Southend Jazz Co-op

Musician Biographies

Chet Baker

www.chetbakertribute.com
An absolutely brilliant website with masses of video clips and lots of sound recording of Chet's work to sample. All you need to know about Chet Baker. This short biographical sketch is taken from the website.

Chet Baker was born Chesney Henry Baker Jr. on December 23, 1929 in Yale, Oklahoma. His father, Chesney Sr. was a guitarist who played in local country and western bands. When Chet was 10, the family moved to Southern California. Chesney Sr., encouraging his son to pursue music, bought Chet a trombone. The 12 year old found it difficult to handle, so he eventually switched to trumpet. He played trumpet through junior high school, and on through college.
In 1946 he was drafted into the Army, and played in the Army band in Berlin. After returning home, Baker continued his music education at El Camino College. In 1952 he won an audition with Charlie Parker, then went on to join Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet. The group performed regularly at The Haig in Hollywood. In 1953, Baker formed his own band featuring Russ Freeman on piano. The Chet Baker Quartet toured and recorded with great success. As the decade came to a close, Chet was addicted to heroin and his life was filled with arrests and scandals.
Chet Baker spent most of the sixties in Europe, recording infrequently and getting in to trouble frequently. He made some very notable recordings in the early part of the decade (such as the Prestige recordings from 1965), sometimes switching to flugelhorn. But the late sixties found him recording some dreadful music, and eventually he had given up playing after losing most of his upper teeth. Years of drug use had taken their toll on Chet's teeth, and in July of 1966 he was attacked, and his teeth were damaged further.

In the early 1970's, Chet Baker began to learn how to play with dentures. Beginning in 1974, Chet recorded and toured regularly, mostly in Europe. Despite the effects of age, drugs and false teeth, he actually improved in those later years. Chet's performances in the eighties were unpredictable. Sometimes he would show up and perform the best gig of his career. Sometimes he would show up and perform poorly. Sometimes he wouldn't even show up.
Chet Baker's turbulent life came to a bizarre and tragic end on May 13, 1988 in Amsterdam. Chet fell from the open window of his hotel room, hitting the concrete two stories below.
You can also check out www.chetbaker.net for a complete discography and interesting links.

Gerry Mulligan

Though the baritone saxist/composer is primarily known as a major figure in the "Cool" school of jazz, Gerry Mulligan fit in well with figures representing virtually all jazz styles, as his collaborations with Thelonious Monk, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Paul Desmond testify. No one in jazz has better implemented the baritone saxophone than Mulligan.
Born April 6, 1927, in New York City, Mulligan was writing arrangements for Johnny Warrington's radio band when he was 17. Though he grew up in Philadelphia, he returned to his birthplace at 19 to become staff arranger for Gene Krupa's group. The ensuing years coupled him with the bands of Claude Thornhill, Kai Winding and Stan Kenton, but his most prominent early career presence was as a player in Miles Davis' celebrated nonet in 1949 and 1950. In fact, many feel that his input on the famous "Birth of the Cool" sessions was unfairly under-emphasized by Davis. Mulligan became increasingly significant as a jazz musician when, after moving to Los Angeles, he formed the highly rated piano-less quartet, with trumpeter Chet Baker, in 1952. The lack of a piano for harmonic direction required exceptionally tight interplay between Mulligan and Baker - later replaced by Art Farmer - creating a new texture in jazz that was overwhelmingly accepted by '50s jazz fans. Recordings of the Quartet remain classics until this day; compare The Best of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker and The Original Quartet with Chet Baker. From 68-72 he was a part of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.
Because of his interest in arranging for larger ensembles, the post-'50s Mulligan led groups featuring 13, 14 and even 20 players. Basing himself in mostly in New York, Mulligan's tours of Europe and Japan cemented his reputation as both a top-notch arranger and the name most likely associated with bringing respect to the baritone saxophone. He died Jan. 19, 1996 when he was 68 years old.
The best web sites are :

www.gerrymulligan.info
www.gerrymulligan.com

Recommended recordings
Verve Jazz Masters 36 - Verve
The Best of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker - Blue Note

