Gil Evans

Ian Ernest Gilmore "Gil" Evans (born Green; May 13, 1912 – March 20, 1988) was a Canadian jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader. He played an important role in the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz and jazz fusion, and collaborated extensively with Miles Davis.

Early life

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, his name was changed early on from Green to Evans, the name of his stepfather. His family moved to Stockton, California where he spent most of his youth. After 1946, he lived and worked primarily in New York City, living for many years at Westbeth Artists Community.

Career

Between 1941 and 1948, Evans worked as an arranger for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Evans' modest basement apartment behind a New York City Chinese laundry soon became a meeting place for musicians looking to develop new musical styles outside of the dominant bebop style of the day. Those present included the leading bebop performer, Charlie Parker, as well as Gerry Mulligan and John Carisi. In 1948, Evans, with Miles Davis, Mulligan, and others, collaborated on a band book for a nonet. These ensembles, larger than the trio-to-quintet "combos", but smaller than the "big bands" which were on the brink of economic inviability, allowed arrangers to have a larger pallette of colors by using French horns and tuba. Claude Thornhill had employed hornist John Graas in 1942, and composer-arranger Bob Graettinger had scored for horns and tubas with the Stan Kenton orchestra, but the "Kenton sound" was in the context of a dense orchestral wall of sound that Evans avoided.

Into the Hot (Gil Evans album)

Into the Hot is an album released under the auspices of Gil Evans featuring a large ensemble under the direction of John Carisi and the Cecil Taylor Unit. The album was released on the Impulse! label in 1961.

Composer/trumpeter John Carisi's three tracks are performed by an orchestra drawn from the top ranks of New York jazz and studio musicians and features solos by Phil Woods.

Cecil Taylor's contribution consists of two tracks by Taylor and a quintet with Archie Shepp, Jimmy Lyons, Henry Grimes and Sunny Murray. The group expanded to a septet with the addition of Ted Curson and Roswell Rudd on a third track.

(The Cecil Taylor recordings from this album were also released on Mixed in 1998 along with tracks by Roswell Rudd's sextet.)

Track listing

Recorded September 14 (track 3), October 6 (track 5), October 10 (tracks 2, 4, & 6) & October 31 (track 1), 1961

Into the Hot

Into the Hot may refer to:

Into the Hot (Floy Joy album)

Into the Hot is the debut album by English sophisti-pop band Floy Joy. It was released in 1984, and featured three singles: "Burn Down a Rhythm", "Until You Come Back to Me" and "Operator". Both "Until You Come Back To Me" and "Operator" were minor hits in the UK.

The band featured lead vocals from Carroll Thompson, and music by Michael Ward and Shaun Ward. A follow-up album was released in 1985 which didn't feature Thompson, but Desi Campbell instead.

The album was released on vinyl and cassette. It has never been released on CD.

Floy Joy manager Paul Bower had managed the Ward brothers for two years. He flew to New York to track down producer Don Was - who he had never met - and played him the band's demos in Don's suite at The Mayflower. A three week session at the Sound Suite in Detroit followed and the result was Floy Joy’s debut album Into the Hot.

Shaun Ward spoke of the album in 1990, during an interview with his band Everyday People. He stated "The first Floy Joy album was an anthology of R&B, jazz... all the things we’d grown up listening to and absorbed. Though we liked it, we came to realize that maybe it was a bit too personal. So that’s why the second album is more direct and commercial. Unfortunately when we did that no one wanted to know."