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Trio is generally used in any of the following ways:

• A group of three musicians playing the same or different musical instrument.
• The performance of a piece of music by three people.
• The contrasting section of a piece in ternary form
• The contrasting section of a march and similar forms, which usually opens at the third strain.

See Also:

• Piano trio (piano, violin, cello)
• String trio (violin, viola, cello)
• Jazz trio (piano, bass, drum kit)
• Clarinet-violin-piano trio (clarinet, violin, piano)
• Power trio (electric guitar, bass guitar, drum kit)
• Harmonica trio (chromatic harmonica, bass harmonica, chord harmonica)
• Horn trio (violin, horn, and piano)

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Brad Mehldau
Background information
Born	(1970-08-23) August 23, 1970 (age 41)
Origin	Jacksonville, Florida, United States
Genres	Post-bop, jazz
Occupations	Pianist, Composer
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1993–present
Associated acts	Brad Mehldau Trio, Pat Metheny, Joshua Redman

Brad Mehldau (born August 23, 1970) is an American jazz pianist. Besides leading his own group, the Brad Mehldau Trio, he has performed with many renowned artists, including Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, Larry Grenadier, Peter Bernstein, Jeff Ballard, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Brian Blade, Jimmy Cobb, classical vocalists Renée Fleming^[1] and Anne Sofie von Otter,^[1] and singer-songwriters Chris Thile and John Mayer.

Biography[link]

Mehldau was born Bradford Alexander Mehldau in 1970 in Jacksonville, Florida.^[2] His family moved to Connecticut where Mehldau spent most of his childhood and high school. He attended William H. Hall High School in West Hartford and participated in Hall's prestigious jazz program. While a sophomore in high school, he won Berklee College's Best All-Around Musician Award. Mehldau moved to New York in 1988 to study jazz at The New School, studying under Fred Hersch, Junior Mance and Kenny Werner, and also playing with Jimmy Cobb.^{[citation needed]} He went on to play as sideman with a variety of musicians, most importantly with the Joshua Redman quartet, before forming his own trio in 1994, with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy, and later Jeff Ballard, who succeeded Rossy in 2005. In addition to his trio work, Mehldau collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny, releasing two albums with him and embarking on a worldwide tour along with Grenadier and Ballard.

Recording primarily for Nonesuch Records, Mehldau plays original compositions, jazz standards and jazz arrangements of popular music, especially rock music. With his trio, he has recorded arrangements of the music of Nick Drake, The Beatles, Radiohead and Paul Simon among others, and recorded Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" on his 2008 album, Live. Mehldau has also expressed an interest in and knowledge of philosophy, in particular of music and art. He has played and recorded solo and with co-leaders Peter Bernstein, Mark Turner, Charlie Haden, Charles Lloyd, Pat Metheny and others. In 2004, Mehldau toured with Kurt Rosenwinkel and Joshua Redman.

He cites Larry Goldings, Kevin Hays, Peter Bernstein, Mark Turner, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jesse Davis, David Sánchez and the other members of his own trio as influences.^[3] He implements his classical training by often playing a separate melody with each hand in unusual rhythmic meters. For example, he plays his arrangement of Jerome Kern's standard "All the Things You Are" on Art of the Trio, Vol. IV in A major (a half-step up from the original key, A-flat major) played in 7/4 time. On Day Is Done, he also plays Paul Simon's "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" in 7/4. Another of Mehldau's signature techniques is to create an ostinato in his right hand whilst developing a motivic idea in his left hand (e.g. on "Live in Tokyo", during the last three minutes of "Someone to Watch Over Me", where he keeps a constant A pedal).

Mehldau cherishes Brazilian music, citing Milton Nascimento, Chico Buarque and Simone.

Mehldau is married to Dutch jazz vocalist Fleurine, with whom he has recorded and toured extensively. He speaks (more or less) fluent Dutch.

Music Sheets[link]

• in 2003, the American publisher Hal Leonard released a collection of 6 titles (Bewitched, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Nobody Else but Me, Prelude to a Kiss, Sehnsucht, Unrequited) transcribing the piano part of pieces played in trio.
• in 2011, the French publisher Outre Mesure released in both English and French the complete transcription note for note of Elegiac Cycle, his first solo album, and some musical commentaries by Philippe André, the original manuscript “lead sheetsâ€� of Brad Mehldau and a long and recent interview by Ludovic Florin about the genesis of the record and where the musician stands with it now.

