Gil Evans

Gil Evans是jazz史上最重要的作曲家和编排家之一，并且影响了无数的当代的大乐团爵士乐（譬如Toshiko Akiyoshi（秋吉敏子）70年代的大乐团音乐）。或许他是继Ellington公爵之后最具个性的爵士作曲家，他指挥他的爵士管弦乐队从容的横跨音乐各个领域。 作為西海岸冷爵士的代表，他显然相对来说是另类的，在这张他个人主义的唱片裏面。Gil Evans创新的改革了大乐队的编制，我们都知道，Gil Evans的爵士乐借鉴了古典音乐的创作方法，形成了他自己特有的严谨，複杂和非常有深度的jazz乐创作风格，许多作品甚至可以放在佛落伦萨的艺术博物馆裏精心保存。所以他放弃了标準和经典的爵士乐队管乐配置，即传统的小号+长号+萨克斯（在The Barbara Song裏面我们听不到小号），他使用长笛，双簧管，和木管乐器（Reed & Woodwinds），和竖琴（Harp）,小提琴,Gil Evans也是最早在大乐队採用法国号的音乐家，这些乐器在他钢琴的统一编排和指挥下,获得了令人惊叹的大气和和谐。 Gil Evans是如何做到将和絃和旋律与jazz乐的即兴传统如此高度的统一融合在一起的呢？听听唱片开始The Time Of The Barracudas 和The Barbara Song裏Wayne Shorter优美的tenor sax 即兴solo以及Gary Peacoak的bass和Evin Jones组成的节奏部贯穿整个乐曲，当然还有Gil Evans本人的钢琴在前面领路呢。
by Scott Yanow
One of the most significant arrangers in jazz history, Gil Evans three album-length collaborations with Miles Davis (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain) are all considered classics. Evans had a lengthy and wide-ranging career that sometimes ran parallel to the trumpeter. Like Davis, Gil became involved in utilizing electronics in the 1970s and preferred not to look back and recreate the past. He led his own band in California (1933-38) which eventually became the backup group for Skinnay Ennis; Evans stayed on for a time as arranger. He gained recognition for his somewhat futuristic charts for Claude Thornhills Orchestra (1941-42 and 1946-48) which took advantage of the ensembles cool tones, utilized French horns and a tuba as frontline instruments and by 1946 incorporated the influence of bop. He met Miles Davis (who admired his work with Thornhill) during this time and contributed arrangements of Moon Dreams and Boplicity to Davis Birth of the Cool nonet.
After a period in obscurity, Evans wrote for a Helen Merrill session and then collaborated with Davis on Miles Ahead. In addition to his work with Miles (which also included a 1961 recorded Carnegie Hall concert and the half-album Quiet Nights), Evans recorded several superb and highly original sets as a leader (including Gil Evans and Ten, New Bottle Old Wine and Great Jazz Standards) during the era. In the 1960s among the albums he worked on for other artists were notable efforts with Kenny Burrell and Astrud Gilberto. After his own sessions for Verve during 1963-64, Evans waited until 1969 until recording again as a leader. That years Blues in Orbit was his first successful effort at combining acoustic and electric instruments; it would be followed by dates for Artists House, Atlantic (Svengali) and a notable tribute to Jimi Hendrix in 1974. After 1975s There Comes a Time (which features among its sidemen David Sanborn), most of Evans recordings were taken from live performances. Starting in 1970 he began playing with his large ensemble on a weekly basis in New York clubs. Filled with such all-star players as George Adams, Lew Soloff, Marvin Hannibal Peterson, Chris Hunter, Howard Johnson, Pete Levin, Hiram Bullock, Hamiet Bluiett and Arthur Blythe among others, Evans later bands were top-heavy in talent but tended to ramble on too long. Gil Evans, other than sketching out a framework and contributing his keyboard, seemed to let the orchestra largely run itself, inspiring rather than closely directing the music. There were some worthwhile recordings from the 1980s (when the band had a long string of Monday night gigs at Sweet Basil in New York) but in general they do not often live up to their potential. Prior to his death, Gil Evans recorded with his arrangers piano on duets with Lee Konitz and Steve Lacy and his body of work on a whole ranks with the top jazz arrangers.