Evans was an unknown entity then and the album sold a mere 800 copies in its first year. The resulting album was New Jazz Conceptions and included drummer Paul Motian.
And so unfolds the story of one of the most revered recordings in modern jazz, The Bill Evans Trio Live at the Village Vanguard.įive years earlier, in 1956, Keepnews first recorded Bill Evans for Riverside. There is no room for errors, because this is the last day of a two-week engagement by an artist quite reluctant to go into a studio and record new material. They have a full day of recording ahead of them, for Sundays are known to feature the same artist playing two matinee and three evening sets. They have a moment of panic when the power to the tape recorder quits, but luckily it is quickly restored. Together with sound engineer Dave Jones they setup the Ampex portable tape machine on a table close to the bandstand.
The simple looking room is an ideal spot for jazz performances. For unexplained reasons it has one of the best acoustics for a live setting, making it ideal for capturing on tape jazz artists who are booked to play there. Producer Orrin Keepnews, head of the independent jazz label Riverside, descends the stairs to the basement at 178 7th avenue, a small wedge-shaped room with low ceilings, known to jazz enthusiasts as the Village Vanguard. It is the afternoon of a Sunday in New York City, June 1961. 15 The Bill Evans Trio at the Village Vanguard, 1961.