Discography[link]

As leader[link]

• Introducing Brad Mehldau (1995, Warner)
• The Art of the Trio, Vol. I (1997, Warner)
• The Art of the Trio, Vol. II — Live at the Village Vanguard (1997, Warner)
• The Art of the Trio, Vol. III — Songs (1998, Warner)
• Elegiac Cycle (1999, Warner)
• The Art of the Trio, Vol. IV — Back at the Vanguard (1999, Warner)
• Places (2000, Warner)
• The Art of the Trio, Vol. V — Progression (2001, Warner)
• Largo (2002, Nonesuch)
• Anything Goes (2004, Warner)
• Solo Piano — Live in Tokyo (2004, Nonesuch)
• Day Is Done (trio) (2005, Nonesuch)
• House on Hill (trio) (2006, Nonesuch)
• Live (trio) (2008, Nonesuch)
• Highway Rider (2010, Nonesuch)
• Live in Marciac (solo) (2011, 2CD+DVD, Nonesuch)
• Ode (trio) (2012, Nonesuch)

As co-leader[link]

• with Jordi Rossy, Mario Rossy, Perico Sambeat: New York-Barcelona Crossing, Volumen 1 (1993, FSNT)
• with Rossy, Rossy, Sambeat: New York-Barcelona Crossing, Volumen 2 (1993, FSNT)
• with Rossy Trio: When I Fall in Love (1993, FSNT)
• with MTB (Mark Turner, Peter Bernstein, Larry Grenadier, Leon Parker): Consenting Adults (1994, Criss Cross Jazz)
• with Lee Konitz and Charlie Haden: Alone Together (1997, Blue Note)
• with Konitz and Haden: Another Shade of Blue (1999, Blue Note)
• with Fleurine: Close Enough for Love (1999, EmArcy)
• with Joel Frahm: Don't Explain (2004, Palmetto)
• with Renée Fleming: Love Sublime (2006, Nonesuch)
• with Pat Metheny: Metheny/Mehldau (2006, Nonesuch)
• with Metheny, Grenadier, Ballard: Metheny/Mehldau Quartet (2007, Nonesuch)
• with Anne Sofie von Otter: Love Songs (2010, Naïve)
• with Konitz, Haden and Paul Motian: Live at Birdland (2011, ECM)
• with Kevin Hays, (composed and arranged by) Patrick Zimmerli: Modern Music (2011, Nonesuch)

As sideman[link]

• Allen Mezquida: A Good Thing (1992, Koch Jazz)
• Grant Stewart: Downtown Sounds (1992, Criss Cross Jazz)
• Joshua Redman: Moodswing (1994, Warner)
• Chris Potter: Moving In (1996, Concord)
• Joshua Redman: Timeless Tales for Changing Times (1998, Warner)
• Scott Weiland: 12 Bar Blues (1998, Atlantic)
• Chris Cheek: Vine (1999, FSNT)
• Charles Lloyd: The Water Is Wide (2000, ECM)
• Charles Lloyd: Hyperion with Higgins (2001, ECM)
• John Scofield: Works for Me (2001, Verve)
• Charlie Haden with Michael Brecker: American Dreams (2002, Verve)
• Walt Weiskopf: Man of Many Colors (2002, Criss Cross Jazz)
• Perico Sambeat: Friendship (2003, Act)
• Wayne Shorter: Alegría (2003, Verve)
• Darek Oleszkiewicz: Like a Dream (2004, CryptoGramophone)
• Kurt Rosenwinkel: Deep Song (2005, Verve)
• Chris Cheek: Blues Cruise (2005, FSNT)
• Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage (2006, Telarc)
• Harvey Mason: With All My Heart (2004, Bluebird) for one track
• Fleurine: San Francisco (2008, Sunny Side)
• Joe Martin: Not by Chance (2009, Anzic)
• Eli Degibri: Israeli Song (2010, Anzic)

Soundtracks[link]

• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
• Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
• Space Cowboys (2000)
• Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
• Ma femme est une actrice (2001)
• Unfaithful (2002)
• The Lake House (2006) "When It Rains" and "Young at Heart"
• Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants (2004)

TV Appearances as performer[link]

• SOLOS: The Jazz Sessions^[4] (2004)

See also[link]

• List of jazz pianists

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Brad Mehldau Web Site
• Official German Homepage, Warner Music Group
• Review of Brad Mehldau's concert in Prague
• Interview about Nick Drake with performance
• "Twelve Essential Brad Mehldau Performances" by Ted Gioia from www.jazz.com
• Review of the Brad Mehldau Trio's 2008 album, "Live"

Bo Gustav Stenson (known as Bobo Stenson, born in 1944) is a Swedish jazz pianist. Stenson was noted as early as 1963, when he stepped up from the local scene in Västerås to start playing frequently in Stockholm, where he accompanied a long line of visiting American players including Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Gary Burton. He also worked closely with Don Cherry from the beginning of the trumpeter's residency in Scandinavia.

