Bill Evans - Conversations with Myself (1981 Japanese Verve Vinyl LP)

Bill Evans - Conversations with Myself | Vinyl LP - 1981 Japanese Polydor Reissue (Verve 23MJ 3075, Jazztime Now!! / Bill Evans Collection, gatefold sleeve)

• Bill Evans overdubs three piano tracks, a technically and musically unprecedented project that won the 1964 Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and received five stars from DownBeat on release
• Eight pieces including three by Thelonious Monk and Evans's own "N.Y.C.'s No Lark", an anagram of Sonny Clark, written in tribute to his friend who had died just weeks before these sessions
• Japanese gatefold reissue on Polydor, produced by Creed Taylor, with Roy DeCarava photography and liner notes by Evans and Gene Lees

The method was simple in concept and demanding in execution. Bill Evans recorded a piano track, then listened to it on headphones while playing a second track in response, then added a third. The result is an album that sounds less like a gimmick and more like the logical extension of the conversational interplay Evans had been developing in his trios. He addressed the controversy directly in a printed statement included with the original LP, arguing that the overdubbed format allowed him to approximate the ideal of spontaneous group interaction within a single musical mind. "'Round Midnight" opens with three distinct approaches to Monk's melody layered over one another, each track offering a different rhythmic and harmonic emphasis. "How About You?" follows at under three minutes, brighter and more playful, the three voices moving in and out of sync. "Spartacus Love Theme", Alex North's piece from the Kubrick film, is one of the album's most praised tracks, the orchestral quality of the three pianos giving the melody a richness that a single instrument could not achieve.

"Blue Monk" brings Evans back to Monk territory, and his reading is faithful to Monk's rhythmic idiosyncrasies while adding his own harmonic colouring across the three layers. "Stella by Starlight" opens Side B as a ballad where the overdubs create a cushion of sustained harmony under the lead melody, and "Hey, There" is taken at a medium tempo with more rhythmic independence between the three tracks. "N.Y.C.'s No Lark" is Evans's original, the title an anagram of Sonny Clark's name. Clark had died in January 1963, weeks before these sessions began, and the piece carries that weight without being maudlin, the three piano voices circling a melancholy theme. "Just You, Just Me" closes the album at two and a half minutes, the shortest and lightest track, a bright swinger that ends the record on an upbeat. Produced by Creed Taylor, engineered by Ray Hall under director Val Valentin.

This is the 1981 Japanese gatefold reissue on Polydor (Verve 23MJ 3075), part of the Jazztime Now!! and Bill Evans Collection series.