Turn Out The Stars:The Final Village Vanguard Recordings June 1980

By Doug Collette
The extent to which Bill Evans' studio and live recordings have been recorded, archived and released is a testament to the deserved reverence the late pianist has elicited. Originally available only in a limited run, Turn Out the Stars-The Final Village Vanguard Recordings June 1980 is further evidence of that devout respect.
Far more lavish (and sturdy despite the individual digipaks inside)) than the accompanying box, the essays written by Bob Blumenthal and Harold Danko are extensive in their detail and focused passion, as good a means of describing The Evans trio's own playing as there is. On “Re: The Person I knew,” there is no melodramatic lingering on the sweet melody, as if to telegraph its beauty rather a constant turn through its changes. If slowly rotating a fine jewel is the best way to appreciate its true beauty by viewing as many facets as possible--no one angle fully serves the purpose--so, too, is Evans and his trio's approach to a composition's melody and rhythm.
As with Evans' classic trio featuring drummer Paul Motian and bassist Scott LaFaro, the personnel at the time of these recordings--bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera--does its share to make descriptions about telepathic instrumental communication the cliché it is today. Hearing them interact on both renditions of “The Two Lonely People,” there is a sense of learning the contours of the composition a little better each time, as much as an increase in familiarity between the musicians. The former lesson is a means to the latter knowledge.
Describing musicians' interplay as conversation or dialogue is a clich&233; of sorts too, but in the case of Evans' trio it is perfectly appropriate throughout Turn Out the Stars. Each player makes his instrument take on characteristics of the other two. Johnson, for example, has as elegant a touch as Evans on “Nardis,” from the June 8 second set. Similarly the threesome shares the feel for each others' styles. LaBarbera moves with the same fleetness as Johnson, without any sense of hurry on “Time Remembered” from the June 6 second set
The breaks in the leader's playing on “Days of Wine and Roses,” from the June 5 second set, allow comments from his band mates on the preceding interval, sometimes constituting reiteration but more often representing extensions of thoughts just expressed. Each musician is confident enough in his own playing and that of his peers that he can afford to pause and reflect, if only for a split second, on what's just been played, to effectively process what he's just heard.
Given the stellar and staunch presence of Helen Keane and the Village Vanguard venue itself, it stands to reason that the recording here is as immaculate as the playing. The music contained in the six CDs of Turn Out the Stars: The Final Village Vanguard Recordings June 1980 demands to be preserved for posterity in exactly this splendid fashion.

By Nonesuch Records
Though these extraordinary 1980 recordings were made only months before pianist Bill Evans’s untimely death on September 15, 1980, at the age of 51, they capture a beginning far more than an end. At the time of their initial release in 1996, jazz critic Gary Giddins hailed them as “an important find—the most lyrical of improvisers was revitalized by a new trio in his favorite jazz club.” Fellow Village Voice writer Will Friedwald concurred: “Evans is as irrepressibly romantic as ever on these live recordings, but at the same time there’s an aggression to his playing that makes these newly discovered documents some of the most exciting music of his career ... he proves that he can really tear into the keyboard and still sound like Bill Evans. Continually prodded by [bassist Marc] Johnson and [drummer Joe] LaBarbera even as he's inspiring them, this is tenderness supported by strength and even bite.”
Evans had clearly found players to match his first trio from 20 years earlier, which had cut a landmark live recording at the Village Vanguard in 1961. That now-legendary lineup of bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motion was shattered by the tragic death of LaFaro in a car crash. A sense of history and a feeling of renewal inform these 1980 sessions, and they illustrates the serious chemistry between Evans and his young accompanists. As pianist and friend Hank Danko recalls in his liner-notes essay, “When the trio lit into its ensemble passages, the impact was not unlike that of a roaring big band. This exuberant, extroverted and joyful approach extended to most of the material played, with Bill seeming, at times, to be its most youthful member.”
The performances on these six CDs—which feature both newly written originals and interpretations of the standards that Evans loved—were recorded on the evenings of June 4, 5, 6, and 8, 1980. Evans intended to release a double LP culled form these sessions, and he supervised the initial mixing and editing of the tapes. It would take more than 15 years before this material would become available, in an exhaustive, chronologically sequenced six-CD form, on the Warner Brothers label. This Nonesuch reissue contains the original packaging and liner notes, as well as the complete 1996 set.
Turn Out the Stars was released at a time when many other posthumous Evans recordings, both official and bootleg, were surfacing on CD. This was the one that critics agreed was essential. The Los Angeles Times urged readers to experience the collection “as a series of complete club sets, with the music ebbing and flowing from piece to piece.” Evans, the newspaper noted, “was constantly in a state of quest, perpetually in search of an elusive musical goal, and—from his own point of view—never quite achieving it. The opportunity to share, even indirectly, in that quest is what, for the discerning listener, makes Evans’s music so endlessly intriguing.”

MUSICIANS
Bill Evans, piano
Marc Johnson, bass
Joe LaBarbera, drums

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Recorded at the Village Vanguard, New York City, June 4-8, 1980
Produced for release by Jeff Levenson and Bill Kirchner
Executive Producer: Matt Pierson
Production Coordinator: Dana Watson
Original sessions produced by Helen Keane
Original location recording, remix, and digital mastering: Malcolm Addey
Original recording assistant: Jon Bobenko
Recorded June 4, 5, 6, 8, 1980, at the Village Vanguard, NYC
Originally released in 1996
Art direction: Mark Larson

Track Listing:

CD1: Bill's Hit Tune; Nardis; If You Could See Me Now; The Two Lonely People: Laurie; My Romance; Tiffany; Like Someone In Love; Letter To Evan.
CD2: Days Of Wine And Roses; Emily; My Foolish Heart; Nardis; Yet Ne'er Broken; Quiet Now; But Not For Me; Spring Is Here; Autumn Leaves.
CD3: Your Story; Re: Person I Knew; Polka Dots And Moonbeams; Two Lonely People, The; Theme From M*A*S*H; Tiffany; Turn Out The Stars; Laurie; My Romance; Knit For Mary F.; Midnight Mood; Time Remembered.
CD4: Days Of Wine And Roses; Up With The Lark; Nardis; Your Story; Yet Ne'er Broken; If You Could See Me Now; Bill's Hit Tune; Tiffany; In Your Own Sweet Way.
CD5: I Do It For Your Love; Five; Polka Dots And Moonbeams; Bill's Hit Tune; Turn Out The Stars; Days Of Wine And Roses; But Not For Me; Knit For Mary F.; Like Someone In Love; Quiet Now.
CD6: Emily; Nardis; Knit For Mary F.; Like Someone In Love; Letter To Evan; Minha; A Sleepin' Bee; My Romance/Five.
Personnel: Bill Evans: piano; Marc Johnson: bass; Joe LaBarbera: drums.
Nonesuch Records - Reissue