The 70's was an intensive period for Bobo Stenson, playing in many groups, amongst them the long-standing band Rena Rama with Palle Danielsson, and a very popular trio with Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen; later also with Jan Garbarek. In 1988, he joined the Charles Lloyd quartet and since 1996 has appeared at major jazz festivals with Tomasz Stanko's septet/sextet.

Discography[link]

As leader[link]

• Underwear (ECM, 1971)
• The Sounds Around the House (Caprice, 1983)
• Very Early (Dragon, 1986)
• Reflections (ECM, 1993)
• War Orphans (ECM, 1997)
• Serenity (ECM, 1999)
• Goodbye (ECM, 2005)
• Cantando (ECM, 2007)

As Sideman[link]

With Don Cherry

• Dona Nostra (ECM, 1993)

With Jan Garbarek

• Sart (ECM, 1971)
• Witchi-Tai-To (ECM, 1973)
• Dansere (ECM, 1975)

With Charles Lloyd

• Fish Out of Water (ECM, 1989)
• Notes from Big Sur (ECM, 1991)
• The Call (ECM, 1993)
• All My Relations (ECM, 1994)
• Canto (ECM, 1996)

With George Russell

• Listen to the Silence (Soul Note, 1971)

With Terje Rypdal

• Terje Rypdal (ECM, 1971)

With Tomasz Stanko

• Matka Joanna (ECM, 1994)
• Leosia (ECM, 1996)
• Litania: Music of Krzysztof Komeda (ECM, 1997)

With Others

• Agram (Moller/Willemark)
• Xieyi (Jormin)
• Change of Heart (Speake)
• Parish (Stronen)
• La Nuit de Wounded Knee (Doudou Gouirand)

External links[link]

• Bobo Stenson Interview at Allaboutjazz.com
• Bobo Stenson on ECM Records
• Bobo Stenson discography at Discogs

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Bill Evans
Bill Evans performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland) with his trio consisting of Marc Johnson, bass & Philly Joe Jones, drums, July 13, 1978. (Photo by Brian McMillen)
Background information
Birth name	William John Evans
Also known as	Bill Evans
Born	(1929-08-16)August 16, 1929 Plainfield, New Jersey, United States
Died	September 15, 1980(1980-09-15) (aged 51) Fort Lee, New Jersey, United States
Genres	Jazz, modal jazz, third stream, cool jazz, post-bop
Occupations	Pianist Composer Arranger
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1950s–1980[1]
Labels	Riverside, Verve, Fantasy
Associated acts	George Russell, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Philly Joe Jones, Scott LaFaro, Paul Motian, Eddie Gomez, Marty Morell, Tony Bennett, Jim Hall, Monica Zetterlund

William John Evans, known as Bill Evans (August 16, 1929–September 15, 1980) was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists. He is considered by some to be the most influential post-World War II jazz pianist.^[2] Evans had a distinct playing posture in which his neck would often be stooped very low, and his face parallel to the piano.

Evans is an inductee of the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.^[3]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Bill Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, United States, to a mother of Rusyn ancestry and a father of Welsh descent.^[4] He received his first musical training at his mother's church. Evans' mother was an amateur pianist with an interest in modern classical composers, and Evans began classical piano lessons at age six. He also became a proficient flautist by age 13 and could play the violin.

At age 12, Evans filled in for his older brother Harry in Buddy Valentino's band.^[5] At this age he was able to interpret classical music, but he couldn't improvise. In the beginning, he played exactly what was written in the sheet, but soon started trying to improvise, while learning about harmonies in the songs and how to alter them. Meanwhile, he was playing dance music (and jazz) at home, in a recording studio he built in his family's basement..^[6] In the late 1940s, Evans played boogie woogie in various New Jersey clubs. He attended Southeastern Louisiana University on a music scholarship, and in 1950 performed Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto on his senior recital there, graduating with a degree in piano performance and teaching. He was also among the founding members of SLU's Delta Omega Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and played quarterback for the fraternity's football team, helping them win the school's 1949 intramural tournament.^[6]

Evans's first professional job was with sax player Herbie Fields's band, based in Chicago. During the summer of 1950, the band did a three-month tour backing Billie Holiday, including East Coast appearances at Harlem's Apollo Theater and shows in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and at Washington D.C.'s Howard Theater. In addition to Fields and Evans, the band included trumpeter Jimmy Nottingham, trombonist Frank Rosolino and bassist Jim Aton. Upon its return to Chicago, Evans and Aton worked as a duo in Chicago clubs, often backing singer Lurlean Hunter. Shortly thereafter, Evans received his draft notice and entered the U.S. Army.

After his army service, Evans returned to New York and worked at nightclubs with jazz clarinetist Tony Scott and other leading players. Later, he took postgraduate studies in composition at the Mannes College of Music, where he also mentored younger music students.

