Bill Evans - The Best Of Bill Evans Live (1997/2019)

While on the surface it may seem like a quixotic task to choose a single disc as a sampler for something like Verve's elephantine 18-disc The Complete Bill Evans On Verve box, in this specialized case, the concept does work. Evans' primary live vehicle was the piano trio, with the post-bop approach and format rarely varied, and this collection of mid-'60s tracks drawn from four live albums catches an intelligent cross-section of his usual palette of standards with a handful of originals thrown in. Among the best choices are a particularly well-structured "Turn Out the Stars" from the Village Vanguard from 1967 (drummer Philly Joe Jones could light an especially hot fire underneath Evans) and a lovely solo "I Loves You Porgy" from Montreux. There is also a good balance between introspection and the lesser-known yet undeniably swinging side of Evans. The catholic-minded among us, though, can do without the outlandish lead sentence of the booklet notes "Bill Evans played piano better than anyone" which, despite the disclaimer further down the page, is all too typical of a lot of uncritical writing about Evans these days.