Bill Evans at Town Hall

Bill Evans at Town Hall is a live album from 1966 by American jazz pianist Bill Evans and his trio. It is his only trio recording featuring drummer Arnold Wise.[1]

Bill Evans at Town Hall
Live album by
The Bill Evans Trio
Released1966
RecordedFebruary 21, 1966
VenueThe Town Hall, New York City
GenreJazz
Length35:12
LabelVerve
The Bill Evans Trio chronology
Bill Evans Trio with Symphony Orchestra
(1966)		 Bill Evans at Town Hall
(1966)		 Intermodulation
(1966)

The recording was released as "Volume 1," but no subsequent volume appeared. A planned release of big-band material, featuring Evans, from the second part of the concert ended up being nixed, as according to Evans's manager, Helen Keane, the pianist "did not play his best" during the second half.[2]

The original LP consisted of four trio performances of jazz standards followed by a lengthy solo elegy for Evans's recently deceased father. Verve Records released the album on CD in 1986 with three additional trio performances, including the first recording of Evans's composition "One for Helen," dedicated to his manager.[3]

Reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic [4]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide[5]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings[6]

Writing for AllMusic, music critic Scott Yanow called the album "a superior effort by Bill Evans and his trio in early 1966. ... [T]his live set features the group mostly performing lyrical and thoughtful standards. ... However the most memorable piece is the 13½-minute 'Solo - In Memory of His Father,' an extensive unaccompanied exploration by Evans that partly uses a theme that became 'Turn Out the Stars.'"[4]

The lengthy solo also features a newly composed "Prologue," somewhat reminiscent of Satie and Debussy, an elaborated version of "Re: Person I Knew," now titled "Story Line," and a closing "Epilogue" drawn from the 1958 album Everybody Digs Bill Evans.[7] Keith Shadwick highly praised this solo Evans performance for its "great intensity and almost infinite gradations of feeling, touch, tone, rhythmic adjustments and emphases. The overall mood of the music is elegiac, the melancholy at its heart becoming progressively darker and more intense until, touching despair, it is resolved by the enigmatic 'Epilogue,' newly poignant in its latest role."[8]

Evans biographer Peter Pettinger notes that "'Turn Out the Stars' was to endure and to become arguably Evans's second-greatest classic after 'Waltz for Debby.'"[9]

Track listing

Side one
  1. "I Should Care" (Sammy Cahn, Axel Stordahl, Paul Weston) – 5:30
  2. "Spring Is Here" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) – 5:00
  3. "Who Can I Turn To?" (Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley) – 6:17

Side two
  1. "Make Someone Happy" (Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jule Styne) – 4:45
  2. "Solo - In Memory of His Father Harry L. (Prologue/Improvisation on Two Themes/Story Line/Turn Out the Stars/Epilogue)" (Evans) – 13:40

Reissue
  1. "I Should Care" (Sammy Cahn, Axel Stordahl, Paul Weston) – 5:30
  2. "Spring Is Here" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) – 5:00
  3. "Who Can I Turn To?" (Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley) – 6:17
  4. "Make Someone Happy" (Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jule Styne) – 4:45
  5. "Solo - In Memory of His Father Harry L. (Prologue/Story Line/Turn Out the Stars/Epilogue)" (Evans) – 13:40
  6. "Beautiful Love" (Haven Gillespie, Wayne King, Egbert Van Alstyne, Victor Young) – 6:56
  7. "My Foolish Heart" (Ned Washington, Victor Young) – 4:51
  8. "One for Helen" (Evans) – 5:51

Structure of the solo

The lengthy solo performance "Solo - In Memory of His Father Harry L." is essentially a suite, consisting of four discrete parts:

  1. "Prologue" (0:00–2:39) [first recording]
  2. "Story Line" aka "Re: Person I Knew" (2:40–7:30) [first recorded on the album Moon Beams]
  3. "Turn Out the Stars" (7:31–12:28) [first recording]
  4. "Epilogue" (12:29–13:09) [first recorded on the album Everybody Digs Bill Evans]

(The remainder of the track consists of applause.)

Personnel

Chart positions
Year Chart Position
1967 Billboard Jazz Albums 12

References
  1. "Bill Evans Discography," https://www.jazzdisco.org/bill-evans/discography/, Accessed 23 June 2024.
  2. Pettinger, Peter, Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings, Yale University Press, 1998, p. 172.
  3. "Bill Evans Discography."
  4. Yanow, Scott. "Bill Evans at Town Hall Review". Allmusic. Retrieved June 28, 2011.
  5. Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 74. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  6. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 457. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  7. Pettinger, p. 172.
  8. Shadwick, Keith, Bill Evans: Everything Happens to Me, Backbeat Books (2002), p. 129.
  9. Pettinger, p. 173.
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