1950s[link]

Working in New York in the 1950s, Evans gained recognition as a sideman in traditional and so-called Third Stream jazz groups. During this period he had the opportunity to record in many different contexts with some of the best jazz musicians of the time. Seminal recordings made with composer/theoretician George Russell, including "Concerto for Billy the Kid" and "All About Rosie," are notable for Evans's solo work. Evans also appeared on notable albums by Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Tony Scott, and Art Farmer. In 1956, he made his debut album, New Jazz Conceptions, featuring the original version of "Waltz for Debby," for Riverside Records. Producer Orrin Keepnews was convinced to record the reluctant Evans by a demo tape guitarist Mundell Lowe played to him over the phone.

In 1958, Evans was hired by Miles Davis, becoming the only white member of Davis's famed sextet. Though his time with the band was brief (no more than eight months), it was one of the most fruitful collaborations in the history of jazz, as Evans's introspective approach to improvisation deeply influenced Davis's style. Davis wrote in his autobiography, "Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got, was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall." Additionally, Davis said, "I've sure learned a lot from Bill Evans. He plays the piano the way it should be played."

Evans's desire to pursue his own projects as a leader (and increasing problems with drug use) led him to leave the Davis sextet in late 1958. Shortly after, he recorded Everybody Digs Bill Evans, documenting the wholly original meditative sound he was exploring at the time. But Evans came back to the sextet at Davis's request to record the jazz classic Kind of Blue in early 1959. Evans's contribution to the album was overlooked for years; in addition to cowriting the song "Blue in Green,"^[7] he had also already developed the ostinato figure from the track "Flamenco Sketches" on the 1958 solo recording "Peace Piece" from his album Everybody Digs Bill Evans. Evans also penned the heralded liner notes for Kind of Blue comparing jazz improvisation to Japanese visual art.^[8] By the fall of 1959, he had started his own trio.

1960s[link]

At the turn of the decade, Evans led a trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. This group was to become one of the most acclaimed piano trios — and jazz bands in general — of all time. With this group, Evans's focus settled on traditional jazz standards and original compositions, with an added emphasis on interplay among the band members that often bordered on collective improvisation, blurring the line between soloist and accompanist. The collaboration between Evans and the young LaFaro was particularly fruitful, as the two achieved a remarkable level of musical empathy. The trio recorded four albums: Portrait in Jazz (1959); and Explorations, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, and Waltz for Debby, all recorded in 1961. The last two albums are live recordings from the same recording date, and are routinely named among the greatest jazz recordings of all time. In 2005, the full sets were collected on the three-CD set The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961. There is also a lesser-known recording of this trio, Live at Birdland, taken from radio broadcasts in early 1960, though the sound quality is poor.

In addition to introducing a new freedom of interplay within the piano trio, Evans began (in performances such as "My Foolish Heart" from the Vanguard sessions) to explore extremely slow ballad tempos and quiet volume levels, which had been virtually unknown in jazz. His chordal voicings became more impressionistic, reminiscent of classical composers such as Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, and Satie, and he moved away from the thick block chords he had often used with Davis. His sparse left-hand voicings supported his lyrical right-hand lines, reflecting the influence of jazz pianist Bud Powell.

Like Davis, Evans was a pioneer of modal jazz, favoring harmonies that helped avoid some of the idioms of bebop and other earlier jazz. In tunes like Time Remembered, the chord changes more or less absorbed the derivative styles of bebop and instead relied on unexpected shifts in color. It was still possible (and desirable) to make these changes swing, and a certain spontaneity appeared in expert solos that were played over the new sound. Most composers refer to the style of Time Remembered as "plateau modal," because of its frequent juxtaposition of harmony.

LaFaro's death at age 25 in a car accident, ten days after the Vanguard performances, devastated Evans. He did not record or perform in public again for several months. His first recording after LaFaro's death was the duet album Undercurrent, with guitarist Jim Hall, released on United Artist Jazz records in 1963. Recorded in two sessions on April 24 and May 14, 1962, it is now widely regarded as a classic jazz piano-guitar duet recording. The album is also notable for its striking cover image, "Weeki Wachee Spring, Florida" by photographer Toni Frissell. The original LP and the first CD reissue featured a cropped, blue-tinted version, overlaid with the title and the Blue Note logo; but for the most recent (24-bit remastered) CD reissue, the image has been restored to its original black-and-white coloration and size, without lettering.

When he re-formed his trio in 1962, Evans replaced LaFaro with bassist Chuck Israels, initially keeping Motian on the drums. Two albums, Moon Beams and How My Heart Sings!, resulted. In 1963, after having switched from Riverside to the much more widely distributed Verve, he recorded Conversations With Myself, an innovative album on which he employed overdubbing, layering up to three individual tracks of piano for each song. The album won him his first Grammy award, for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance — Soloist or Small Group.

