Bill Evans – Trio 64 | Ende 1963 war Gary Peacock kurz im Trio von Evans – und Paul Motian zurück. Im Booklet der Complete Verve-Box gibt es zwei Gesprächsrunden, denen dieselben Stücke vorgespielt werden. Von „Trio 64“ gibt es „Santa Claus Is Coming to Town“ und Peacock und Motian erzählen ihre Erinnerungen:
MOTIAN: What he did at the end of that tune – he never talked about that kind of stuff, it just happened automatically. A lot of the tunes that he played after I [stopped playing] with him, those tunes became arrangements. But we didn’t say, „Well, let’s do“ this or that. Not very much, [anyway].
[MARC] JOHNSON: And would the endings change from night to night?
MOTIAN: Once we got into a certain ending, we would probably keep doing it.
PEACOCK: The circumstances [of this date] were unbelievable. Creed Taylor had come down to the [Village] Vanguard, and he’d heard us playing, so he knew exactly what we were about, what we were doing. We got into the studio, and we played a little bit to get a sound level. We were listening to it back in the booth and I said, „Wow, that sounds great, man, let’s go.“ Creed Taylor said, „Ah, hmm,“ and I said, „What’s wrong?“ and he said, „Well, you know, I don’t really hear you playing the time.“ I thought he was joking. I couldn’t believe he was serious, but [he continued], „I want you to play more time.“ And I said, „Why?“
I mean, I ended up laying time, but he wanted more straight quarter-note beats. And he also, before I played a solo, he wanted it to be in time, floating in bebop time or something.
But he kept after me, so finally we had a little tiff about it. I just said, „I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do, and if you don’t like it tell me to leave – but just stay away.“ And Bill was having problems with listening to all that, so he was leaving.
But the one that go me, [Taylor] came out and took the tom-tom away. If you listen to this track, it has no tom-tom on it.
MOTIAN: He did? I don’t remember that.
PEACOCK: He took your drum away because they couldn’t get a good sound on it. That’s when I went ballistic.
MOTIAN: The vibe on that date was awful.
PEACOCK: It was the worst vibe I ever heard.
MOTIAN: I just wanted to finish the date. We said, „Let’s get this over with, man, let’s finish this date and get the fuck out of here. Let’s do what we have to do and leave.“
PEACOCK: In that particular track, the aspect of Bill’s playing that’s just absolutely uncanny is his ability to hear long spans of time. No matter what’s going on rhythmically or whatever’s going on underneath that, to hear not just two bars but sections … whole metric sections … because when he came back in he came to exactly where it was supposed to be.
When I first heard this [played] back, I said, „Jeez, guys, what are you doing? You sound like you’re all over the place.“ When I look back at the date, I knew exactly where I was all the time, and when I thought about it later, I thought that Bill could literally hear all that. A lot of pianist I’ve worked with would get lost [when I did] do anything like that, but his [ability] tl hear time, not just in a pulse form or in four bars, but in whole sections – it’s unbelievable.
[ELIOT] ZIGMUND: How do you feel about the record now when you go back and listen to it?
PEACOCK: Well, it took me a long time before I could listen to it.
ZIGMUND: I think it’s great. When I was growing up, man, it was one of the hippest.
PEACOCK: Anyone who does a record has a lot of problems listening to himself, but there’s still a part of me that feels, „Well, we did the best we could do.“ But it was so far below what we had been doing up to that point in clubs, just in terms of all of us playing together.
Was will man dazu sagen? Natürlich, dass es toll wäre, die Fliege an der Wand zu sein im Vanguard, ein paar Wochen vor dieser Session, die am 18. Dezember 1963 in der Webster Hall stattfand. Aber auch so ist das eine sehr tolle Aufnahme geworden. Ständig passieren Dinge, die man nicht erwartet. Motian hat seine Spielweise gefunden, klingt leicht und hell (klar, er hat ja kein Tom-Tom), Peacock seinerseits ist umwerfend, spielt wuchtig und doch enorm beweglich, grundiert und begleitet, soliert und kommentiert stets simultan, und da kriegt man auf jeden Fall eine gute Vorstellung davon, was das Trio anstellen konnte, wenn es im Club entfesselt war.
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #169: Pianistinnen im Trio, 1984–1993 – 13.01.2026, 22:00: #170 – 19.02.2026, 20:00; #171 – 10.03.2026, 22:00; #172 – 14.04.2026, 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba