Born and raised in New Jersey, Evans was recruited for Southeastern Louisiana University on a flute scholarship, where he received a thorough background in theory, played in the marching band, and also led his football team to a league championship as a quarterback. Graduating as a piano major in 1950, he started to tour with the Herbie Fields band, but the draft soon beckoned, and Evans was placed in the Fifth Army Band near Chicago. After three years in the service, he arrived in New York in 1954, playing in Tony Scott's quartet and undertaking postgraduate studies at Mannes College, where he encountered composer George Russell and his modal jazz theories. By 1956, he had already recorded his first album as a leader for Riverside, New Jazz Conceptions, still enthralled by the bop style of Bud Powell but also unveiling what was to become his best-known composition, "Waltz for Debby," which he wrote while still in the Army.
In spring 1958, Evans began an eight-month gig with the Miles Davis Sextet, where he exerted a powerful influence upon the willful yet ever-searching leader. Though Evans left the band that autumn, exhausted by pressured expectations and anxious to form his own group, he was deeply involved in the planning and execution of Davis' epochal Kind of Blue album in 1959, contributing ideas about mood, structure, and modal improvisation, and collaborating on several of the compositions. Although the original release gave composition credit of "Blue in Green" to Davis, Evans claimed he wrote it entirely, based on two chords suggested by Davis (nowadays, they receive co-credit).
Evans returned to the scene as a leader in December 1958 with the album Everybody Digs Bill Evans, which included the famous "Peace Piece," a haunting vamp for solo piano that sounds like a long-lost Satie Gymnopédie. Evans' first working trio turned out to be his most celebrated, combining forces with the astounding young bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian in three-way telepathic trialogues. With this group, Evans became a star -- and there was even talk about a recording with Davis involving the entire trio. Sadly, only ten days after a landmark live session at the Village Vanguard in June 1961, LaFaro was killed in an auto accident -- and the shattered Evans went into seclusion for almost a year. He re-emerged the following spring with Chuck Israels as his bassist, and he would go on to record duets with guitarist Jim Hall and a swinging quintet session, Interplay, with Hall and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.
Upon signing with Verve in 1962, Evans was encouraged by producer Creed Taylor to continue to record in more varied formats: with Gary McFarland's big band, the full-orchestra arrangements of Claus Ogerman, co-star Stan Getz, and a reunion with Hall. The most remarkable of these experiments was Conversations with Myself, a session where Evans overdubbed second and third piano parts onto the first; this eventually led to two sequels in that fashion.
By 1966, Evans had paired with Puerto Rican bassist Eddie Gomez and formed a trio with drummer Jack DeJohnette. Though short-lived, the group garnered attention, picking up a Grammy Award for the 1968 concert album Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival. That same year, DeJohnette left to be replaced by Marty Morell. This version of Evans' trio continued to work for a decade, releasing albums like 1969's What's New and 1971's Grammy-winning The Bill Evans Album. Evans also picked up a Grammy in 1970 for his solo piano date Alone.
In his only concession to the emerging jazz-rock scene, Evans dabbled with the Rhodes electric piano in the 1970s but eventually tired of it, even though inventor Harold Rhodes had tailored the instrument to Evans' specifications. He recorded further trio sessions with Gomez and drummer Eliot Zigmund before launching a final trio in the late '70s with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe La Barbera. Often considered one of the pianist's best configurations since the LaFaro-Motian team, their brief time together was documented on 1979's Grammy-winning We Will Meet Again, also featuring trumpeter Tom Harrell and saxophonist Larry Schneider.
By the late '70s, Evans' health was rapidly deteriorating, aggravated by long periods of heroin and cocaine addiction. He died on September 15, 1980, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He was 51 years old. Along with a 1994 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a flood of unreleased recordings from commercial and private sources helped to further elevate interest in Evans' work. Turn Out the Stars: The Final Village Vanguard Recordings arrived in 1996, followed by 2000's The Last Waltz, recorded at Keystone Korner in 1980. Resonance Records also released three archival albums featuring Evans' late-'60s trio: 2016's Some Other Time: The Lost Session from the Black Forest, 2018's Another Time: The Hilversum Concert, and 2020's Live at Ronnie Scott's.
Biography by Richard S. Ginell
There are other artists with the same name:
2.) Bill Evans (born 9th February 1958 in Clarendon Hills, Illinois, USA) is an American jazz saxophonist. His father was a classical piano prodigy and until junior high school Evans studied classical clarinet. Early in his studies he was able to hear such artists as Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz live at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago. He attended Hinsdale Central High School and studied with jazz tenor saxophonist Vince Micko.
He plays primarily tenor and soprano saxophones. Evans attended North Texas State University and William Paterson University, where he studied with Dave Liebman, who had played with Miles Davis. Moving to New York City in 1979 he spent countless hours in lofts playing jazz standards and perfecting his improvisational style. At the age of twenty-two he joined Miles Davis. In the early to mid-1980s, Evans played with Davis and was instrumental in his musical comeback. Notable albums recorded with Miles include The Man with the Horn, We Want Miles, and Decoy.
