2009.106: Bill Evans, McCoy, Monk Live
Some of my most poignant musical memories took place in a club called
Shelley's Manne-Hole, in L.A. I lived there in the early 70's, way after
a deceased friend wrote about it as "a green and groovy place to be". It
was already a smoggy and brown place to be, but there was excitement as
a young musician trying to hook up with gigs and recording dates.
"Cop and blow" was always a big thing, go look at the people who changed
the idiom, like Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner (Trane was
already dead and I never saw him play live) and lots of locals like
Bobby Hutcherson. In a jazz club, then as now, while brilliant talented
people compose gems live for you on stage, materialistic conversions
between dealers and hookers and their public go on unhindered.
Why "poignant"? Because in the case of Bill Evans and Monk, both were
visibly at the end of their tethers, tired, sick and almost beyond the
reach of the ecstasy that such artists must have felt in their earlier
gigs when they were moving up, not only in fame, but in power of
expression.
Wow, that seems so heavy I need to insert an anecdote that might make you
laugh as it does me when I recall it. This was in another jazz dive, The
Lighthouse in Redondo Beach. The band playing was Airto. He always had
to say, "Ey, Ear, Toe" and point to the body parts. Good musician and a
spirited human. His (wife?) was Flora Purim, remember she sang on Chick
Corea's Return to Forever version of Spain and all that. Another
far-reaching music innovation. So anyway, Airto and Flora are standing
next to each other at their mics and they each had a marked round pot
belly. The Brazilian music they were playing was loud and had a lot of
breaks to mark the rhythms. Conversation was impossible (not should one
want to converse) but my saxophonist friend Richard A. turned to me and
said, exactly at the moment of a four beat break, when the entire
crowded room was absolutely silent: "Can you imagine them shtupping?"
and then the music started up again.
Here's a link to a much earlier Bill Evans recording at Shelley's
