Kind Of Blue: Bill Evans' Liner Notes

Kind Of Blue (side one) was recorded today (March 2nd) back in 1959. Read pianist Bill Evans' original liner notes (below) for one of the greatest jazz albums of all time!

Improvisation in Jazz

by Bill Evans

There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.

This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician.

Left to right: John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis + Bill Evans

Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.

As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time. Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with sure reference to the primary conception.

Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take."

Miles Davis + Bill Evans

Although it is not uncommon for a jazz musician to be expected to improvise on new material at a recording session, the character of these pieces represents a particular challenge.

Briefly, the formal character of the five settings are: "So What" is a simple figure based on 16 measures of one scale, 8 of another and 8 more of the first, following a piano and bass introduction in free rhythmic style. "Freddie Freeloader" is a 12-measure blues form given new personality by effective melodic and rhythmic simplicity. "Blue in Green" is a 10-measure circular form following a 4-measure introduction, and played by soloists in various augmentation and diminution of time values. "All Blues" is a 6/8 12-measure blues form that produces its mood through only a few modal changes and Miles Davis' free melodic conception. "Flamenco Sketches" is a series of five scales, each to be played as long as the soloist wishes until he has completed the series.

John Coltrane's "Psalm" like you've never experienced...

In the video above, John Coltrane's "Psalm" (A Love Supreme: 4th Movement) is synced with his A Love Supreme poem. Unbeknownst to many, Coltrane actually sounded out the words through his horn, placing the handwritten poem on a music stand in front of him, and playing it as if it were music. Coltrane vaguely alludes to this in the liner notes (which also includes the poem): "The fourth and last part is a musical narration of the theme 'A Love Supreme' which is written in the context." He also notes, "Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts, fears and emotions—time—all related... all made from one." For Coltrane, reciting the poem vocally, or through his horn, is ultimately one and the same. Syncing up the two (poem and music) conveys just that.

This week marks the 50th Anniversary of A Love Supreme. Learn more at sfjazz.org.

Study In Liner Notes: Thelonious Monk

"...Clearly, Monk had made the big time. Just as clearly, he had done it on his own terms, without the slightest hint of compromise. Monk's ascent from obscurity to celebrity was living proof of the wisdom of his philosophy, expressed in a famous 1959 interview with writer Grover Sales:

'I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want – you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you (sic) doing – even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years...'

...this album is suffused with as much freshness and vitality as anything Monk ever recorded. Monk was too single-minded and too dedicated to allow negative circumstances to affect his music adversely – some of his most exhilarating recordings were made when his career was at a low ebb – but it's understandable that his playing on 'Monk's Dream' would reflect the dramatic upturn his career was taking. Monk was in a good mood when he laid down these sides, no doubt about it – and the sound of Thelonious Monk in a good mood is among the happiest sounds in all music."

— Peter Keepnews (excerpt from Liner Notes, 'Monk's Dream')

Monk turns 97 on Friday! We're celebrating all week, capped by pianist Eric Reed's (sold out) 2-night Monk Tribute starting Thursday, which also marks the return of the SFJAZZ Hotplate Series, every 2nd Thursday throughout the 2014-15 Season! Read Keepnews' full liner notes.