eMusic.com and Jazz

My jazz tastes tend to run a little further back. One of my very, very favorites is Bill Evans, whose work in the late 50s and early 60s pretty much defined the jazz trio once and for all.

If you're dipping your toes in, you might start with The Bill Evans Trio: Sunday at The Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, both of which came out of a two shows (afternoon and evening) one day at the legendary New York club. Absolutely amazing stuff.

I think you can argue that he's among the very most influential post-war jazz musicians. Certainly at the top of the list for pianists -- Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Keith Jarrett are just a few whose style follows Evans.

Another jazz musician at the top of the list of influencers is Miles Davis -- for whom Evans was a pivotal piece of Kind of Blue, as a player, an arranger, and co-writer with Davis.

A bit of trivia -- Harold Rhodes build his electric piano to Evans' specifications. Now THAT's influence.

Not just influential, Evans was also very, very good.

Also at emusic: much of the 50s output of Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Thelonius Monk. John Coltrane, Modern Jazz Quartet, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy -- they're all there.

So yeah, I've focused most of my comments re: emusic on contemporary indie music, there's acres and acres of great jazz too.

Thanks for reminding me!!

My jazz tastes also run further back. Bill Evans - amazing. Dave Brubeck - amazing. Believe me, I am in awe of Allan Holdsworth, but for pure entertainment for jazz - Jimmy Smith on Hammond Organ. There would be no ELP without Jimmy Smith.

And I blame Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock's popularity in the 70's from turning people away from progressive rock, and listening to more "user friendly" music like Disco and Punk. The masses did not want to hear Chick Corea - and this type of jazz destroyed progressive rocks' popularity at the time (hey - this is my distorted view of how things happened back then).

Bob Zelin