at the Group Rep. The rest of the week is more of the same and mostly writing at least ten to fifteen pages a day, and at the end of week one I will send Muse Margaret however many pages are done, the first time in our long twenty-year Muse history that I don’t have to Xerox pages for her.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, maybe bank and get that out of the way, futz and finesse, write new pages, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, maybe have a Zoom thing, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What music was a life-changer for you and why? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have seen a wonderful documentary on Bill Evans – Time Remembered.