1968 · Album
Bill Evans - At The Montreux Jazz Festival
Recorded 1968, Montreux Jazz Festival (live) · Original release label not specified in provided facts · Musicians: Bill Evans (piano), Eddie Gómez (bass), Jack DeJohnette (drums)
Evans Breaks Loose at Montreux
A pianist shedding his introspective habit and swinging hard with two musicians who match his energy.
A year before this performance, Bill Evans released At Town Hall (1967), which found him in a reflective mood—quiet, contained, almost withdrawn. That album is worth hearing first if you want to feel the shift that happens here at Montreux. What you hear on this live set is a different animal. Evans is looser, more playful, willing to bang on the keys and take risks. With Eddie Gómez on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums, he's clearly energized by musicians who won't let him sink into his own head.
The trio swings with a physical directness that his studio work around this time often avoided. There's harmonic dissonance here—Evans deliberately bumping into uncomfortable intervals and then finding his way out of them—but it never feels academic or cold. DeJohnette in particular drives the session forward with the kind of restless energy that belonged to the late-1960s avant-garde, and Evans meets him halfway. Gómez locks in with a supple, modern sound that pushes Evans away from the ballad-heavy approach of his earlier records. AllMusic critic Rovi Staff noted the album marks stylistic changes for Evans, capturing him at his most extroverted since his early days, and that's exactly what you hear: a pianist experimenting, not just performing.
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings rated it highly, and the trio's work here earned a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album in 1969. If you're coming to Evans expecting the introspective late-night feel of his best-known records, this will seem almost brash. But that's the point. He's not being introspective here. He's playing with three musicians in a room, responding to what's happening in real time, and letting the moment pull him forward.