The Original Quartet with Chet Baker - Blue Note
Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster - Verve 841-661
Gerry Mulligan / Paul Desmond Quartet - Verve
Two of a mind (with Paul Desmond) - BMG/ RCA
What is there to Say ? - Columbia 52978
Mulligan Meets Monk - OJC 301-2 - Riverside 1106
Konitz Meets Mulligan - Blue Note
Dream a Little Dream - Telarc
Dragonfly - Telarc
Night Lights - Verve

Bobby Timmons

Although almost forgotten today, Bobby Timmons was partly responsible for the commercial success of both Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and Cannonball Adderley's Quintet. For Art Blakey (who he was with during 1958-9), Timmons wrote the classic "Moanin'" and, after joining Adderley in 1959, his song "This Here" (followed later by "Dat Dere") became a big hit. Timmons was born in 1935 in Philadelphia and after emerging from the Philadelphia jazz scene, he moved to New York where in 1954 he worked with Kenny Dorham (1956, he appeared on the Blue Note/ Dorham Classic At the Cafe Bohemia), Chet Baker, Sonny Stitt and the Maynard Ferguson Big Band.
In the summer of 1958 he joined Art Blakey's group and in the autumn of 1959 he moved on to Adderley's band. Adderley saw to it that Timmons signed with the Riverside label to make albums as a leader, the first being This Here is Bobby Timmons. The recordings under his own name (mostly in a trio setting) reveal a much more complete stylist than his playing with Baker, Adderley and Blakey would suggest. In fact, Bobby Timmons became so famous for the gospel and funky blues cliches in his music that his skills as a Bud Powell-inspired bebop player were all but forgotten. He was however a highly talented and versatile musician influenced by not only Powell but also by Wynton Kelly. He himself was an example for later players such as Les McCann, Ramsey Lewis and much later Benny Green. With his own trio he was never able to gain the commercial success that he helped his former bosses achieve and, partly due to alcoholism, Timmons' career gradually declined. He died at age 38 from cirrhosis of the liver.

Selected CDs:
Art Blakey - Moanin' (Blue Note)
Bobby Timmons In Person (1951)
This Here Is Bobby Timmons (1960)
Soul Time (1960)
Easy Does It (1961)
Born To Be Blue! (1963)
All available quite cheaply on Amazon.co.uk

Charles Mingus by Richard S. Ginell

Born Apr 22, 1922 in Nogales, AZ
Died Jan 5, 1979 in Cuernavaca, Mexico

Irascible, demanding, bullying, and probably a genius, Charles Mingus cut himself a uniquely iconoclastic path through jazz in the middle of the 20th century, creating a legacy that became universally lauded only after he was no longer around to bug people. As a bassist, he knew few peers, blessed with a powerful tone and pulsating sense of rhythm, capable of elevating the instrument into the front line of a band. But had he been just a string player, few would know his name today. Rather, he was the greatest bass-playing leader/composer jazz has ever known, one who always kept his ears and fingers on the pulse, spirit, spontaneity, and ferocious expressive power of jazz.

Intensely ambitious yet often earthy in expression, simultaneously radical and deeply traditional, Mingus' music took elements from everything he had experienced -- from gospel and blues through New Orleans jazz, swing, bop, Latin music, modern classical music, even the jazz avant-garde. His touchstone was Duke Ellington, but Mingus took the sonic blend and harmonies of Ellingtonia much further, throwing in abrasive dissonances and abrupt changes in meter and tempo, introducing tremendously exhilarating accelerations that generated a momentum of their own. While his early works were written out in a classical fashion, by the mid-'50s, he had worked out a new way of getting his unconventional visions across, dictating the parts to his musicians while allowing plenty of room for the players' own musical personalities and ideas. He was also a formidable pianist, fully capable of taking that role in a group -- which he did in his 1961-62 bands, hiring another bassist to fill in for him.