Though his time with Verve was prolific in terms of recording, his artistic output was uneven. Despite Israels's fast development and the creativity of new drummer Grady Tate, they were ill-represented by the rather perfunctory album Bill Evans Trio with Symphony Orchestra, with the piece Pavane by Gabriel Fauré remarkably reinvented with improvisations by Evans. Some unique contexts were attempted, such as a big-band live album at Town Hall, recorded but never issued due to Evans's dissatisfaction with it (although the jazz trio portion of the Pavane concert was made into its own somewhat successful release), and an album with a symphony orchestra, not warmly received by critics.

During this time, Helen Keane, Evans's manager, began having an important influence. One of the first women in her field, she significantly helped to maintain the progress (or prevent the deterioration) of Evans's career in spite of his self-destructive lifestyle.

In 1966, Evans discovered the remarkable young Puerto Rican bass player Eddie Gomez. In what turned out to be an eleven-year stay, the sensitive and creative Gomez sparked new developments in both Evans's playing and his trio conception. One of the most significant releases during this period is Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival, from 1968. Although it was the only album Evans made with drummer Jack DeJohnette, it has remained a critical and fan favorite, due to the trio's remarkable energy and interplay.

Other highlights from this period include "Solo — In Memory of His Father" from Bill Evans at Town Hall (1966), which introduced the famous theme "Turn Out the Stars," a second successful pairing with guitarist Jim Hall; Intermodulation (1966); and the subdued, crystalline solo album Alone (1968), featuring a 14-minute-plus version of "Never Let Me Go." In 1969, Evans visited Ilkka Kuusisto's home in Helsinki and was interviewed about jazz before performing.

1970s[link]

In 1968, Marty Morell joined the trio on drums and remained until 1975, when he retired to family life. This was Evans's most stable, longest-lasting group. Evans had kicked his heroin habit and was entering a period of personal stability as well. The group made several albums, including From Left to Right (1970), which features Evans's first use of electric piano; The Bill Evans Album (1971), which won two Grammies; The Tokyo Concert (1973); Since We Met (1974); and But Beautiful (1974), featuring the trio plus legendary tenor saxophonist Stan Getz in live performances from Holland and Belgium, released posthumously in 1996. Morell was an energetic, straight-ahead drummer, unlike many of the trio's former percussionists, and many critics feel that this was a period of little growth for Evans. After Morell left, Evans and Gomez recorded two duo albums, Intuition and Montreux III.

In 1974, Bill Evans recorded a multimovement jazz concerto specifically written for him by Claus Ogerman entitled Symbiosis, originally released on the MPS Records label. The 1970s also saw Evans collaborate with the singer Tony Bennett on 1975's The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album and 1977's Together Again.

On September 13, 1975, Evans's son, Evan, was born. Evan Evans did not often see his always-touring father. A child prodigy, he embarked on a career in film scoring, ambitiously attending college courses in 20th-century composition, instrumentation, and electronic composition at the age of ten. He also studied with many of his father's contemporaries, including Lalo Schifrin and harmony specialist Bernard Maury.

In 1976, Marty Morell was replaced on drums by Eliot Zigmund. Several interesting collaborations followed, and it was not until 1977 that the trio was able to record an album together. Both I Will Say Goodbye (Evans's last album for Fantasy Records) and You Must Believe in Spring (for Warner Bros., released posthumously) highlighted changes that would become significant in the last stage of Evans's career. A greater emphasis was placed on group improvisation and interaction, Evans was reaching new expressive heights in his soloing, and new experiments with harmony and keys were attempted.

Gomez and Zigmund left Evans in 1978. Evans then asked Philly Joe Jones, the drummer he considered his "all-time favorite drummer" and with whom he had recorded his second album in 1957, to fill in. Several bassists were tried, with Michael Moore staying the longest. Evans finally settled on Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums. This trio was Evans's last.

Death[link]

Evans was a heroin addict for much of his career, his health was generally poor, and his financial situation worse, for much of the 1960s. By the end of that decade, he appeared to have succeeded in overcoming his addiction to heroin. However, in the late 1970s, cocaine use became a serious problem for Evans. On September 15, 1980, Bill Evans was accompanied by Joe LaBarbera and his partner Laurie Verchomin, to the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where he died that afternoon. ^[9] Evans's friend Gene Lees bleakly summarized Evans's struggle with drugs to Peter Pettinger as "the longest suicide in history.".^[6] Bill Evans is buried at Roselawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum, Baton Rouge, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana (Section #161, Plot K), next to his brother Harry Evans, who died the previous year.

