Jazz Today: May 6, 1964 @ New Jersey RVG

May 6, 1964 “Night and Day”
by Stan Getz & Bill Evans with Ron Carter & Elvin Jones at Rudy Van Gelder Studio Englewood Cliffs for Verve (Stan Getz & Bill Evans)

What happens when two jazz giants face off in a direct collaboration? The duo work by Bill Evans on piano and Jim Hall on guitar, which I introduced on April 24, was also a recording between giants and featured a dual-leadership approach. However, regarding this work, Stan Getz, who had established his presence with the smash-hit bossa nova album (below) released the year before recording, is treated as the superior, with his name listed before Evans, and he holds the leadership.

The song is a classic composition by Cole Porter from the musical "Gay Divorce," for which Fred Astaire was cast in the premiere. The recording took place in the same year as John Coltrane's masterpiece "A Love Supreme," and this is a quartet work featuring Elvin Jones, who showcased his seasoned, heavyweight drumming on that album.

Although it feels as if neither Getz nor Evans is willing to give an inch, the lead seems to go to Getz, who plays with abandon. It is a rare recording, seldom seen for Evans, where Getz plays the main melody at his own pace, leaning forward, while Evans follows as if in a hurry.

In that sense, the trio performance from 1:03, where Evans leads without Getz, is interesting to listen to as a contrast.

After Getz returns to the performance, he once again blows away at his own pace without mercy, but the greatness of this album lies in being able to hear a rare performance where Evans chases him from behind with tremendous intensity, as if trying to catch up to Getz. For Evans, it is rare to hear such a sense of effort in his accompaniment, where he seems to have little room to spare.

This work was shelved for nearly ten years after it was recorded, and it is understandable that there is a story that the two were not satisfied with the result.

The highlight of this performance might be Elvin Jones on drums, who, like a fisherman benefiting from the conflict, goes his own way while marking his unique, sticky, and surging rhythm with sharp, heavy cymbals. The polyrhythm that approaches with Elvin's unique sound pressure at the beginning—I thought I had heard a similar approaching pattern somewhere before, and when I traced my memory, it was his performance on the opening track of the aforementioned "A Love Supreme" (below). Elvin's compatibility with Getz and bassist Ron Carter is not bad, and since they have performed together multiple times, it is presumed that Getz likely nominated him and let him play relatively freely.

On the other hand, for Evans, who often plays with crisp, light, and clear-toned drummers, it feels like his compatibility with Elvin, who sits at the top of the sticky, gritty, muddy-toned drummer category, is not quite right. Perhaps because of that, there seem to be no other collaborative works between the two.

Carter's bass tone generally feels relatively light and fuzzy in pitch, but in this performance, it is captured with a solid, heavyweight feel, and I particularly like the performance during the bass and drum solo sections. Another bassist, the heavyweight Richard Davis, is also featured on other tracks of this album, but Carter's playing has a weight that is by no means inferior.

In terms of audio, I think the true value is tested by how vividly one can reproduce the thickness of this bass and the power of Elvin's cymbals, which especially seem to pierce the ears.

The album jacket is from the 1988 reissue. Perhaps because there are no photos left of the collaboration, it is an oil painting imitating the two playing. In the center of the background between the two, a painting imitating the album jacket photo of the masterpiece "Ella and Louis" is displayed. I suspect that permission was granted because it is the Verve label that produced that album, but there are no records of Getz or Evans collaborating with Ella and Louis, and since Evans was no longer alive when this work was released, it is reasonable to assume that this was not the intention of the two, but rather a commercial intention of the producer or the label.

That producer is Creed Taylor, who later launched the CTI label and was involved in numerous masterpieces, including Getz's bossa nova albums. Although he used his capable skills to manage to record a work between the two big names, it is the general view that it ended up being shelved because, unfortunately, he could not get the consent of the artists themselves. For Creed Taylor, who is as big a name as the two, he might have accepted that it couldn't be helped given the quality of this performance. Perhaps he learned the difficult and valuable lesson through this work that the leader should be limited to one person.

However, thanks to it being unearthed after a long time, the rarity of this work as a record lies in the fact that it allows us to glimpse the essence of jazz and jazz musicians.

Although the compatibility in this work is not quite right, there is a live recording left from ten years later in 1974 where Getz participated as a guest in Evans' trio, and that one has a sense of stability and mature harmony as performers with Getz stepping onto Evans' home turf, allowing one to listen with peace of mind.

Through this work, we can see that when, at what timing, with whom, and what to play are important factors for leadership and producers to guide a great jazz performance. Since Getz and Evans played the same jazz standard "But Beautiful" in this work and the live recording, one way to enjoy it is to listen to them and feel the difference (below). The degree of rapprochement between the two masters and the harmony of the entire band on the same song on this album is excellent, and one can see that the harmony and style have become modernized and evolved in the collaboration ten years later.

If you are interested in the duo work by Evans and Hall, please check this out as well. This is a collaborative approach.

For those who want to hear more of Getz, please listen to this hard-boiled performance featuring the up-and-coming pianist Chick Corea, who was influenced by Evans, two years before the reunion performance mentioned above.

For those who want to hear the aesthetic Evans, please listen to this quartet performance featuring a flute. As expected, Evans has good compatibility with clear-toned drummers.

Finally, if you are interested in Carter's bass, which has a strong light and fuzzy impression, please check this out. Like this performance, it was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder and produced by Creed Taylor, but you can see that the sound quality changes significantly depending on factors such as the label and the era.