Along the way, Mingus made a lot of enemies, causing sometimes violent confrontations on and off the bandstand. A big man physically, he used his bulk as a weapon of intimidation, and he was not above halting concerts to chew out inattentive audiences or errant sidemen, even cashiering a musician now and then on the spot. At one of his concerts in Philadelphia -- and a memorial to a dead colleague at that -- he broke up the show by slamming the piano lid down, nearly smashing his pianist's hands, and then punched trombonist Jimmy Knepper in the mouth. For a savage physical portrait of the emotions that seethed within him, check out the photo on the cover of Duke Ellington's Money Jungle; Mingus looks as if he is about to kill someone. But he could also be a gentle giant as his moods permitted, and that quality can be felt in some of his music.

Mingus felt the lash of racial prejudice very intensely -- which, combined with the frustrations of making it in the music business on his own terms, found its outlet in music. Indeed, some of his bizarre titles were political in nature, such as Fables of Faubus (referring to the Arkansas governor who tried to keep Little Rock schools segregated), "Oh Lord, Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me" or "Remember Rockefeller at Attica." But he could also be wildly humorous, the most notorious example being "If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats" (later shortened to "Gunslinging Bird").

Born in a Nogales Army camp, Mingus was shortly thereafter taken to the Watts district of Los Angeles, where he grew up. The first music he heard was that of the church -- the only music his stepmother allowed around the house -- but one day, despite the threat of punishment, he tuned in Duke Ellington's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" on his father's crystal set, his first exposure to jazz. He tried to learn the trombone at six and then the cello, but he became fed up with incompetent teachers and ended up on the double bass by the time he reached high school. His early teachers were Red Callender and an ex-New York Philharmonic bassist named Herman Rheinschagen, and he also studied composition with Lloyd Reese. A proto-third stream composition written by Mingus in 1940-41, "Half-Mast Inhibition" (recorded in 1960), reveals an extraordinary timbral imagination for a teenager.

As a bass prodigy, Mingus performed with Kid Ory in Barney Bigard's group in 1942 and went on the road with Louis Armstrong the following year. He would gravitate toward the R&B side of the road later in the '40s, working with the Lionel Hampton band in 1947-48, backing R&B and jazz performers, and leading ensembles in various idioms under the name Baron Von Mingus. He began to attract real national attention as a bassist for Red Norvo's trio with Tal Farlow in 1950-51, and after leaving that group, he moved to New York and began working with several stellar jazz performers, including Billy Taylor, Stan Getz and Art Tatum. He was the bassist in the famous 1953 Massey Hall concert in Toronto with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and Max Roach, and he briefly joined his idol Ellington, where he had the dubious distinction of being the only man Duke ever personally fired from his band.

Around this time, Mingus tried to make himself into a rallying point for the jazz community. He founded Debut Records in partnership with his then-wife Celia and Roach in 1952, seeing to it that the label recorded a wide variety of jazz from bebop to experimental music until its demise in 1957. Among Debut's most notable releases were the Massey Hall concert, an album by Miles Davis, and several Mingus sessions that traced the development of his ideas. He also contributed composed works to the Jazz Composers' Workshop from 1953 to 1955, and later in '55, he founded his own Jazz Workshop repertory group that found him moving away from strict notation toward his looser, dictated manner of composing.

By 1956, with the release of Pithecanthropus Erectus (Atlantic), Mingus had clearly found himself as a composer and leader, creating pulsating, ever-shifting compendiums of jazz's past and present, feeling his way into the free jazz of the future. For the next decade, he would pour forth an extraordinary body of work for several labels, including key albums like The Clown, New Tijuana Moods, Mingus Ah Um, Blues and Roots and Oh Yeah; standards like "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," "Better Git It in Your Soul," "Haitian Fight Song" and "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting," and extended works like Meditations on Integration and Epitaph. Through ensembles ranging in size from a quartet to an 11-piece big band, a procession of noted sidemen like Eric Dolphy, Jackie McLean, J.R. Monterose, Jimmy Knepper, Roland Kirk, Booker Ervin, and John Handy would pass, with Mingus' commanding bass and volatile personality pushing his musicians further than some of them might have liked to go. The groups with the great Dolphy (heard live on Mingus at Antibes) in the early '60s might have been his most dynamic, and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963), an extended ballet for big band that captures the anguished/joyful split Mingus personality in full, passionately wild cry -- may be his masterpiece.

