INTERVIEWER: In fact, 20 years ago, did you think it would become such a model…important, I mean.īILL EVANS: No, I thought it’s really, it had to be a good record with the personnel that was involved, and, also, I think that was perhaps the first time that Miles had ever recorded an album where it was largely his compositions, you know. It certainly has been a strong album, and an album I was very proud to be part of. And, funny, yesterday, I was calling up these record stores, ‘cause I’m doing this research on what was the best-selling things for this organization, NYC Jazz, and, other than the George Bensons and those…īILL EVANS: Yeah, Kind of Blue is it, that’s what I understand, yeah. INTERVIEWER WILLIAM (BILL) GOLDBERG: And this portion of the Miles Davis Festival, we’re fortunate to have with us pianist-composer Bill Evans, and Bill was with Miles in the late fifties, and, well, he was on that classic recording Kind of Blue, which is still probably one of the best-selling jazz records. = minutes and seconds on audio recording Digitized from a copy of the cassette in late 1990s. Only known broadcast: Jon WKCR-FM, New York City as part of the 126-hour Miles Davis Festivalįrom an audio cassette taped off the air live by Lewis Nash, listening in Bronxville NY. Interviewer: William Goldberg shared with his written permissionĢnd Interviewer: Eddie Karp (according to Ashley Kahn) Interview taped by Bill Goldberg at Bill Evans’s Fort Lee, NJ apartment, not at radio studio My transcription in PDF form: Bill Evans Interview WKCR 7.4.79c The story of “Blue in Green” has been told in a little more detail elsewhere - see my footnote** at the bottom of this post. (I wonder if McCoy Tyner remembers he did a Milt Jackson recording date on the same day as A Love Supreme.* Of course, there was more than one attempt at recording A Love Supreme, and they didn’t know that was the one then, either.)Įvans says the album was entirely first takes, and consisted of the only complete takes, which was commonly believed at the time, although we now know that there’s a complete alternate take of “Flamenco Sketches.” He doesn’t mention that the line used as an introduction to “So What” was written by Gil Evans, but it’s possible he never knew that, or didn’t think to mention it. They were significant sessions, since Evans was called back to the band he had left, but each was also just another day in the studio for busy musicians, and many such days in jazz musicians’ careers led to unreleased material. But no one involved knew what Kind of Blue was going to be when those record dates happened. He recalled that the album was recorded in one afternoon (“as far as I can remember”), when it was actually two sessions about seven weeks apart. I’m not aware of another source that gives this much first-hand detail about the compositions, how they were made and taught, what was written down by whom, and what parts were spontaneously created.ĭespite a handful of memory slips or inaccurate details, I feel Bill Evans is as reliable a source in this interview as anyone could reasonably be expected to be 20 years after a recording session. There are other interviews from the festival online, including an equally interesting Phil Schaap interview of Jimmy Cobb: The interview by Bill Goldberg with Eddie Karp was broadcast on July 4, 1979, shortly after it was recorded (at Bill Evans’s apartment, exact date unknown) as part of the 126-hour Miles Davis Festival on WKCR FM, the Columbia University station in New York City. It seems to me that it contains some valuable and possibly unique insights and details about the compositions and recording of Kind of Blue and Evans’s views on and relationship with Miles Davis. I’ve been looking forward to sharing this informative interview with Bill Evans for a long time.
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