Continuing the jazz theme, with my 9th round selection, in the category of Composer/Musician, team Five-hole selects
Bill Evans.
Bill's the artist that really got me into jazz. My parents never listened to it, it was never taught in school, and I'd never really heard it save for the odd background music in restaurants or elevators. When I heard Bill and his trio play "When I Fall In Love" I was completely mesmerized. There's been thousands of excellent jazz pianists but
nobody can touch the piano like Bill.
If you've heard Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, Bill's the pianist on every song but one (Freddie Freeloader). It's also conjectured that Bill wrote "Blue In Green" from that album but writing credit is given to Miles. (With Miles that may have been somewhat common.) While Bill's playing on that album is great, it's his first trio album "Portrait In Jazz" that really stands out. In terms of the historical impact, both Bill's playing and the improvisation between him and his trio are enormous. Bill's left-hand voice-leading became "just how you do it" -- that is, it became the sound of jazz and it still is in large part today. The trio on that album, with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian played in almost a "conversational" style with one another rather than just "soloist and rhythm section", which was unconventional at the time and again became the sound of jazz.
Bill Evans Trio - When I Fall In Love
Like Billie, Bill fell into the usual trap that claimed many of jazz's best musicians. From wiki: "Evans' drug addiction most likely began during his stint with Miles Davis in the late 1950s. A heroin addict for much of his career, his health was generally poor, and his financial situation worse, for most of the 1960s. By the end of that decade, he appeared to have succeeded in overcoming heroin, but during the 1970s, cocaine became a serious and eventually fatal issue for Evans. His body finally gave out in September 1980, when—ravaged by psychoactive drugs, a perforated liver, and a lifelong battle with hepatitis—he died in New York City of a bleeding ulcer, cirrhosis of the liver, and bronchial pneumonia. Evans' friend Gene Lees bleakly summarized Evans' struggle with drugs to Peter Pettinger: "the longest suicide in history"."
Bill Evans - My Foolish Heart
wiki