However, Mingus' obsessive efforts to free himself from the economic hazards and larceny of the music business nearly undermined his sanity in the 1960s (indeed, some of the liner notes for The Black Saint album were written by his psychologist, Dr. Edmund Pollock). He tried to compete with the Newport festivals by organizing his own Jazz Artists Guild in 1960 that purported to give musicians more control over their work, but that collapsed with the by-now-routine rancor that accompanied so many Mingus ventures. A calamitous, self-presented New York Town Hall concert in 1962; another, shorter-lived recording venture, Charles Mingus Records, in 1964-65; the failure to find a publisher for his autobiography Beneath the Underdog, and other setbacks broke his bank account and ultimately his spirit. He quit music almost entirely from 1966 until 1969, resuming performances in June 1969 only because he desperately needed money.

Financial angels in the forms of a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition, the publication of Beneath the Underdog in 1971, and the purchase of his Debut masters by Fantasy boosted Mingus' spirits, and a new stimulating Columbia album Let My Children Hear Music thrust him back into public attention. By 1974, he had formed a new young quintet, anchored by his loyal drummer Dannie Richmond and featuring Jack Walrath, Don Pullen and George Adams, and more compositions came forth, including the massive, kaleidoscopic, Colombian-based "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion" that began its life as a film score.

Respect was growing, but time, alas, was running out, for in fall 1977, Mingus was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), and by the following year, he was unable to play the bass. Though confined to a wheelchair, he nevertheless carried on, leading recording sessions, and receiving honors at a White House concert on June 18, 1978. His last project was a collaboration, Mingus with folk-rock singer Joni Mitchell, who wrote lyrics to Mingus' music and included samples of Mingus' voice on the record.

Since his death, Mingus' importance and fame increased remarkably, thanks in large part to the determined efforts of Sue Mingus, his widow. A posthumous repertory group, Mingus Dynasty, was formed almost immediately after his death, and that concept was expanded in 1991 into the exciting Mingus Big Band, which has resurrected many of Mingus' most challenging scores. Epitaph was finally reconstructed, performed and recorded in 1989 to general acclaim, and several box sets of portions of Mingus' output have been issued by Rhino/Atlantic, Mosaic and Fantasy. Beyond re-creations, the Mingus influence can be heard on Branford Marsalis' early Scenes in the City album, and especially in the big band writing of his brother Wynton. The Mingus blend of wildly colorful eclecticism solidly rooted in jazz history should serve his legacy well in a future increasingly populated by young conservatives who want to pay their respects to tradition and try something different.

