July 8, 2008
Bill Evans on the creative process
Bill Evans. Oh, Bill Evans! Pardon me, but I’ve got to step away now and listen to How my heart sings!, which is the only Bill Evans Trio CD I have right to hand just now.
Via Coudal.
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10 Responses to “Bill Evans on the creative process”
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Oh Bill Evans, indeed. I like this blog more day by day.
My teacher gave me a similar lecture, making me solo over a tune with just two notes. Two! But it forced me to really think about how I used them. He also had me play classical pieces “so slowly mistakes are impossible”; even if that was one note per second. It’s a lesson that’s stayed with me: there’s always an easily-comprehended level from which we build.
You have to be adventurous and know when you succeed and when you don’t succeed. !
Personal philosophies of Artists, when “riffing” on that which has come before, whether music, cut paper, words, or whatever medium, simply leave me in jaw-dropping awe.
Music, though. Jazz, is so “in the moment.” It may be the riskiest of all artistic endeavors. To me (and I’m no scholar nor practicioner, just appreciator of what pleases me) it seems, sucking or brilliance is only a note’s throw away. (My uneducated subjectivity notwithstanding.)
Yes, Rick. I know that feeling of awe. And while I’m not entirely sure there is one “riskiest of all artistic endeavors”, a live jazz performance can come very close to the edge of a magnificent precipice — like the vehicular ‘chickie run’ in Rebel Without a Cause. God, I can remember a couple of times I heard David Murray perform with the Octet — I thought all of us, band and audience alike, would ascend bodily to something better than heaven.
The conversation with Bill Evans continues here and here.
I just took off too long a comment to your comment here. I was being too talky. There is just something about being present in the moment of jazz when you know something great is happening, whether you’re schooled in it or not. (It happens with other great art, too.) For me it feels like everything turns inward, or is it outward? And you see the face of the universe.
Do you know Eldar? (Eww, I just clicked the link and the sound that came out was almost like “smooth jazz.”) Still, here’s the story. Five years ago or so, on a Sunday afternoon, Danny and I were driving around KC, listening to a couple of local ladies who have a Jazz program on the local NPR station. They played a version of Ellington’s Caravan. I said, “This is nutty!” Then the ladies introduced Eldar Djangerov, who happened to be living in a suburb of KC at the time. We memorized the name and went home to “google.” Turned out he was 14 years old when he recorded it. Honestly, I was flabbergasted.
But what do I know? It may be exactly what Bill Evans mentions above. (Taking the whole, without understanding building from the base.) From the link I just put here, I hope he isn’t being fucked up by marketing managers or corporate recording to the point he can’t recover.
And now I think this comment is longer than the first one.
Rick, the longer your comments, the more we love you.
Sheila, I just watched your two further links here. Just yummy and so on target with our conversation farther above.
Oh so glad. Had no idea whether anyone would give a rat’s red rear but thought I’d extend the opportunity to them as might.
And how about the way Thelonious Monk plays the ‘wrong’ note?
Heh, Cooper, I think the general rule in jazz is if you hit a wrong note, play it again with more emphasis then build from there. Good rule of thumb for any art form, including life in general.