In addition to playing with Miles Davis he has played, toured and recorded with artists such as Herbie Hancock, John Mclaughlin (and his Mahavishnu Orchestra), Michael Franks, Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger, Les McCann, Mark Egan, Danny Gottlieb, Ian Anderson, and Randy Brecker, among others. He is featured on the Petite Blonde album with Victor Bailey, Dennis Chambers, Mitch Forman, and Chuck Loeb.
Two of his most recent albums Soul Insider and Soulgrass were nominated for Grammy awards. Soulgrass was a groundbreaking bluegrass-jazz fusion concept involving such musicians as Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, Bruce Hornsby, and Vinnie Colaiuta. Although his latest projects are musically eclectic, his stylistic roots remain in the history of jazz saxophone, influenced by such players as Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Sonny Stitt, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Stan Getz, and Steve Grossman.
3.) San Francisco Bay Area musician and Virginia native Bill Evans has been involved with bluegrass music and the banjo for over twenty-five years as a player, teacher, writer, and historian. He occupies a unique niche in the banjo world: celebrated worldwide for his traditional and progressive bluegrass banjo styles as well as his innovative original compositions, he also enjoys a reputation as an outstanding instructor as well as being an expert player of nineteenth-century minstrel and classic/parlour banjo styles.
Maybe September
Bill Evans Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I love again
Maybe a rainbow
Will catch me then
This little boy lost
Will find his way once more
Just like before
When lips were tender
The shade of the willow
When love was born
A face on a pillow
In early morn
I still see that golden world
In all it's splendor
Maybe September
Love will come again
A taller tree, a sweeter log
A bluer morning sky above
And maybe come September
I'll share these wonders
With my love
The song "Maybe September" by Bill Evans starts off with the desire to fall in love again, indicated by the lyrics, "Maybe September, I love again. Maybe a rainbow will catch me then." The metaphor of the rainbow suggests that the singer is hoping for a bright and colorful love that will light up their life. The next line, "This little boy lost, will find his way once more," indicates that the singer is seeking redemption for their past mistakes and hopes to find love like they had in the past when "lips were tender."
The second verse of the song brings back a memory of a past love, represented by the "shade of the willow" and "a face on a pillow in early morn." The singer still remembers this "golden world" of love "in all its splendor" and hopes to find it again someday. This theme of nostalgia and yearning for the past is a common theme in Bill Evans's music.
The final verse suggests that the singer has found some kind of inner peace and is hoping to share their newfound wonder with a new love. The lyrics "A taller tree, a sweeter log, a bluer morning sky above" represent new and elevated experiences that the singer hopes to share with a partner. The phrase "and maybe come September, I'll share these wonders with my love" suggests that the singer is optimistic about finding love again, while acknowledging that it might not happen right away.
Overall, "Maybe September" is a deeply introspective song that explores the themes of love, loss, and the search for redemption. The optimism in the lyrics suggests that the singer is ultimately hopeful that they will find love again, even if it takes some time.
Line by Line Meaning
Maybe September
Looking forward to a possible future in September
I love again
Hopeful to find love once more
Maybe a rainbow
Hopeful that something beautiful will happen
Will catch me then
Will be there to uplift and inspire
This little boy lost
Feeling vulnerable and uncertain about the future
Will find his way once more
Belief that things will get better and finding direction again
Just like before
Nostalgia for when things were good
When lips were tender
Reflecting on a past romance
The shade of the willow
Recalling a particular setting or memory
When love was born
Reminiscing the start of a relationship
A face on a pillow
Recalling a moment of intimacy
In early morn
Describing the context of the past memory
I still see that golden world
Memories of a perfect world that no longer exists
In all it's splendor
Reiterating how great the past was
Love will come again
Faith in the future and the possibility of finding love
A taller tree, a sweeter log
Anticipating better things in the future, symbolized by nature
A bluer morning sky above
Describing the beauty of the environment
And maybe come September
Expressing hope for the future
I'll share these wonders
Experiencing the beauty of life with someone else
With my love
Specifically identifying the person the singer wants to share life with
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: JAY LIVINGSTON, PERCY FAITH, RAY EVANS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Ray Orzechowski
Simply beautiful.Evans is superb.
Esclarmonde 102
Tony Bennett is the greatest singer and with Bill Evans, perfection.
David Linx
incomparable
Mark Blackburn
The computer screen, now streaming “Siriusly Sinatra” satellite radio, reads:
"Ch. 71 @FrankSinatra The Chairman's Hour"
... which just played two consecutive gems from the world's greatest living singer Tony Bennett – 'alone together' circa 1977 with the most influential jazz piano giant Bill Evans -- their version of a movie theme song Tony had introduced years earlier – MAYBE SEPTEMBER. Unsurpassed, to this day -- "solo piano supporting one male singer" -- it never got better than this, you may agree.
Thanks, Onur Özener for sharing. Celebrated elsewhere this night [search] " Great Melody, Great Lyric, Great Rendition, Songwriting Workshop, Harmony Central "