Websites:
www.mingusmingusmingus.com

Sonny Stitt

Edward "Sonny" Stitt (February 2, 1924 - July 22, 1982) was an American jazz saxophonist. He was a quintessential saxophonist of the bebop idiom and was also one of the most prolific saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 records in his lifetime. He was nicknamed the "Lone Wolf" by jazz critic Dan Morgenstern in tribute to his relentless touring and his devotion to jazz.
Life and works
Stitt was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. Stitt had a musical background; his father taught music, his brother was a classically trained pianist, and his mother was a piano teacher. In 1943 Stitt first met Charlie Parker, and as he often later recalled, the two men found that their playing resembled the others style. Stitt's earliest recordings were made in 1945 with Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie. He had also experienced playing in some swing bands, though he mainly played in bop bands. Stitt featured in Tiny Bradshaw's big band in the early forties.
Stitt played alto saxophone in Billy Eckstine's big band alongside future bop pioneers Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons from 1945 until 1949, when he started to play tenor saxophone more frequently. Later on, he notably played with Gene Ammons and Bud Powell. Stitt spent time in a Lexington prison between 1948-49 for selling narcotics.
Stitt, when playing tenor saxophone, seemed to break free from some of the criticism that he was apeing jazz genius Charlie Parker's style, although it appears in the instance with Ammons above that the availability of the larger instrument was a factor. When alto saxophonist Gene Quill was criticised for playing too similar to Parker once by a jazz writer he retorted: "you try imitating Charlie Parker!" Indeed, Stitt began to develop a far more distinctive sound on tenor. He played with other bop musicians Bud Powell and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, a fellow tenor with a distinctly tough tone in comparison to Stitt, in the 1950s and recorded a number of sides for Prestige Records label as well as albums for Argo, Verve and Roost. Stitt experimented with Afro-Cuban jazz in the late 1950s, and the results can be heard on his recordings for Roost and Verve, on which he teamed up with Thad Jones and Chick Corea for Latin versions of such standards as "Autumn Leaves."
Stitt joined Miles Davis briefly in 1960, and his sole performance with the 1960 quintet is on the record Live at Stockholm (Dragon Records|Dragon]]), which featured Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers. However, Miles fired Stitt due to the excessive drinking habit he had developed, and replaced him with fellow tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley. Stitt, later in the 1960s paid homage to one of his main influences, Charlie Parker, on the album Stitt Plays Bird, which features Jim Hall on guitar and at Newport in 1964 with other bebop players including J.J. Johnson.
He recorded a number of memorable records with his friend and fellow saxophonist Gene Ammons, interrupted by Ammons own imprisonment for narcotics possession. The records recorded by these two saxophonists are regarded by many as some of both Ammons and Stitt's best work, thus the Ammons/Stitt partnership went down in posterity as one of the best duelling partnerships in jazz, alongside Zoot Sims & Al Cohn, and Johnny Griffin with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Stitt would venture into soul jazz, and he recorded with fellow tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin in 1964 on the Soul People album. Stitt would also record with Duke Ellington alumnus Paul Gonsalves during the 1960s. Around that time he also appeared regularly at Ronnie Scott's in London, a live 1964 recording with Ronnie Scott, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, would eventually be released, and another in 1966 with resident guitarist Ernest Ranglin and British tenor saxophonist Dick Morrissey.
In the 1970s, Stitt slowed his recording output slightly, and in 1972, he produced another classic, Tune Up, which was and still is regarded by many jazz critics, such as Scott Yanow, as his definitive record. Indeed, his fiery and ebullient soloing was quite reminiscent of his earlier playing. Stitt was one of the first jazz musicians to experiment with an electric saxophone (the instrument was called a Varitone), as heard on the album Just The Way It Was - Live At The Left Bank, recorded in 1971 and released in 2000.
Stitt, joining the Giants of Jazz (which included Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk) on some albums for the Mercury Records label, and recording sessions for Cobblestone and other labels. His last recordings were made in Japan. Sadly, in 1982 Stitt suffered a heart attack, and he died on July 22.
Although his playing was at first heavily inspired by Charlie Parker and Lester Young, Stitt eventually developed his own style, one which influenced John Coltrane. Stitt was especially effective with blues and with ballad pieces such as "Skylark".
" Stitt's throwaways are better than most musician's urgent statements. No musician has said more about the pure pleasure of jazz" - Chris Fujiwara, The Boston Phoenix commenting on Stitt's playing.

