Favorite of Bill Evans's "Final Recordings"

[gdogus]

To the best of my knowledge, there are three box sets currently available documenting the last three months or so of Bill Evans's career (June -September, 1980). All feature the Evans - Marc Johnson - Joe LaBarbera trio. Which do you like most, and why?

[LeMo]

Bill Stewart? You certainly mean Joe LaBarbera even if it could be funny to imagine Stewart, born in 1966, on the drum kit.
It could have been possible after all, If you think about Tony Williams or Denardo Coleman.

[gdogus]

Joe LaBarbera, of course. Just one of my increasingly-frequent mental lapses. Though you're right - I'd love to have seen a 14 year-old Stewart slapping the skins with Evans...LOL! Corrected now.

[Pete C]

Turn Out The Stars. Maybe because I heard it first, and am most familiar with it. And maybe Helen Keane's statement that the other sets shouldn't have been released because Bill was too weak and not in top form influenced the way I listened to them.

[Nate Dorward]

...eh, I'm not sure about Turn Out the Stars:

1) the piano sound is harsh & glassy

2) Evans is very hopped-up on those sessions: virtually everything becomes loud & uptempo (there's only about one or two ballads on each disc of the set), letting loose torrents of notes from the keyboard.

I have the 8-disc set too, & haven't closely plumbed it (god help us, 14 discs of late Evans is a big much even for the most devoted fan): I'd actually liked it a bit more, in many ways, & it's not nearly as death-haunted as you'd suppose given its nearness to Evans' own death. The recorded sound is more modest, which is fine by me.

I think in both cases Evans' memory would have best been served by a more selective trawl through the material.

[ndf]

The KeyStone Korner sessions would be well served by a "best of" package. These's wonderful material here, despite what Helen Keene might think. He sounds a bit rushed at times but the ensemble playing is stunning!

nDF