Village Vanguard session with Bill Evans

Hi Ghosthouse, thank you for sharing my thoughts. First I would like to say that I personally think the Village Vanguard sessions are quite extraordinary and beautiful. I started this thread because I would like to know from you (fellow music lovers) what is in your opinion the ultimate reason why this particular recording is so "great". Today I heard the slow part (Largo) from J.S. Bach's third Sonata for unaccompanied violin. If you know this piece, you'll understand what I am trying to say. I'm not saying that Bill or Miles play few notes: they play as much notes as necessary, not more, not less, and each of those notes has it's own unique place within the structure of the music. That is what I call "Zenlike", because (forgive me if I'm wrong, I'm not an expert in this field) the Zen philosophy is about the "essence" of things. This essence can be found in the Village Vanguard sessions, but also in Picasso's Guernica, Miles Kind of Blue, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Bach's Sonata for unaccompanied violin, Charles Eames' Lounge Chair, Rubik's Cube, the classic Mercedes-Benz "Gullwing" model, etc.

Chris

Ghosthouse, I don't know to what extent subjectivism is important. It's probably pretty rare when something resonates with everyones conscienceness at the same and in the some way. I don't believe that art is purely objective and that all we need to do is refine our tastes. There are many truths and many pathways which will be apparent to some but not to others as a function of their state of being and not necessarily their taste. This is subjective to the extent that certain vision requires certain life insight which may not be taught in art/music school. - Jim

Dazzdax, Aldavis -
I wish you a Happy New Year...
Here is a link to a series of videos with Bill Evans discussing his art.

The first link (#1 of 5) will take you to the site with various other segments and contains remarks pertinent to Aldavis' comments.

See also the 4:33 clip (there are 2 with the same title), Bill Evans - The Creative Process and Self-teaching. I found this discussion meaningful in terms of Dazzdax points about the relevance of economy to the creative process.

Hope you enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm6V7bWnVpw&feature=related

PS -
This site also contains an 8:22 interview with the producer of the Village Vanguard recording that started this thread.

Thanks Ghosthouse. Happy new year to you. - Jim

Thanks to onhwy61 for the Gopnik article. Just sat and read it with the album on in the background and got chills--which Gopnik's writing does for me not quite as often as Evans' playing, but often enough. To anyone else who enjoyed that article, his book "Paris to the Moon" is fantastic, as is his essay "The Last of the Metrozoids" which, while not about music, talks about art and a life well lived in the same sort of spirit as the Evans article. Happy listening, everyone.