(Wikipedia)
Links
Sonny Stitt at Verve Records
Sonny Stitt at the Hard Bop Homepage
BBC - Radio 3 Jazz Profiles - Sonny Stitt
Ruminator >> The Sonny Side of the Street
Some Stitt Transcriptions in PDF format

Suggested Discography **Best Bets

Sonny Stitt/Bud Powell/J.J. Johnson, 1949-50
Live at the Hi-Hat - Vol 1/2
For Musicians Only, with Diz and Stan Getz 1956 **
Sonny Side Up, with Diz and Sonny Rollins 1957
Sits in with the Oscar Peterson Trio 1959, 1957 **
Sonny Stitt and Friends, How High The Moon
Stitt Plays Bird 1966
Made for Each Other, featuring Don Patterson, organ
Soul People (with Booker Ervin)
Tune Up! 1971 (Now Endgame Brilliance on 32 Records)**
Constellation 1972 -(Now Endgame Brilliance on 32 Records)
Just Friends - Sonny Stitt/Red Holloway 1977
Last Sessions 1982 (Now on 32 Records)

Gil Evans

Ian Ernest Gilmore Green (or Gilmore Ian Rodrigo Green) was born May 13, 1912, in Toronto, Canada, the son of Margaret Julia MacChonechy and a father he never knew. He took the name of his stepfather, and thus became Gil Evans. His stepfather was a miner, whereas his mother took care of the children of rich families, and prepared meals for campsites. Moving wherever work would take them, they went from one North-American mining site to the next, including Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and such Northwestern U.S. states as Idaho, Montana, and Washington. Their child was put in boarding houses, moving from one family to the next, until they finally settled permanently in California, around 1922. Gil went to school in Berkeley, and there, his real musical training began. The father of one of his friends was a jazz fanatic and initiated him to this music. In 1927, he took the two teenagers to see Duke Ellington at the Orpheum theater in San Francisco.
It was a revelation for Gil Evans, who decided to devote his life to this music. That same year, he bought his first record, "No One Else But You," by Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines. At the same time, he started transcribing, from the recordings, the music of such great jazz arrangers as Red Nichols, Duke Ellington, and Don Redman. In 1933, he put together his first group in Stockton, which had six musicians at first, but grew to nine in 1934. The group played arrangements by Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington, all transcribed from the recordings. In 1935, the orchestra was on the same bill at the Palomar Ballroom as the triumphant Benny Goodman, then was hired to play at the Rendez-Vous Ballroom in Balboa Beach, in southern California, where it remained until 1938. Gil Evans was in charge of writing and conducting, and, from time to time, Stan Kenton held the piano chair.
In 1938, Alex Holden, who worked for MCA at that time, offered Gil Evans' orchestra a chance to accompany singer Skinnay Ennis. Gil accepted, keeping his position as arranger. Ennis found work for the group in comedian Bob Hope's well-known radio show for NBC in Hollywood. The manager then called up another arranger to work with the group, Claude Thornhill, who scored a big hit in 1937 with his arrangement of "Loch Lomond" for singer Maxine Sullivan. He and Gil Evans became colleagues and friends, but the two arrangers decided to quit this particular job in 1941. Thornhill had already put together his own orchestra in New York in 1939. This group had begun touring, and found itself, in the summer of 1940, at the Rendez-Vous ballroom in Balboa Beach. In 1941, Thornhill decided to move back to New York, and on March 20, the orchestra began a three-month residency at the Glen Island Casino. Gil Evans joined him as arranger alongside Bill Borden, and on November 17, for the first time in his career, one of his arrangements was recorded. Unfortunately, the U.S. had also gone to war during this time, and the barrage of draft orders compelled Thornhill to disband his orchestra.
Gil Evans also went into the army; he remained stateside, and became a U.S. citizen. He was assigned to various army bands in which he often played the bass drum, notably in Augusta, Georgia, where he met Lester Young. It was during his army duty that Gil Evans discovered the nascent bebop music, to which he was immediately attracted. He was discharged, and moved to New York in 1946, settling in a small furnished room on 55th street that was destined to later become a mythical landmark. He then renewed his collaboration with Claude Thornhill when the latter reformed his orchestra. Evans remained as one of the arrangers for the Thornhill orchestra until 1948, and in this context experimented with many aspects of his budding creativity.
