Bill Evans & Jim Hall - Undercurrent

Released - 1962

Genre - Jazz

Producer - Alan Douglas

Selected Personnel - Bill Evans (Piano); Jim Hall (Guitar)

Standout Track - My Funny Valentine

Anyone who's been reading this blog consistently (so me, I guess) will remember me waxing lyrical about how Coleman Hawkins's Night Hawk was the album that reaugmented my brain to keep a sense of the importance and strength of jazz music. By contrast, this is the album that initially augmented my brain to discover that importance and that strength. Quite simply, I cannot overstate the significance of this album in my life. It was another record that was on a constant rotation in my house as I grew up, providing accompaniment to more dinners or just quiet evenings in than I can remember (because we was classy like that). From a young age, I found it difficult to really appreciate instrumental jazz - I had to work to really enjoy it, to look past how much more challenging it was in comparison to the simple pop music that I would want to put on. Undercurrent was the major exception, the album that, from the very first time I heard it, was so simple and majestic and beautiful that, while I didn't have much of an understanding of what it was or where it had come from, I was nonetheless entirely captivated by it. As I got older and began to develop a deeper understanding of music and how it worked and where it came from, my fascination for this album became all the greater.

Bill Evans had risen to prominence as a key member of Miles Davis's band in the late 50s, playing on his classic Kind of Blue, and had gone on to lead an influential jazz trio consisting of bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. LaFaro's death in 1961 devastated Evans and caused him to withdraw from the music scene for several months - Undercurrent was one of the first pieces of work he undertook after his return. I knew none of this as a child when I was first introduced to this music, but there's a quiet and understated melancholy that underpins the whole thing that suddenly swims into focus when understood as something to have emerged from grief. Which is not to say that this album is in any way self-involved or depressing - the music is energetic and romantic in places, languid and plaintive in others. It's given a looseness by the absence of a rhythm section, with Evans and Hall's intertwining piano and guitar parts given free reign to explore all areas of a song without the need to keep any particular time or maintain any rigidity. In that sense, the haunting cover image feels entirely appropriate - the idea of floating in total isolation feels entirely apposite for this haunting, formless and gorgeous music. It's fair to say that Evans steals the show here, but Hall is an essential component of the sound, ornamenting and decorating Evans's harmonies with his soft guitar lines, and always keeping things fresh and interesting and balanced rather than letting it fall into a repetitive collection of solo piano music. The standout, by far, is "My Funny Valentine," which manages to capture a more moving, exciting and heart-rending rendition of the classic than any other I've heard, without even the need for the lyrics and the melody.

I'd go so far as to call this the greatest jazz album of all time - there's not many who would agree with me given its marginal standing in the annals of history, but its cool magnificence and its personal significance to me make it an important classic.

Track Listing:

1. My Funny Valentine (Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart)

2. I Hear a Rhapsody (Jack Baker; George Fragos & Dick Gasparre)

3. Dream Gypsy (Judith Veveers)

4. Romain (Jim Hall)

5. Skating in Central Park (John Lewis)

6. Darn That Dream (Eddie DeLange & Jimmy Van Heusen)