![]() I’m not a huge fan of his playing personally, but I acknowledge his influence on players and style because I can hear it, for example in players such as Robert Glasper, Aaron Parks and others. And you don’t have to love, transcribe or even embrace the majority of artist’s work to acknowledge their influence. Who would play the music he played between 1959-1962: Nardis? Blue in Green? Re: Person I Knew? Who was playing jazz waltzes the way and frequency Evans was playing them? And playing with such freedom and authority mixing 3/4 and 4/4 meters before anyone else was doing it? Who had so much personality in both his lines and chords that after just a few notes you could immediately identify him? And I’m sure Meldhau knows this but it seems like a fruitless argument to argue what is self-evident. Suppose Evans didn’t exist and all there was was Peterson, Jamal, Silver and Kelly? They are all great but Evans is a huge hole to fill in terms of the progression of jazz piano and jazz music generally towards modernity. Hancock and Corea certainly didn’t think that Evans was “not that great a pianist.” They knew better and their influence is far greater than Mehldau’s. Clearly Miles Davis knew how great he was, and is quoted as such. He’s a branch or sub-branch of that claiming no relation to the root. He is clearly building on that moody jazz piano house and language that Evans started more or less single-handedly and helped perfect, whether he feels that or not. If Evans wasn’t there, there’s no inspiration for Hancock, Corea or Jarrett to build on that model and consequently Meldhau. ![]() The fact is that Evans changed the whole paradigm for jazz piano, the lexicon or whatever fancy names you’d like to call it. Still, as a person whom I respect in terms of his achievements in establishing an identity in jazz, with considerable intellectual gifts and jazz history knowledge, I find Mehldau’s statements both puzzling and frankly irritating. It’s kind of like saying, “Can you stop pigeon-holing whom you think I sound like and just listen to what I’m doing?” His strongest stylistic influence to my ears is Keith Jarrett, although he also denies Jarrett’s trio influence, which he has stated as “not caring for.” Some have termed this condition the anxiety of influence. There was also the cause célèbre from pianist, Brad Mehldau who on a few occasions, in liner notes and in a double interview with Pat Metheny, basically said that Bill Evans was “not that great a pianist.” **(see below update 11/13/14) I attributed some of his prior commentary against Evans as a result of irritation from the constant critical comparison (in this interview and before) which I agree is basically unfounded. Although generally held in high regard by most, Evans has had his detractors even when he was considered the “it guy.” And recently, let’s say in the last 10-15 years, I’m finding less support for his contributions generally, more bashing on the latest jazz water cooler, jazz message boards, and (for some reason) belittling from certain geographies.
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