Evans, LaFaro, Motian

Bill Evans en una foto junto a Scott LaFaro y Paul Motian, en el Village Vanguard, quizá descansando entre grabación y grabación...LaFaro mira la pequeña mesa, una taza de café, una o dos botellas de agua...Evans y Motian miran a alguien fuera del cuadro, a la izquierda. Un minuto excepcional, el momento en que grababan para siempre algunas de las mejores obras que se hayan tocado con un piano, un contrabajo, y una batería...Diez días después, LaFaro se estrellaría con su auto contra un árbol, y Evans entraría en shock...Diría Motian "Bill was in a state of shock. Look at my gig book: nothing, nothing, nothing with Bill, until December. Bill was like a ghost".
Ese sábado 25 de junio de 1961, the trio played five sets, about two and a half hours' worth of music. The numbers ran between five and ten minutes a turn. In the first three sets, knowing that the machines were running, they didn't repeat numbers, playing a lilting "Waltz for Debby," a hushed "My Foolish Heart," a floating 'Alice in Wonderland," and an up-tempo "My Romance." Then, for the first time that day, Evans played "I Loves You, Porgy." In the last set, they ran back over numbers from the first few sets. By then, it was late, a long day's hard work, and they finished with a number by LaFaro, a strange 9/8 Zen thing called "Jade Visions." Throughout the recordings, you hear the crowd noise: glasses tinkle and conversation goes on, a counterpoint of forty-year-old flirtation and talk. Orrin Keepnews said, "I remember listening to the tapes and saying, 'There's nothing bad here!' Normally, you can cut one or two things right away, and there was nothing bad." [Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker]