Bill Evans - Morning Glory

2 CD set

2022 release

Zev Feldman – Resonance co-president (with founder George Klabin), producer, and internationally known “Jazz Detective” – says, “These tapes came to us in 2018 from Argentine music journalist Roque Di Pietro, who contacted me and explained the existence of Carlos Melero’s recordings. I had known about them being available as bootlegs, so George and I leapt at the opportunity to once again right the wrongs of the past, and release both concerts officially with the support of Bill Evans’s family. We were fortunate to be able to interview the musicians in each trio for the booklets, as well as a couple piano icons who knew and have great reverence for Evans — Richie Beirach and Enrico Pieranunzi.”

Additional notes for the packages were written by Argentine jazz authority Claudio Parisi, author of the history Grandes del jazz internacional en Argentina (1956-1979), and Evans scholar Marc Myers, whose notes previously graced Resonance’s acclaimed releases Some Other Time (2016), Another Time (2017) and Evans in England (2019). The sets also include many heretofore unseen photographs from the concerts by Argentine drummer Ángel Alberto “Tito” Villalba.

The 1974 performance heard on Morning Glory featured Evans’ longest-running rhythm section of bassist Gomez and drummer Morell, who had supported the pianist since 1968. The show, which was performed at 10 in the morning owing to its last-minute scheduling, was Evans’ first in the country. The date took place in an atmosphere of extreme tumult: The nation’s former leader Juan Perón had just re-entered the country after 18 years of European exile, and Argentina erupted.

Gomez recalls in the notes, “In that era, things were turbulent in the whole region. In Argentina, Juan Perón had just returned from exile, which caused violence in the streets. There was a lot of political turbulence and that turmoil added to the feeling that being in this theater at that time, it was as if you were in a ’40s movie. The tension was palpable.”

Morell adds, “We arrived in Buenos Aires a few days after Perón had returned…. On the drive from the airport to the hotel, you could see along all the roads everywhere, it was strewn with litter. Millions of people had come out to welcome Perón back. There was a lot of political activity at that time all over South America. That was a few months before the coup in Chile where Allende was overthrown and killed. There was unrest all over South America at that time, so it was a historical time to be there.”

Despite the heavy political weather, the concert – which was highlighted by a surprise performance of a bolero, “Esta tarde vi llover,” by the noted Latin American composer Armando Manzanero – was a triumph for Evans, as one can tell from the audible evidence on the recordings.

Argentinian professor Oscar Daniel Chilkowski, who attended the show, recalled to Parisi, “The audience applauded so passionately that he stayed and performed three encores. When the main part of the program ended, I found myself crying like many others in the audience. We were crying because we thought Bill Evans had come out for the last time for a bow. But we were all surprised and thrilled when he came out again and sat down to give us more.”