Sunday at the Village Vanguard


Sunday at the Village Vanguard is a live album by jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans and his Trio consisting of Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian. Released in 1961, the album is routinely ranked as one of the best live jazz recordings of all time.

History

Sunday at the Village Vanguard was drawn from material recorded during five sets on June 25, 1961, at the Village Vanguard in New York City. This was the last performance by the Bill Evans Trio with bassist Scott LaFaro, who was killed in a car accident eleven days after the recording.
Evans and producer Orrin Keepnews reportedly selected the tracks for Sunday at the Village Vanguard to best feature LaFaro's masterly performance on bass, beginning and ending with two tracks written by LaFaro himself, and with all the others featuring solos by him. This album is routinely ranked as one of the best live jazz recordings of all time.
Additional material from the same day's performance was released in a second album Waltz for Debby, as was other material in another LP Bill Evans — More From the Vanguard. The entire day's recordings were released in 2005 as The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961.

Reception

Writing for AllMusic, music critic Thom Jurek wrote of the album: "This trio is still widely regarded as his finest, largely because of the symbiotic interplay between its members. This is a great place to begin with Evans." C. Michael Bailey of All About Jazz wrote "Along with bassist wunderkind Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, Evans perfected his democratic vision of trio cooperation, where all members performed with perfect empathy and telepathy... It is these performances, currently available as Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby that comprise the number one best jazz live recording in this present series."
The album was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
In 2000 it was voted number 946 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.

Re-issue

In 2006, Riverside issued a three-CD box set containing virtually all the material recorded at the Village Vanguard. While all of this music was available on the Riverside Bill Evans box set, this re-issue has had the audience ambiance enhanced and includes introductions, on-stage discussions between the musicians, interaction with the audience, and a few bars of music that Evans improvised to fill out the tape at the end of the night.

Track listing

  1. "Gloria's Step" – 6:09
  2. "My Man's Gone Now" – 6:21
  3. "Solar" – 8:52
  4. "Alice in Wonderland" – 8:34
  5. "All of You" – 8:17
  6. "Jade Visions" – 3:44

    CD bonus tracks

  8. "Gloria's Step" – 6:54
  9. "Alice in Wonderland" – 6:59
  10. "All of You" – 8:03
  11. "Jade Visions" – 4:16

    Personnel