Legacy and influence[link]

Music critic Richard S. Ginell noted, “With the passage of time, Bill Evans has become an entire school unto himself for pianists and a singular mood unto himself for listeners. There is no more influential jazz-oriented pianist—only McCoy Tyner exerts nearly as much pull among younger players and journeymen—and Evans has left his mark on such noted players as: Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, John Taylor, Steve Kuhn, Don Friedman, Marian McPartland, Denny Zeitlin, Bobo Stenson, Warren Bernhardt, Michel Petrucciani and Keith Jarrett, as well as many other musicians worldwide. The music of Bill Evans continues to inspire younger pianists like Fred Hersch, Bill Charlap, Lyle Mays, Eliane Elias^[10] and arguably Brad Mehldau ^[11] early in his career.

Conversations with Myself and Further Conversations with Myself were innovative solo performances involving multiple overdubs of Evans.

Many of his tunes, such as "Waltz for Debby," "Turn Out the Stars," "Very Early," and "Funkallero," have become often-recorded jazz standards. Many tribute recordings featuring his compositions and favorite tunes have been released in the years following his passing as well as tribute compositions. Pat Metheny's "September 15th" is one such recording.

During his lifetime, Evans was honored with 31 Grammy nominations and seven Awards. In 1994, he was posthumously honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Tribute albums[link]

The embedded lists in this article may contain items that are not encyclopedic. Please help out by removing such elements and incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article. (October 2011)

• 1981: Elegy For Bill Evans by Richie Beirach
• 1986: Music of Bill Evans by the Kronos Quartet with Eddie Gomez and Jim Hall.
• 1990: Bill Evans by Paul Motian
• 1991: Bill Evans: A Tribute by Jimmy Rowles, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, John Lewis, and Dave McKenna (Palo Alto Records)
• 1992: Then Along Came Bill: A Tribute to Bill Evans by Sylvia Syms
• 1993: Time Remembered: John Mclaughlin Plays Bill Evans by John Mclaughlin
• 1994: Now & Then: A Tribute to Bill Evans by Mitchel Forman
• 1994: Your Story: The Music of Bill Evans by Howard Alden
• 1996: Turn Out The Stars - The Songs Of Bill Evans by Dominic Alldis
• 1997: Conversations with Bill Evans by Jean-Yves Thibaudet
• 1998: Evanessence: Tribute to Bill Evans by Fred Hersch
• 1998: I Remember Bill: A Tribute to Bill Evans by Don Sebesky and Larry Coryell
• 2000: Conviction: Thoughts Of Bill Evans by Roseanna Vitro
• 2002: Homage To Bill Evans And Jim Hall by Luigi Tessarollo with Stefano Bollani
• 2002: Play Bill Evans by the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra & Jim McNeely
• 2003: Bill Evans: Tribute to the Great Post-Bop Pianist by Paul Motian
• 2006: Paz - Niño Josele and the music of Bill Evans by Niño Josele
• 2008: Something for you - Eliane Elias Sings and Plays Bill Evans by Eliane Elias
• 2009: Bill Evans Compositions Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 by Stefano Battaglia

Discography[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Shadwick, Keith (2002) [2002]. Bill Evans Everything Happens To Me - a musical biography (Paperback ed.). Backbeat Books. ISBN 0-87930-708-0. 
• Verchomin, Laurie (2011) [2010]. The Big Love ~ Life & Death with Bill Evans (Paperback ed.). Amazon. ISBN 978-1-4565-6309-7. 

• Bill Evans - How My Heart Sings (Paperback ed.). 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bill Evans

• Bill Evans at Find A Grave
• Bill Evans entry — Jazz Discography Project
• The Bill Evans Webpages
• Bill Evans: Time Remembered
• "Remembering Bill Evans" by Ted Gioia, Jazz.com, January, 2008.
• Letter From Evans edited by Win Hinkle — newsletter dedicated solely to the music and the life of Bill Evans, published 1989–94. Link is to all issues.
• "Bill Evans: Twelve Essential Recordings by Ted Gioia"
• The Bill Evans Memorial Library
• Jazz wax-Interview with Laurie Verchomin

Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934, San Francisco) is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is sometimes classified as minimalist art.

Early life[link]

Rainer was born in the Richmond district of San Francisco to parents, Joseph and Jeanette, who considered themselves radicals. As a child, she was sent to live at Sunnyside, a boarding institution in Palo Alto, with her older brother Ivan for several years. Her parents visited them each Sunday in their 1938 Pontiac Sedan. By 1941, she moved back with her parents at the age of seven to a new house in the Sunset that she describes as "an unfamiliar neighborhood of white protestant working class families." From the age of twelve, she had been "exposed to the heady commingling of poets, painters, writers, and Italian anarchists." She went to Lowell High, and after graduation, she attended San Francisco Junior College for a year, then Berkeley for a week. She dropped out of college by the end of September 1952.

