Pianist, arranger, composer, bandleader: Canadian-born Gil Evans stands as one of the most important orchestrators in the history of jazz. Perhaps most famous for his work with Miles Davis, Evans was a versatile creator who could easily adapt to new stylistic developments and then push the music further forward. Cut in 1957, Gil Evans & Ten is his debut as a leader, establishing his work as vivid and distinctive. Getting a limited edition mono repress on 180 gram vinyl for Record Store Day Black Friday 2023, it’s a superb point of entry into the artistry of a master.
Gil Evans is the arranger on Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool, which features recordings made in 1949-’50, most of them released on a series of 78rpm discs but compiled on LP for the first time in ’57 by Capitol, the same year that Miles Ahead, Evans’ second collaboration with Davis, which brought the trumpeter together with a 19-piece orchestra, was released by Columbia.
The knockout success of Miles Ahead and the rekindled interest in Birth of the Cool were certainly a major factor in Evans recording his first album as leader that same year. Miles Ahead was cut over a series of sessions in May of ’57 (released in October) while Gil Evans & Ten was recorded across three sessions in September and October of ’57 (released early the following year), with the albums sharing a handful of personnel.
Heard on both are trumpeter John Carisi, trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, French horn player Willie Ruff, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz (listed on Evans & Ten under the pseudonymous anagram Zeke Tolin), and bassist Paul Chambers. For his debut, Evans sits down at the bench, which was frequent on his own early releases (for Miles Ahead, it’s Wynton Kelly on piano).
Evans’ first record does a fine job of expressing his disinterest in conforming to standard big band models. This applies to the quality of the arranging as well as the atypical instrumentation; in addition to the above, Evans & Ten features Jack Koven and Louis Mucci on trumpet, Steve Lacy on soprano sax, Bart Varsalona on bass trombone, Dave Kurtzer on bassoon, and either Jo Jones or Nick Stabulas on drums.
Interestingly, Evans & Ten includes only one original composition, the closer “Jambangle.” The other six are interpretations, with four of them standards; Irving Berlin’s “Remember” opens the record, while Rodgers and Hart’s “Nobody’s Heart,” Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things,” and Tadd Dameron and Carl Sigman’s jazz standard “If You Could See Me Now” come later.
“Big Stuff” by Leonard Bernstein and “Ella Speed,” a traditional blues associated with Leadbelly and Mance Lipscomb do stand out in the sequence (and foreshadow Evans’ disinterest in remaining within jazz boundaries). The former was written by Bernstein with Billie Holliday in mind (she recorded it in the mid-’40s), so the song’s inclusion on Evans & Ten really isn’t that unusual, but the addition of folk blues material does stand out, even today.
But “Ella Speed” fits a pattern of sorts for Evans, who closed his spectacular 1964 set for Verve The Individualism of Gil Evans, with an arrangement of Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful,” and who later cut The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix, which is exactly what the title states, offering the songs in big band jazz-rock mode.
But for Evans & Ten’s “Remember,” the arrangement is solidly in an orchestral jazz mode as the arrangement makes the eleven-piece band sound much larger, though this effect is sweetly offset by restraint, as there are no blasting fanfares. Instead, Evans plays around with the slow tempo before kicking it up a notch mid-way through. And while Evens gets occasionally denigrated as playing “arranger’s piano,” his blues-tinged approach sounds fine in “Remember.”
After a contracted opening spotlighting Lacy and Cleveland, the ensemble goes to work with a strong chart in “Ella Speed.” Still, the track is noted for its attentions to its soloists. “Big Stuff” gets really slow and very deep at the start with Varsalona’s bass trombone, but the track is essentially a showcase for Evans’ strengths as arranger. Even at this early point, few arrangers sounded like this, mainly because in the others’ work, too often the individual players faded into anonymity, even when soloing.
Not here, as “Nobody’s Heart” plays around with a folky feel (as applied to Classical Music during this era). With Lacy up front, “Just One of Those Things” starts out like an unreleased track from his Soprano Sax debut for Prestige (cut the same year), at least until the other players enter the scheme. It’s in “If You Could See Me Now” where Evans fully embraces big band classicism and does right by it as Cleveland taps into the warmth of lights-low romanticism without getting soppy. “Jambangle” reasserts Evans as a forward thinker; as he gives the keyboard a workout, a few Mingus vibes close the record.
1960’s Out of the Cool for the Impulse label is sometimes described as Evans’ first masterpiece, and it certainly does rise to that level, but before that, the guy arranged and assembled two very strong albums for World Pacific in ’58-’59 with expanded lineups, New Bottle Old Wine (featuring Cannonball Adderley) and Great Jazz Standards. Neither should be slept on.
In my experience, Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix is somewhat divisive; I think it’s a blast, but it does toy around with an orchestral sound common in the ’70s (exceptions are Sun Ra and Carla Bley) that brings my Blood, Sweat & Tears-enamored junior high school music teacher to mind. But he (Evans, not my music teacher) ultimately transcends the jazz-rock pitfalls. Hendrix and Svengali (another anagram), his other ’70s jazz-rock album of note, are also recommended.
But I digress. Gil Evans & Ten commences a rewarding discography, and it’s where anybody curious into the music of its maker should begin.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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