I thought you might be excited as I am about the information contained in this media release from Ann Braithwaite of Braithwaite and Katz:
ELEMENTAL MUSIC UNEARTH’S BILL EVANS IN NORWAY FOR RSD BLACK FRIDAY RELEASE AS EXCLUSIVE TWO-LP SET ON NOV. 29th.
Master Pianist's Energetic 1970 Performance at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival Arrives as a Deluxe Two-CD Set on Dec. 6th.
Comprehensively Annotated Set Includes Interviews with Evans, Bassist Eddie Gomez and Drummer Marty Morell, and Norwegian Pianist Roy Hellvin; Reflections on Evans' Art by Keyboardists Aaron Parks and Craig Taborn; and Notes by Evans Scholar Marc Myers.
And this testimonial by Zev Feldman about “The Enduring Legacy of Bill Evans.”
“It's a great pleasure once again to be working with my dear friends at Elemental Music on another exciting Bill Evans discovery, this time from the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Norway in 1970. Between Resonance Records and Elemental Music, I've had the good fortune of working with Evan Evans of the Bill Evans Estate for the past 14 years and this will be my 12th production working with the family. These recordings come from the archives of the Norway's Kongsberg Jazz Festival, which was founded in 1964. It's been a major breakthrough for us to have established contact with their team in 2023 and we're very excited about this new relationship.
For this release, we were fortunate once again to talk with the legendary rhythm section of bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell and get their recollections of playing with Evans at this time. Thanks, as always, to Gomez and Morell for taking time out of their busy schedules to talk with us about this release. We also had a chance to speak with two highly acclaimed pianists of a younger generation, Aaron Parks and Craig Taborn, about their interpretations of Bill Evans. I'm grateful to have an opportunity to work together with Marc Myers, who contributed another stellar set of liner notes. I consider Marc to be one of the great scholars of Bill Evans.
As an interesting added bonus, we were very fortunate to be able to obtain a lengthy interview that Bill Evans did with Randi Hultin, who was an internationally renowned Norwegian jazz critic and impresario, at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival on June 27, 1970. We even have an essay by engineer Kristian Ludvik-Bahmer going over the equipment used, techniques and other nuances of the recording.
Thanks again to Jordi Soley and Carlos Agustin Calembert, and the entire team at Elemental Music, who helped locate these tapes and asked me to come along for the journey with them.”
Zev Feldman,
May 2024,
Montgomery Village, Maryland
