Resonance Records has announced the release of Bill Evans - Another Time: The Hilversum Concert, a
spectacular never-before-heard live recording by the Bill Evans Trio featuring
bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Jack DeJohnette recorded in
Hilversum, Holland, by the Netherlands Radio Union (NRU) in the summer of 1968.
Another Time is Resonance's first follow-up release to the widely celebrated
Bill Evans Trio album, Some Other Time: The Lost Session from the Black Forest.
Resonance is pleased once again to release this entirely new Bill Evans
discovery in full cooperation with the Bill Evans Estate and Eddie Gomez and
Jack DeJohnette and Universal Music Group, the parent company of Verve Records,
the label Evans was signed to in 1968.
Bill Evans - Another Time: The Hilversum Concert, recorded
on June 22, 1968, just two days after Some Other Time, provides a fitting
counterpoint to that remarkable album. Interestingly, these two recordings were
made one day on either side of the summer solstice and they each seem to embody
attributes of their respective seasons. Where Some Other Time, recorded at the
legendary MPS studios in Villingen, Germany, is imbued with an introspective,
vernal beauty, Another Time was recorded as a live concert, and is a recording
remarkable not only for the three musicians' ebullience, freedom and
summer-infused heat; but notable also for its exceptional recording quality
utilizing the then state of the art recording techniques of the NRU. Producer
Zev Feldman and Executive Producer, George Klabin, regard Another Time as the
best-sounding Bill Evans album on Resonance; perhaps one of Evans's
best-sounding live records ever.
The configuration of this special edition of the Bill Evans
Trio - featuring
Jack DeJohnette newly introduced as a co-equal counterpart
to Evans and the redoubtable Eddie Gomez - was not widely recorded before Some
Other Time. Indeed, before Resonance released Some Other Time, only one
previous aural document existed memorializing this version of the trio, which
had a life-span of only six months: a live recording made at the Montreux
Festival, a concert that was held roughly a week before Some Other Time and
Another Time were recorded.
Marc Myers, a Wall Street Journal contributor, music
columnist, and Anatomy of a Song author, writes that Another Time "is a
frighteningly flawless and dynamic work by Evans." In his essay for 2016's
Some Other Time, Myers noted that the trio with Jack DeJohnette represented a
new model for Evans, observing "During the musical discourse between Mr.
DeJohnette and Evans, we hear clearly the sound that Evans wanted on drums
going forward." Dutch jazz authority Bert Vuijsje cited Brian Priestly's notes from the Montreux
album, noting that DeJohnette is, "above all, a listening drummer . . .
much more extroverted than Evans's previous [drummers]." And Jack
DeJohnette's view of this album is sunny: "All of the tracks on this album
are really cool. I liked what was happening there."
On revisiting this concert after nearly 49 years, Eddie
Gomez also liked what he heard. He noted, among other things, that he
"loved the way Bill plays the melodies. His exposition of melodies is
really fabulous and very touching . . . I like the way he plays 'Very Early'
and 'Who Can I Turn To?' and 'Turn Out the Stars.' Those are just beautiful
melodies and the way he plays them, he sings them out. Very few pianists can
sing like that. So I like those songs just for the way he plays the melody.
That always touches me and it's very emotional to hear him play those
songs."
The history of this release is somewhat unusual; more
unusual than is the case with most of Resonance's other releases. Our story
begins in October of 2016, when Feldman received an email from Marc Myers,
founder of the JazzWax.com blog. The email said Myers had received a note from
a Dutch reader who said he had heard a previously unknown Bill Evans concert
recording made in the Netherlands. Myers put Feldman together with the reader.
Upon receiving the recording from the reader, Feldman listened closely to it
with George Klabin and knew right away this was something special. Feldman
proceeded to reach out to one of his "boots on the ground," the
well-known Dutch jazz writer, Bert Vuijsje, to investigate further. Based on
Vuijsje's, and his colleague Frank Jochemsen's (jazz journalist and producer on
various Dutch jazz productions) intelligence, Feldman felt compelled to travel
to the Netherlands and meet with Bert and Frank to move things along.
Feldman and the team immediately set to work to fast track
this project starting, as usual, with obtaining all necessary rights; something
we do with all the recordings we issue. Fortunately, we were quickly able to
consummate deals with all of the parties holding rights in the recordings.
However, we were thrown a curve when, unbeknownst to us, another company also
had the music and had plans to issue it, but who had not obtained the rights
from the rights-holders. Of course, they could not have obtained those rights
because Resonance already had them. Nevertheless, we at Resonance felt the
urgency to release this recording, a high-resolution transfer from the original
tape, as soon as possible before any unauthorized illicit release could see the
light of day and cause confusion in the marketplace.
This project had something of an international espionage
quality to it, as we follow an American jazz investigator on an international
mission to find a lost tape, wherein he discovers it's possibly fallen into the
wrong hands, which leads to heated discussions, exchanges and ultimatums. As
producer Feldman explains, "We were literally racing against the clock to
put this out before it became bootlegged. We've never rushed a project through
all the channels as fast as this one. It was a very stressful exercise, and
emotions were running high. I was locked up in hotel rooms day and night, going
back and forth with my European colleagues and my Resonance team in LA. It's
all about respecting and protecting the intellectual property, and honoring the
musicians and the others involved in creating this recording - in this case
protecting the legacy of Bill Evans and rights of Eddie Gomez and Jack
DeJohnette. But make no bones about it, if you see this recording on another
label besides Resonance, it is an unauthorized bootleg!"
Once again, consistent with our mission to honor the
traditions of great American music, Resonance Records has pulled out all the
stops in creating this release. The deluxe CD package includes an extensive
book, presented in a beautifully designed digipak by Burton Yount, with an
extraordinary cover image by noted British photographer David Redfern. Also
featured in the package are rare photos by Chuck Stewart, Jan Persson, Lee
Tanner and others, as well as essays by Resonance producer Zev Feldman and
acclaimed Dutch jazz writer Bert Vuijsje, a profile of concert producer Joop de
Roo by Vuijsje, plus interviews with Bill Evans Trio members Eddie Gomez and
Jack DeJohnette and an interview with noted jazz pianist Steve Kuhn. The images
included in the album package are based on exhaustive research and include rare
images of the actual recording venue. The limited-edition, hand-numbered LP
pressing on 180-gram black vinyl will be released on Record Store Day, April
22, 2017. The LP version has been mastered by the legendary engineer Bernie
Grundman at
Bernie Grundman Mastering and pressed at Record Technology,
Inc. (RTI).
Track Listing:
1. You're Gonna
Hear from Me (4:30)
2. Very Early (5:14)
3. Who Can I Turn
To? (5:36)
4. Alfie (5:29)
5. Embraceable You
(5:05)
6. Emily (4:22)
7. Nardis (8:34)
8. Turn Out the
Stars (4:53)
9. Five (2:26)
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