At a very young age^[vague], her father introduced her to films, while her mother introduced her to ballet. While she was still at Sunnyside, her mother enrolled her in dance classes. Rainer writes,

I am five or six when my mother enrolls me in a dance school a few blocks from Sunnyside. After being taken to the school several times, I am expected to walk there by myself once a week...All the little girls are able to touch the backs of their heads with their toes. It seems to me that I am the only one who can't.

Rainer found herself hanging out at the Cellar around 1955, where she would listen to poets accompanied by cool jazz. It was here that she met Al Held, a painter. He introduced her to various artists whom were natives of New York. It was in August 1956, that she followed Al to New York at the age of twenty-two.

I remember walking down 5th Avenue past Madison Square Park, overwhelmed by an ineffable sense of infinite possibility. Someone else might have described it as a 'conquer-the-world' kind of feeling. For me it was simply pure open-minded excitement. Though I had no idea what the future held, it was already signaling with open arms.

^{[citation needed]}

It was Dolly Casella, a close friend, who introduced Rainer to the dance classes of Edith Stephen, a modern dancer. She went to her first adult dance class with Stephen who told her that she was not very "turned out." Rainer admits, "What she didn't say was something that I would gradually recognize in the next couple of years, that my lack of turn-out and limberness coupled with a long back and short legs would reduce my chances of performing with any established dance company." In 1959, she began studying at the Martha Graham School and later with James Waring and Merce Cunningham.^[1]

Dance and choreographic work[link]

Rainer was one of the organizers of the Judson Dance Theater, a focal point for vanguard activity in the postmodern dance world throughout the 1960s, and she formed her own company after the Judson performances ended. Rainer is noted for an approach to dance that treats the body more as the source of an infinite variety of movements than as the purveyor of emotion or drama. Many of the elements she employed—such as repetition, patterning, tasks, and games—later became standard features of modern dance.

In her early dances, Rainer focused on sounds and movements, and often juxtaposed the two in arbitrary combinations. Somewhat inspired by the chance tactics favored by Cunningham, Rainer’s choreography was a combination of classical dance steps contrasted with everyday, ordinary, pedestrian movement. She used a great deal of repetition, and employed narrative and verbal noises (including wails, grunts, mumbles, squeaks, and shrieks, etc.) within the body of her dances.

Repetition and sound were employed in her first choreographed piece, Three Satie Spoons (1961), a solo performed by Rainer. She made squeaking noises throughout the piece and said, “The grass is greener when the sun is yellow^[3].� Over time her work shifted to use more narrative and cohesive spoken word. Ordinary Dance (1962) was a combination of movement and narrative, and featured the repetition of simple movements while Rainer recited a poetic autobiography. One characteristic of Rainer’s early choreography was her fascination with using non-dancer performers. We Shall Run (1963) had seven performers, both dancers and non-dancers clad in street clothes who ran around the stage for twelve minutes creating various floor patterns to music by Berlioz^[4].

A turning point in Rainer’s choreography came in 1964, when, in an effort to strip movements of their expressive qualities, she turned to game structures to create works. All movement aimed to be direct, functional, and to avoid stylization. In so doing, she aimed to remove the drama from the dance movement, and to question the role of entertainment in dance. Throughout this stage of her choreography she worked towards movement becoming something of an object, to be examined without any psychological, social or formal motives. She opted for neutrality in her dances, presenting the objective presence of the human body and its movements, and refused to project a persona or create a narrative within her dances. In 1965, as a reaction to many of the previously stated feelings, Rainer created her "No Manifesto," which was a strategy formulated to demystify dance:

This exploration in reducing dance to the essentials climaxed with one of Rainer’s most famous pieces, Trio A (1966), initially part of a larger work entitled The Mind Is a Muscle. Something of a paradigmatic statement that questioned the aesthetic goals of postmodern dance, Trio A was a short dance that consisted of one long phrase. In Trio A, Rainer attempted to remove objects from the dance while simultaneously retaining a workmanlike approach of task-based performance. Not simple but certainly not fancy, it was a demanding piece of work, both to watch and to perform. She explored such dynamics as repetition, the distribution of energy, and phrasing. The movement consisted of task-oriented actions, emphasizing neutral performance and featuring no interaction with the audience. The dancer was to never make eye contact with her observers, and in the case that the movement required the dancer to face the audience, the eyes were to be averted from the audience or the head was to be involved in movement. As the Museum of Modern Art describes it: "It freed the dancer's body from the rigid fragmentation and artificiality of choreographed movement."^[6] The first time the piece was performed it was entitled The Mind is a Muscle, Part 1, and was performed by a set of three simultaneous solos by Rainer, Steve Paxton, and David Gordon. Trio A has been widely adapted and interpreted by other choreographers.

Rainer has choreographed more than 40 concert works.

