1. 'Round Midnight
2. How About You?
3. Spartacus Love Theme
4. Blue Monk
5. Stella by Starlight
6. Hey, There
7. N. Y. C.'s No Lark
8. Just You, Just Me
9. Bemsha Swing
10. A Sleepin' Bee
Bill Evans - Piano
In 1963, when this album
was recorded, overdubbing was still controversial
among jazz fans. Some purists held up their
hands in horror at the idea of something so
artificial as putting one recorded track on
top of another - or, as on most of this album,
amalgamating three different tracks. Pianist
Bill Evans would record one track, then listen
to it on headphones while layering another
track on top of it - and then a third. The
proof of the pudding is in the results: an
album which became an immediate classic.
The recordings were made
less than two years after bassist Scott La
Faro had died, effectively ending one of the
pioneering piano trios in jazz. So Conversations
with Myself may be regarded as Bill Evans
trying to create a new trio from three of
his own voices. It is a conversation in that
the left channel often seems to converse with
the right-hand channel, while the centre channel
passes comments on the dialogue. But sometimes
it is not so much a conversation as a chance
for Bill to add extra layers to his playing.
His use of chords was always one of the distinctive
qualities of his style, and this project enabled
him to build up complex edifices of chords.
The different voices seem to merge together
or work in harmonious counterpoint with one
another.
The exchanges can be witty,
as in How About You?, where the implied
lyric "I like New York in June" is contradicted
by Bill quoting from Way Down Yonder in
New Orleans, although he balances this
with a later reference to Manhattan!
Stella by Starlight is one of the most
successful tracks, using all three channels
to concurrently embellish the melody. All
three versions work together rather than conversing.
However, in Blue Monk - the only track
using two channels instead of three - the
right-hand side states the theme and then
the left-hand channel interjects brief comments
or responses. N. Y. C.'s No Lark (an
anagram disguising a tribute to pianist Sonny
Clark, who died the month before this recording
was made) builds up an ominous mood with bell-like
chiming. It is the only original composition
on the CD - the rest being jazz standards.
Bill Evans was always a very
thoughtful player, and the fascination of
this album is that you can virtually hear
Bill thinking as he listens to himself and
works out how best to respond. The album deserved
the success it aroused and is now rightly
included in the Verve "Classics" series. It
brought Bill Evans the first of his seven
Grammy awards and was given five stars by
Leonard Feather in Down Beat. A word
of advice: listen to this CD with headphones
or earphones, so as to distinguish the various
strands.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Verve 0602517036857
