Chords for Bill Evans interveiw 1970

_ _ [E] _ _ [A] Yes.
[N] _
What your trio is, the famous audience, that is _ called the _ assistant?
_ [E] _ _ [G] And how conscious are [Ab] you of working with this?
Well, not so conscious as more the musicians involved than anything in that I think we
have sort of a common [N] desire.
_ _ And I _ think what we look for is _ freedom with [B] responsibility.
In other words, there's no requirement to do anything at a certain time, but we like
to feel that we're responsible to the total performance.
_ _ And of course it requires _ a certain kind of musician, and I think they're _ _ _ kind of exceptional
musicians and _ _ _ [Gb] it's all the fascinating that the side men play.
They're not [E] side men really, they're just a trio. _ _ _
How long have [D] you been playing the same piece?
Because _ [F] this requires very close cooperation for long period of time.
_ Well, to give you an idea, the trio has never rehearsed.
In the history [Gb] of the trio we've never [B] rehearsed.
I think we probably could accomplish some things through rehearsal, but all of the things we
play have grown out of performance.
_ _ _ [N] _ _
And what _ _ was the beginning of the question?
_ [Ab] Does it take very long to form this [F] sort of a band?
_ Not [E] really, because when the guys joined the group I sort of could feel in a minute whether
or not [G] they're going to fall in.
_ And [E] although Eddie claimed that he was going through a lot of strain [Bm] when we opened the
New London House Cold in Chicago, it [Bbm] sounded to me like it was [G] like water, you know, out
of a faucet and it came out so [A] easily.
But then beyond that, [Bbm] I think it's a sort of a natural development, a true common [B]
desire
just to make _ _ it more musical all the time as much as we [E] can. _ _
I think we would like to move.
_ All right. _ _
_ [N] _ _ _ _ You could protect the music, the intellectual, the jazz position. _ _
How far does intellect go?
_ _ Only as far as being a student. _
_ _ _ That's as far as it can go, because intellectually you couldn't _ manipulate yourself fast enough
intellectually to play.
I mean, jazz is a certain process that's not an intellectual process.
You use your intellect to take apart the materials and learn to understand them and learn to
work with them.
But actually it takes years and years and years of playing to develop the facility so
that you can forget _ all of that.
Just _ _ [G] _
relax and just play.
It also means that when you're playing you are very calm, like Hemingway in a story.
_ Does this tuning down mean [B] anything?
_ _ _ _ I think _ it's a matter of [N] taste _ and just [Ab] what you want to hear as a performer, because you
play for [G] yourself first, of course.
You're the _ _ primary audience for yourself.
_ I just [B] don't like to hear superfluous things.
_ _ I hope there aren't too many elements that are superfluous in what I do. _ _
[G] There probably are many, but _ I don't like [N] obvious _ embroidery. _ _
So that's the reason, I think.
_ [G] And I do like to state [Gb] things as clearly [G] as I can, as precisely as I can.
I don't like to make people work hard to [Gb] understand what I'm doing or myself either.
[N] If you can say it easy, why make it hard?
_ _ _ _ When you start playing, to what [Eb] extent do you know exactly what it's going to be?
[D] Or do you have any idea?
Only _ [Bb] that we've agreed on a basic [Ab] structural plan harmonically in [G] most of the things [Gb] that we do.
_ [E] And other than that, certain things have fallen into place, as you could hear.
They almost become [N] arrangement.
But sometimes we'll destroy some of those things just to try to keep fresh.
And then of course, after the theme is stated, _ we don't know at all, except that we know
about the idiom we're going to be playing in.
But we don't know _ the ideas or how they'll follow each other,
or how we'll be interplaying or anything like _ _ that.
Your challenge doesn't obviously lie in that sort of technical thing. _
_ What is your challenge in the new composition?
_ It's sort [Ab] of a feeling, I think, _ [N] a melodic feeling,
just to _ _ _ say a certain kind [G] of a thing,
to try to [Ab] _ maybe _ _ [Bb] show somebody something through music,
even show [Gb] myself something, because as I've discovered in myself,
it's been a [Ab] revelation to maybe reveal something [E] to someone else through the music.
Something [Ab] that's _ good [A] and something that they feel maybe enriches their life a little bit
[Ab] or makes them feel [G] _ better as a person or something like that.
That would be the main guiding force. _
[Eb] I shouldn't say about Eddie that he [Bb] has the most [F] surprising flexibility.
Sometimes _ I wake up in the morning to TV in New York or Today [E] Show
and I see an Israeli [Eb] folk group _ playing their folk music
and I see a bass player in the back playing like he was born in Israel.
_ Is that Eddie? _
It's [B] Eddie.
Or [Bb] else he'll get on a very [E] free kind of expressionistic bag
with _ _ Jeremy Stive duet-type things, [Ab] recording everything.
So Eddie is marvelous in that he has a very wide scope
and as much as he fits [B] me like a glove,
you would almost think that this is the only way he could play
because he does it so perfectly, but it's not true.
_ Where did you study bass? _
_ Well, I've been playing about 13, 14 years.
I _ [G] played all through high school and went to Juilliard after that.
I studied _ classical, _ called classical bass.
You were playing drums in a symphony orchestra?
Yeah, for [E] a while when I was going to college.
What made you decide [Ab] to leave?
_ _ _ Well_
He was counting measures [G] one day.
Yeah, right.
_ _ I couldn't express myself at all.
I was just reading music and that's it. _
I ruined my [N] self-expression.
And that room has now opened up.
Oh, indeed, yes.
Would you accept classical idiom in the future?
_ _ Well, the _ idiom_
Yeah, if it would apply.
If you could apply it.
Who is your favorite among the classical composers?
_ I guess if I had to pick one, it would be Bach.
_ _ _ Very common. _
_ _ Probably so.
But I do like many, you know, many_ _ _
All the classical composers, Beethoven, Bach, Haydn.
I love Haydn.
_ I'm much to Mozart and Debussy, Ravel, Bartholdi.
_ You know.
_ And _ _ _ _ _ _ _ your opinion about this avant-garde engine? _ _ _ _ _ _
I _ think there's a [G] very healthy thing going [Abm] on.
I don't think it's gotten organized _ enough yet.
_ _ [Gb] Maybe.
[Ab] _
The only thing [Ab] I think is a danger about _
_ allowing yourself all of this freedom
is that you could sometimes [Abm] indulge yourself
_ [N] and express _ _ feelings that are too [E] personal.
I mean, too [G] everyday personal feelings
that [Ab] might not relate [G] to another person.
And I think that you have to be very careful
to have an aesthetic guiding force
if you allow yourself this kind of a [E] freedom.
And also [N] be very selective
_ about the feelings that you want to express
because otherwise you could get as subjective
as _ an infant that's crying in his crib.
And no one can deny that [Ab] this infant is expressing himself,
but no one would call it art.
I was very lucky that you were not playing with the Scarlets.
Yeah.
_ _ Right.
_ _ Have you heard any Finnish jazz? _
Yeah, we heard _ the quartet that won at the Montreux Festival _ last night
and they sounded marvelous.
_ And the amazing thing to me is that they could attain
_ such a high degree of ability where there's no environment for them
to be continually [G] playing in clubs
and _ [Ab] having an audience encourage them
or other _ musicians of their own caliber and so on.
[E] And they really sounded