A few of her other works include:

• Three Seascapes (1961) a solo of Rainer’s considered to be radical because the finale featured Rainer screaming wildly and thrashing around the space.^[7]
• Terrain (1962) was Rainer’s first evening length work. It had several sections, including two “Talking Solos,â€� which were autobiographical stories recited to an unrelated movement phrase.^[8]
• Continuous Project-Altered Daily (1969) was installed at the Castelli Warehouse in Harlem. It produced "spontaneous behavior within a formal setting."
• War an antiwar dance performed by thirty people at Douglass College protesting Vietnam in 1970.
• Street Action a performance to protest the Cambodian invasion in 1970. Visually, there were three columns of people wearing black armbands while walking with their heads down.^[9]
• This is the story of a woman who… (1973) was one of Rainer’s many works that used objects invested with strong meanings and attempted to strip them of that meaning. In this work she used a gun but instructed the dancers to never point or fire it at anyone.^[10]

Cinematic work[link]

Rainer sometimes included filmed sequences in her dances, and in the mid-1970s she began to turn her attention to film directing. Her early films do not follow narrative conventions, instead combining reality and fiction, sound and visuals, to address social and political issues. Rainer directed several experimental films about dance and performance, including Lives of Performers (1972), Film About a Woman Who (1974), and Kristina Talking Pictures (1976). Her later films include The Man Who Envied Women (1985), Privilege (1990), and MURDER and murder (1996). MURDER and murder, more conventional in its narrative structure, is a lesbian love story as well as a reflection on urban life and on breast cancer, and it features Rainer. Her film work^[12] has received several awards, and in 1990 she was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.

Short synopses:^[13]

• Journeys From Berlin/1971 explores the ramifications of terrorism
• Kristina Talking Pictures looks at the contradictions between the private and public persona
• Lives of Performers is about a man who cannot decide between two women
• The Man Who Envied Women is a film about the breakup of a marriage
• MURDER and murder (see paragraph above)
• A Film About a Woman Who... is considered Rainer's landmark film, about a woman with sexual dissatisfaction
• Privilege a film about menopause.

Feminism[link]

Reading feminist writing and theory allowed Rainer to examine her own experience as a woman, and she was able to think of herself as a participant in culture and society. Little did Rainer realize that her prior choreography was a direct challenge of the "traditional" dance and ultimately feminist in nature. Throughout the 1980s, Rainer was celibate, and she was determined "not to enter into any more ill-fated heterosexual adventures..." She began attending Gay Pride Parades and considered herself a "political lesbian." Rainer participated in a demonstration in New York and Washington D.C. to protest the challenges to Roe v. Wade during this same time period. At the age of 56, she overcame her fears of identifying as a lesbian by becoming intimate with Martha Gever. She says it was "euphoric." They are still together today.

Feminist Audre Lorde's famous statement posed, "You can't dismantle the master's house using the master's tools." Rainer rebutted her theory by stating, "You can, if you expose the tools."^[14]

References[link]

Notes

Bibliography

• Atlas, Charles. Philadelphia, PA: University of the arts. 
• Green, Shelley (1994). Radical Juxtaposition. The films of Yvonne Rainer. New York: Scarecrow Press Inc.. ISBN 0-8108-2863-4. 
• Rainer, Yvonne (1999). A Woman Who... Essays, Interviews, Scripts. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6078-4. 
• Rainer, Yvonne (2006). Feelings Are Facts: A Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-18251-3. 

Archival Collections

• The Fales Library at NYU houses the Yvonne Rainer Grand Union performance videotape collection. This collection contains seven videotapes that document a series of Grand Union performances. The performances took place on May 28, 1972 at the Joe LoGiudice Gallery at 59 Wooster Street in SoHo.
• Yvonne Rainer papers, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California Her papers document her life as an artist from the late 1950s through 2006, and include photographic material dated as early as 1933. Materials include dance scores; programs and posters; photographic and audiovisual documentation of performances, rehearsals, and films; correspondence; writings, including Rainer's feature-length film scripts; and critical response to her work.

External links[link]

• Yvonne Rainer speaks to Robert Storr about her life as choreographer and film-maker at the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts.
• The Fales Library Guide to the Yvonne Rainer Grand Union performance videotape collection
• Biography on sensesofcinema.com.
• Review of Feelings Are Facts, by Daniel Ross.
• Yvonne Rainer in the Video Data Bank
• Films by Yvonne Rainer and Writings by and about Yvonne Rainer at Ubuweb
• Conceptual Paradise
• "Step-by-step guide to dance: Yvonne Rainer"
• Yvonne Rainer, "Letters to Judith Mayne"
• Yvonne Rainer at the Internet Movie Database
• "Yvonne Rainer, Trio A at perform feminism"