‘Up With The Lark’, by the Bill Evans Trio
The last song of the ‘Paris-theme-week’ is the beautiful ‘Up With The Lark’ by the (last) Bill Evans Trio, recorded by Radio France at the L’Espace Cardin, Paris, on November 26th, 1979.
Peter Pettinger writes in his amazingly thorough book ‘Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings’ on page 267: “…Returning to the ever-welcoming Parisians, they gave two sets at L’Espace Cardin, performances that have long been acclaimed as among the finest from the Bill Evans Trio…During the interval and throughout the following (solo) piano items the double bass was sitting out on stage under the lights, going gradually out of tune. When Marc Johnson joined Evans on the platform for their duo spot, it was for ‘Up With The Lark’, which Evans pointedly commenced, as usual, on a reiterated G in the bass. Whether this was originally for tuning purposes or not, it became a curious feature of every performance…”
Today’s album, ‘The Paris Concert, Edition One’ was voted best album of 1980 by the Association of French Jazz Critics, and the last to be approved and released by Helen Keane (his manager) during Bill’s lifetime. The photograph used on the cover is called ‘Île de la Cité 1951’ and was shot by one of my photographic heroes, Henri Cartier-Bresson.
And with that, I will leave you for now (I’m off to Paris) and hope to see you all sometime next week…
Bill Evans - Piano
Marc Johnson - Bass
Joe LaBarbera - Drums (not present on this track)
