Live At Sweet Basil (CD)

Unlike most jazz innovators, who are mainly associated with their instrument, Gil Evans made his mark as an arranger and composer of stunning originality. Best known for his collaborations with Miles Davis (BIRTH OF THE COOL, SKETCHES OF SPAIN), Evans first appeared as an arranger for the Claude Thornhill big band. Later he led his own band, which became the ideal laboratory for his highly individual musical ideas.

• Category:  Music  »  Jazz  »  Big Band
• Format: CD   Learn more about the CD format using Tower WIKI.
• Release Date: March 30, 1993
• Label: Evidence
• UPC: 730182202625
• WAPI (Tower ID): 105795070
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• Tower.com Sales Rank: #159302 in Music (See Top 100 Music Bestsellers)
• #14496 in Jazz (See Top 100 Jazz Bestsellers)
• #594 in Big Band (See Top 100 Big Band Bestsellers)

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Personnel: Gil Evans (acoustic & electric pianos); Chris Hunter (alto saxophone); George Adams (tenor saxophone); Lew Soloff, Hannibal Marvin Peterson, Shunzo Ohno, Miles Evans (trumpet); Tom Malone (trombone); Howard Johnson (tuba, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet); Pete Levin (synthesizer); Hiram Bullock (guitar); Mark Egan (bass); Adam Nussbaum (drums); Mino Cinelu (percussion).

Producers: Horst Liepolt, Shigeyuki Kawashima.

Recorded live at Sweet Basil, New York, New York on August 20 & 27, 1984. Includes liner notes by Stephanie Stein and Robert P. Crease.

During the last years of composer/arranger/pianist Gil Evans's life, he and his orchestra (which usually numbered around 14 members) played a regular Monday night gig at New York City's Sweet Basil jazz club. In the manner of Charles Mingus's jazz workshops, these sets became ground for fertile experimentation. Though, for many people, Evans is inextricably linked to sophisticated, classically based jazz arrangements (his immortal Miles Davis collaborations on PORGY AND BESS and SKETCHES OF SPAIN are cases in point), his Monday Night Orchestra sessions were something altogether different.

Evans's charts are as exacting as ever here, but the influence of post-bop and free jazz is keenly felt. Wild improvisation, shuttering polyrhythms, changing meters, and the presence of synthesizer and electric guitar announce right away that this is not the buttoned-down, string-sweetened Evans that old-school fans might expect. The repertoire, too, which includes compositions by Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Parker, and Jimi Hendrix, is decidedly modern. This should come as no surprise, however. Evans was always progressive, pushing the envelope of form, color, and texture in all of his projects. This 1984 recording, made just a few years before his death, testifies to Evans's formidable, adventurous legacy.

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