Composer, producer, and conductor Ryan Truesdell returns to the Jazz Standard with his award-winning Gil Evans
Project for its fourth annual residency Thursday, May 14 – Sunday, May 17,
2015. The performances celebrate their triumphant sophomore album Lines of Color: Live at Jazz Standard on the newly-formed Blue Note/ArtistShare label
(www.GilEvansProject.com). The band will be debuting selections from the new
CD, as well as other rarely performed works from Gil Evans’ catalog – including
music from the albums New Bottle Old Wine, Great Jazz Standards, Individualism
of Gil Evans, and more.
This
highly anticipated release follows Truesdell's debut CD Centennial: Newly
Discovered Works of Gil Evans, which won a posthumous Grammy Award for Gil
Evans and the New York Times called "an extraordinary album.” Lines of Color – the next step in Truesdell's
endeavor to reveal hidden layers of Gil Evans' musical legacy – features some
of New York's finest musicians including Lewis Nash, Donny McCaslin, Steve
Wilson, Ryan Keberle, Marshall Gilkes, and Scott Robinson. The CD was recorded
by Grammy award-winning engineer James Farber with the live engineering team of
Tyler McDiarmid and Geoff Countryman.
Lines of Color was recorded during the Gil Evans Project’s annual week-long engagement
at Jazz Standard in New York City from May 13-18, 2014. It consists of six
newly discovered, never before recorded works (including “Avalon Town,” “Can't
We Talk It Over,” and “Just One Of Those Things”), two arrangements with
previously unheard sections (“Davenport Blues” and “Sunday Drivin'”), and three
of Evans’ well-known charts from his classic albums (“Time of the Barracudas,”
“Concorde,” and “Greensleeves”). Throughout the engagement, the Gil Evans
Project presented nearly fifty of Evans’ works, most of which were performed
live for the first time. Truesdell decided to record live for the Gil Evans
Project’s second album to honor the essence of Evans’ music that craves live
performance. “It allows Gil’s colors and the overtones of the music to sound
and blend in the room in a way that you can’t get from a close-mic studio
recording,” says Truesdell.
"Live
recording captures this intangible energy that’s created when music is
performed for an audience. It gives listeners a sense of the magic that happens
when the notes are lifted off the page by these amazing musicians.”
The eleven
selections that make up Lines of Color represent everything you hope for in a
live recording: a beautiful sound, a lively, involved audience, and precise and
inspired performances of remarkable music. Of this collection, six of the
charts were originally written during Evans’ tenure with the Claude Thornhill
orchestra, including never-before-heard arrangements of “How High the Moon,”
“Avalon Town,” and a rare Evans original composition, “Gypsy Jump,” written in
1942. A fun tune with an unusual 36-bar form, “Gypsy Jump” seems to show a
slight influence from the “Arabian Dance” from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, also
arranged by Evans for Thornhill during this time. “Can’t We Talk It Over,” a
gorgeous ballad from the Thornhill Orchestra’s late 1940s repertoire,
illustrates Evans’ strong bebop influences as evidenced by a direct musical
quote from a Charlie
Parker
solo. It is a wonderful feature for the Gil Evans Project’s resident vocalist,
Wendy Gilles. Bruce Lundvall, Chairman Emeritus of Blue Note Records said,
“Wendy has an amazing voice which is a perfect fit for this music.”
Two charts
on the record represent the middle of Evans’ career; one of which he and his
band never recorded, and only performed once. In the spring of 1959, Evans and
his orchestra played the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, sharing the billing
with Dinah Washington and Thelonious Monk. For this concert, Evans chose to
revisit a few charts from his past, including Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those
Things,” which was based on the arrangement Evans did for his first album as a
leader in 1957, Gil Evans + 10. Ever the reviser, Evans took the opportunity to
do a bit of rearranging as well as re-orchestrating the chart to fit the
instrumentation for the concert. The Gil Evans Project’s first-time recording
of this great Evans arrangement features incredible solos from Steve Wilson on
soprano, trombonist Ryan Keberle, and pianist Frank Kimbrough. The other tune
from this era is Evans’ great adaptation of Bix Beiderbecke’s “Davenport
Blues,” originally recorded on the 1959 album, Great Jazz Standards. “I was
ecstatic when I discovered Gil’s score to “Davenport,” says Truesdell. “There
were four pages in the middle of the score that were omitted from the original
version. I’m thrilled we were able to record the entire chart as Gil first
conceived it.” Rather than imitating trumpet soloist Johnny Coles’ definitive
performance on Evans’ Great Jazz Standards album, Truesdell decided to take a
slightly different approach. The slower tempo and Lewis Nash’s heavy, slightly
dirty swing feel emphasizes the bluesy elements and perfectly articulates Gil’s
hard-swinging rhythms. “I was blown away by Mat Jodrell’s performance; he
poured every bit of his soul and personality into the solo and really made it
his own,” says Truesdell.
Rounding
out Lines of Colors a collection of tunes from Evans’ output in the
mid-1960s, including the Gil Evans Project’s dynamic renderings of “Time of the
Barracudas,” and “Concorde,” which both first appeared on the Individualism of
Gil Evans recording. “Greensleeves,” originally arranged for guitarist Kenny
Burrell, receives a fresh take from trombonist Marshall Gilkes, whose
unparalleled tone and inventive melodicism uplift this familiar tune and Gil’s
singular writing.
With Lines of Color Truesdell, has solidified his reputation as one of the foremost Gil
Evans scholars, while leading a band of industry giants in an historic and
invaluable undertaking. Picking up where the Gil Evans Project’s 2013 Grammy
award-nominated album Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans left off,
Lines of Color is an exciting glimpse into how Truesdell and his critically
acclaimed band are fulfilling the most crucial aspect of his vision: to bring
Evans’ music to new ears, and to extend his legacy into the 21st century.
No comments:
Post a Comment