GIL EVANS BIOGRAPHY:

Gil Evans (b. 13 May 1912 in Toronto, Canada; d. 20 March 1988 in Cuernavaca, Mexico), arranger-composer, and band leader whose record album collaborations with Miles Davis (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, and Sketches of Spain ) are generally considered to be some of the best jazz music ever written and performed.

He was born Ian Ernest Gilmore Green, but took a stepfather's surname, Evans. The family moved to Western Canada, then Washington State, then to California. Evans graduated from Stockton High School and Modesto Junior College, both in California, but was a self-taught musician. He learned by listening and transcribing into musical notation, the records of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Don Redman, Red Nichols, and the Casa Loma Band. Out of school he led and wrote for his own band from 1933 to 1938. Singer Skinnay Ennis took over the band in 1938, and Evans stayed on as arranger. That year the band began working on the Bob Hope radio show. Also writing for the band was Claude Thornhill, who in 1939 left to form his own group. Thornhill had a distinctive sound, using French horns, and a tuba along with the standard big band instrumentation. Because this band offered new creative challenges, Evans joined it as arranger in 1941.

Then World War Two began. Although a Canadian citizen, Evans went into the U.S. Army (and thereby gained U.S. citizenship) and was with Skinnay Ennis's Band at the Santa Anita Army Ordinance Base in California, and later directed a band at Fort Lewis, Washington. Upon discharge in 1946 Evans moved to New York City and rejoined Claude Thornhill. He wrote arrangements of such modern jazz pieces as Donna Lee, Anthropology, Robbins' Nest and Yardbird Suite. Evans' work was recognized by many innovative jazz musicians for his individualistic use of orchestration, form and harmony. Leonard Feather wrote in the 1960 edition of his Encyclopedia of Jazz that Evans' arrangements "showed more originality in their variety of tonal texture than anything else that was then being created in either the dance band or the jazz field; nevertheless he was ignored by the critics and unknown to the public." Gil Evans left Claude Thornhill in 1948.

His one room basement apartment on New York City's West 55th Street--a few blocks away from the jazz clubs on 52nd Street-became a hangout and informal workshop for such young musicians as Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, Dave Lambert, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis. Composer and educator George Russell, one of the regulars there, said it was "like a school in a way, an esoteric school." The older Evans was the central figure; Mulligan nicknamed him, "Svengali" because of his enormous influence. All this crystallized into a nine piece band led by Miles Davis; it was a scaled down version of the Thornhill band using the distinctive timbres of French horn and tuba. There was a two week nightclub engagement at the New York nightclub Royal Roost in August and September, 1948. The Miles Davis Nonet recorded two of Evan's arrangements, Boplicity in 1949 and Moon Dreams in 1950. The Davis Nonet recordings-collectively called Birth of the Cool-are generally recognized as a high point in the history of jazz. French jazz critic Andre Hodeir wrote, "Boplicity is enough to qualify Gil Evans as one of jazz's greatest composer-arrangers." Although critical opinion was favorable, the public ignored the band. Still a new style of jazz had been created, called "cool." For three generations its leading practitioners would be Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, and Gil Evans.

From 1950 to 1957 Evans did free-lance arranging for Charlie Parker, and singers Pearl Bailey, Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee. In 1957, he was re-united with Miles Davis for the album Miles Ahead. About it Critic Max Harrison wrote, "In elaboration and richness of resources they [Evans' arrangements] surpass anything previously attempted in big band jazz." Davis and Evans returned to the studios in the summer of 1958 to record George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. Evans did more than simply orchestrate the melodies. Gunther Schuller called Evans' work, "complete transformations." On this date Evans introduced Davis to "modal jazz" where the improvisations are based on scales rather than chord sequences. Their next collaboration, Sketches of Spain, released in 1960, used themes from Spanish classical and folk music. The album won a Grammy in 1960.

Evans also appeared on albums under his own name. Gil Evans and Ten (recorded 1957), Old Bottle New Wine (1958), Great Jazz Standards (1959), Out of the Cool (1960). In a characteristically selfless gesture he used one of his albums, Into the Hot, ( 1961) to showcase the work of John Carisi--a friend from the 55th Street apartment days-and Cecil Taylor.

The Individualism of Gil Evans was recorded in 1963, the same year that Evans married Anita Cooper. (They had two sons, Noah, a sound engineer, and Miles, a trumpet player who played in his father's band.) Gil Evans arranged albums for guitarist Kenny Burrell (1964) and singer Astrud Gilberto (1965-66). In 1968 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition. In 1972 he became a founding artist of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 1973 he was named an artistic director of the New York Jazz Repertory Company.

Gil Evans led a band throughout the 1970s and 1980s that played New York City nightclubs and concerts--especially in Europe and Japan. His group now included electronic musical instruments and used rock music rhythms. There were plans for an album with rock superstar Jimi Hendrix, but a few weeks before they were to meet Hendrix died. Evans went on to record The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix (1974). To the critics of his new jazz/rock fusion music he replied "Current jazz, now jazz, uses the rhythm of the time." He also wrote film music for Julian Temple's Absolute Beginners and Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money, both released in 1986. He was creatively active until the end of his life. He underwent prostate surgery early in 1988 and went to recover in Mexico, but there he contracted peritonitis and died. His remains were cremated and the ashes scattered in the Caribbean.

Upon Evans' death Miles Davis commented: "He and Duke Ellington changed the whole sound. There's no way to describe it, because there's nobody on this earth that can do that anymore. What he did to the texture of an orchestration, what he did with pop songs was like writing an original piece. Students will discover him. They'll have to take his music apart layer by layer. That's how they'll know what kind of a genius he was.

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