Post 6 - Jim Pepper

Like just about everyone else from class, I feel that there was so much to be covered with the history of jazz piano that just could not fit within six hours. In particular, I found the early recordings of Bill Evans to be interesting in how different they are from what I associate with his playing style. Based on what I’ve heard of his, I would have never thought of him as playing like boogie-woogie like he does at 14. I’ll also admit that usually when listening to his recordings I’m immediately drawn to the bass playing, especially with Bill’s trios that featured Scott LaFaro and Eddie Gomez. I’ve always found that the Bill Evans Trio embodied what I saw as the perfect sound of a jazz trio, which brings up what was briefly covered on the make up of trios. I found it interesting and was not aware of the early jazz trios consisting of piano-clarinet-drums before Nat Cole's trio.
Since Friday, I’ve listened to different recordings of Evans and looked at recordings of his composition “Waltz For Debby,” to notice differences or developments in his playing from its early recording on New Jazz Conceptions, the well-known Village Vanguard recordings, the later Bill Evans Album, and the Bill Evans/Tony Bennett Album. First of all, as a bass player I found this very difficult for many of these recordings, since the bass playing always stands out so well I often get distracted from a lot of what Bill is doing. But with each of these recordings over a span of almost twenty years, each one is recorded so that there is usually something fresh with each different version.
I also found the presentations from Friday interesting and informative. Before the class, I did not know much about Cedar Walton as well as Vijay Iyer or Craig Taborn. I thought Tara’s presentation offered a good synthesis of both musicians’ individual work and background as well as their collaboration. I found Alan’s presentation interesting and it showed how much of Herbie Hancock’s compositions may seem fairly simple melodically which make them catchy to the listener, yet are very complex harmonically.
Over the past six classes, I learned a lot of valuable information both with specific facts on musicians or periods as well as things to consider when looking at jazz from a historical or research standpoint. I’m definitely looking forward to the fall semester and what’s covered in Historiography, especially based on what we covered in this class and what was noted as being covered in that class.