Bassists included Scott LaFaro(1959-1961), Chuck Israels (1962-1965), Gary Peacock(1963), Teddy Kotick (1966), Eddie Gomez(1966-1977), and Marc Johnson(1978-1980).
On drums the trio had Paul Motian (1959-1962), Larry Bunker ( 1962-1965), Arnie Wise (1966, 1968), Joe Hunt (1967), Philly Joe Jones (1967, 1977-1978), Jack DeJohnette (1968), John Dentz (1968), Marty Morell (1968-1975), Eliot Zigmund (1975-1977), and Joe La Barbera (1978-1980).
Speak Low
Bill Evans Trio Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Our summer day withers away
Too soon, too soon.
Speak low when you speak, love,
Our moment is swift, like ships adrift,
We're swept apart too soon.
Love is a spark lost in the dark,
Too soon, too soon,
I feel wherever I go
That tomorrow is near, tomorrow is here
And always too soon.
Time is so old and love so brief,
Love is pure gold and time a thief.
We're late darling, we're late,
The curtain descends, ev'rything ends
Too soon, too soon,
I wait darling, I wait
Will you speak low to me,
Speak love to me and soon.
The song "Speak Low" by Bill Evans is a love song that speaks about the transience of romantic moments, as lovers are forced apart by circumstance and time. The first stanza sets the tone by urging the person to speak low when they speak of love because the sweet moments spent together are about to end too soon. The second verse reinforces this theme by speaking about how fleeting their moment together is, like ships adrift, they will soon be swept apart. The phrase "too soon" is repeated repeatedly, driving home how fleeting these romantic moments are, and how quickly they will come to an end.
The chorus speaks volumes about unrequited love as Evans sings about his concern that he feels tomorrow is always near and soon. Tomorrow can imply either a literal next day or it can refer to time progressing quickly, signalling their inevitable separation. He compares time being old and love being brief, love being pure gold, and time being a thief, implying that time can rob them of the pure and valuable love they share. The final lines reveal that he is waiting for his lover to speak low to him and speak love to him soon.
Line by Line Meaning
Speak low when you speak, love,
Lower your voice when you express your love because its fragility can be shattered easily.
Our summer day withers away
Our happy moments slowly end despite our desire to hold onto them.
Too soon, too soon.
Even though we want it to last longer, our summer days always end too quickly.
Our moment is swift, like ships adrift,
Our time together is fleeting, and we are both like ships without direction.
We're swept apart too soon.
Despite our efforts, our time together always comes to an end too soon because of outside forces.
Speak low, darling speak low,
Lower your voice, my love, because we need to cherish this moment but not spoil it with too much noise.
Love is a spark lost in the dark,
Love can be quickly extinguished, and it is challenging to maintain it through the darkness.
Too soon, too soon,
Sadly, love can be taken away from us very suddenly and quickly.
I feel wherever I go
No matter where I am, I feel this constant rush of time and the fleetingness of life and love.
That tomorrow is near, tomorrow is here
The future is always with us, and we must prepare for it as it can come quickly.
And always too soon.
No matter how much we prepare, the future can come far too quickly to handle.
Time is so old and love so brief,
Time has been here forever, yet love is just a fleeting moment in our brief lives.
Love is pure gold and time a thief.
Love is incredibly valuable, and time always seems to steal it away from us in the end.
We're late darling, we're late,
We've taken too much time to enjoy our love, and the end is quickly coming upon us.
The curtain descends, ev'rything ends
The show must come to a close, and our time together is running out.
Too soon, too soon,
As always, the end comes too soon.
I wait darling, I wait
Despite knowing the end is near, I will still wait for you and cherish our remaining moments together.
Will you speak low to me,
Can you speak softly so that our final moments together can be peaceful and intimate?
Speak love to me and soon.
Express your love to me now before it's too late, and we lose this opportunity for intimacy.
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: KURT WEILL, OGDEN NASH
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Michael Ansaldo
This song doesn’t quit. From beginning to the end it just keeps coming at you.
Eduardo Carbajales González
Bill Evans, la sutileza personificada !!!
Michael Hughes
I really got to get to work, but I was looking at your page and I saw this post. I love this tune, so I decided to take another few minutes and to listen. Great way to start the day. I really like how you list the album date and the musicians. Thanks for your great jazz music posts.
Laura Iriarte
Amazing!!!
VassilisArt
Young Bill Evans' first (hard - bop) record…..Dedicated to the late Barry Harris who disliked Ενans.. and ordered his students to neglect him..
Afonso Sousa
@StompL7 You're welcome! Glad I could contribute something :)
StompL7
@Afonso Sousa thank you for your developped answer alfonso
Afonso Sousa
Barry Harris is still alive, and he doesn't dislike Bill, but rather the endless amount of imitators of his style and their influence on post-bebop piano--and approach to harmony and improvisation more generally.
It helps to see where he's coming from, I think: Harris is a pure bebop pianist whose formative tastes lie pretty clearly with the 40s-50s generation of pianists such as Monk, Bud Powell or Al Haig. While Bill did share some of those influences, particularly Bud Powell's, his own influence in jazz piano was taken in a different direction whose links to the bebop tradition are somewhat more tenuous.
Bill was one of the great harmonists in jazz history, and people influenced by him (like, say, Gary Burton) ended up influencing jazz education in ways that Barry Harris seems quite strongly opposed to--think the Berklee jazz curriculum, essentially.
I agree that Harris has a pretty rigid conception of jazz piano, and his conservatism toward later developments in jazz (modal, free etc) certainly doesn't resonate with many of us, but I'd still say he's one of the greatest living jazz educators. Broadly, a lot of his views can be seen in contrast to the extremely academic trajectory of jazz in the last decades.
StompL7
Do you know what were his arguments ?
Break Of Dawn
From 2:46!