The last two months of 1979 were rough on pianist Bill Evans. On tour in Europe with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera, he was booked into a different city each night. He also had a cold and looked haggard. Nevertheless, on November 26, he performed a sensational concert at Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris. The results would appear on two Paris Concert albums. Four days later, the trio was at Casale Monferrato in the Piedmont region of Italy. [Photo of Bill Evans in the fall of 1979]
Based on albums and bootlegs from this tour, some nights Evans was spectacular. On other nights, his playing was rushed or murky. One suspects that how well or poorly he played had much to do with the quality of the piano on stage and the state of his health and ability to procure the drugs he sought. Evans tended to punish lousy pianos with percussive disgust.
On December 3, 1979, Evans was at the Liederhalle in Stuttgart, Germany, and the concert grand piano on stage must have been gorgeous. His appearance was part of the Treffpunkt Jazz Festival. Completed in 1956, Liederhalle was and is considered one of Germany's most extraordinary arts buildings of the 1950s. The original hall, built in 1864 (above), was destroyed during the war.
The new Liederhalle combined several halls of different sizes and architecture. The largest, where Evans performed, is the Beethoven Hall, with over 2,100 seats. It's asymmetrical and dominated by the shape of a sweeping, curved gallery.
The Evans concert was taped and broadcast on SDR, the regional German radio station. The next day, Evans moved on to Lyon, France. Years later, the Liederhalle tape somehow made its way to Japan, where it was released as Bill Evans: Treffpunkt Jazz Festival 1979, a bootleg. It is extremely rare.
The tracks, in order of recording, are Re: Person I Knew, Laurie, All of You,
Noelle's Theme, I Loves You, Porgy (solo), Up With the Lark (duo with Marc Johnson), Theme From M.A.S.H. (Suicide Is Painless), All Mine (Minha), Nardis and But Beautiful.
This performance rivals Evans's Paris Concert (above) and, in places, exceeds it (All of You, But Beautiful). Evans's pacing is terrific, his tone is moving and his fingering is fleet and magical. It's easily one of his finest live recordings. Last week, Dave Thompson drew my attention to the full concert up at YouTube.
Here's the entire concert without ad interruptions...