By now, his room on 55th street had become a near-permanent meeting place, where many musicians were busy creating a new musical universe, musicians such as Gerry Mulligan, Dave Lambert, John Carisi, George Russell, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker. A project was conceived at that time by Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan, that of a medium-sized orchestra that would combine the sound texture of the Thornhill orchestra with the new discoveries of bebop. At first, Charlie Parker was proposed as leader of this ensemble, but in the end, Miles Davis was chosen. In 1948, a nonet was formed, and was booked at the Royal Roost on 47th street. The band was dissolved right after this engagement, however, but still managed to record twelve sides in 1949 and 1950 (including two arranged by Gil Evans) that would later be compiled in 1953 under the title The Birth Of The Cool, an album that is now considered a turning point in the history of jazz writing.
Around 1949, Gil married Lilian Grace (they were later divorced), and until 1956, he went through a period of limited musical output. He spent the time studying music extensively, and occasionally wrote for singers, radio, and television, but worked only sporadically in the field of jazz, with such artists as Pearl Bailey and Billy Butterfield in 1950, and Charlie Parker in 1953. Then, in 1956, his career really started to take off. First, Gil collaborated with Helen Merrill (on the album Dream Of You), then with Miles Davis, who had just signed with Columbia and chose Gil Evans for his first recording with a large ensemble. The album in question, Miles Ahead, was released in 1957, and several other collaborations followed, including Porgy And Bess in 1958, Sketches Of Spain in 1960, and Quiet Nights in 1962, all of which went on to become orchestral jazz classics. During this same period, Gil Evans also recorded several albums under his own name, with somewhat smaller ensembles for the most part. These include Gil Evans And Ten (1957), New Bottle, Old Wine (1958) which features Cannonball Adderley, Great Jazz Standards (1959), and Out Of The Cool (1960). In 1960, the orchestra was given a six-week residency at the Jazz Gallery, a New York club. Gil recorded again from 1962 to 1965, notably the albums The Individualism Of Gil Evans, Guitar Forms with Kenny Burrell, and Look To The Rainbow with Astrud Gilberto.
In 1962, he met Anita Cooper. They were married in 1963 and had two sons, Noah (born in 1964), and Miles (born in 1965). For four years, Gil hardly produced any music at all, and concentrated instead on raising his family. He began to record again in 1969, using medium-sized ensembles (usually twelve to fifteen musicians) in which electric instruments now began to play a very important role. The instrumentation also changed, with the number of wind instruments reduced in favor of the rhythm section, which was now augmented by guitars, percussion, and miscellaneous other instruments. A projected collaboration with Jimi Hendrix was cut short by the guitarist's premature death, but an album of jazz arrangements of Hendrix compositions performed by the Gil Evans Orchestra was nonetheless released in 1974. The orchestra began to tour outside the U.S., especially in Europe. In 1975, Gil Evans recorded There Comes A Time, which would turn out to be his last studio album for quite some time. All subsequent recordings by the orchestra were live albums, most notably those made in New York, albums such as Priestess (1977) and Live At The Public Theater (1980), as well as those recorded in London, including Live At The Royal Festival Hall (1978).
In 1980, Gil Evans recorded a series of duets with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz (Heroes and Anti-Heroes), and, beginning in 1984, the orchestra was hired to play every Monday night at Sweet Basil, a New York club. The Monday Night Orchestra, as it became known, played there up until Gil's death, and recorded several albums, including Live At Sweet Basil (1984), and Bud And Bird (1986). In 1985 and 1986, Gil Evans wrote music for several movie soundtracks, most notably Julian Temple's Absolute Beginners and Martin Scorsese's The Color Of Money. The year 1987 was particularly prolific, marked by numerous recordings as well as several European tours, including a concert with pop star Sting. In December of that year, he recorded another duet album, Paris Blues, this time in collaboration with his old accomplice, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy.
Gil Evans died of pneumonia on March 20, 1988 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where Charles Mingus before him had also come to die in 1979.
Web Sites:
www.gilevans.com
gilevans.free.fr