Bill Evans Trio - Waltz For Debby (Live At The Village Vanguard / 1961) (2023) [Hi-Res]

At the end of a summer weekend in 1961, the Bill Evans Trio settled into a five-set booking at the Village Vanguard in New York City, a string of shows immortalized both for their musical excellence—the group was at the peak of their powers—and for the tragedy that soon followed. Bassist Scott LaFaro would be killed in a car accident less than two weeks after the gigs, prompting the early fall release of Sunday at the Village Vanguard, which bore the subtitle "Featuring Scott LaFaro," as its track selection was curated from five separate sets over the course of one afternoon and evening to honor the bassist by including numbers on which his skills were most highlighted. That album—rush-release though it was—has become a canonical jazz classic, memorializing one of the best young bassists of the era.

However, its companion album (released just a few months afterward), Waltz For Debby, is more reflective of the group's impressive abilities as a trio. Although Evans, La Faro, and Paul Motian only worked together as a unit for two years, they possessed a near-telepathic ability to improvise together and have come to epitomize the ideal of a classic jazz trio. Waltz for Debby documents them at full strength, and the interplay on the album's ten selections is still awe-inspiring more than 60 years later.

Although each of the trio gets plenty of solo time, and Evans' piano work is the polestar throughout, the group is in constant communication with one another. There are moments like "My Romance" and the title track, where La Faro is taking an incredible solo, only to reveal Evans gently shadowing him melodically or Motian providing an almost transparent rhythmic complement. All three get their own similar moments in the shared spotlight, making the material seem less like a typical riff-bridge-solo-riff affair and more like an extended conversation. The audience, thankfully, is not a part of the proceedings, as can often be the case with Vanguard-recorded performances. It's difficult to tell whether they're being respectful of the thoughtful, emotionally resonant vibes the Evans Trio was exploring or if they're just hypnotized by what they're seeing. The crowd is definitely present on the recording, but the focus here is on the performance, which captures the energy and interplay of the players in a live environment without the distracting ambience of the club itself. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz