Suicide is Painless

Bill Evans Trio & Guests - Live In Nice 1978 (2010) {2CD Set, Jazz Lips Music JL778}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 641 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 278 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 200 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1978, 2010 Jazz Lips Music | JL778
Jazz / Post Bop / Modal Music / Piano

This release presents a complete never before released live performance by the great Bill Evans with an unusual trio that never made a studio album (featuring drummer Philly Joe Jones and bassist Marc Johnson). Joining them are Lee Konitz for three amazing quartet tracks, Curtis Fuller (who joins Konitz and the trio for a marvelous quintet version of Lover Man), and Stan Getz and Christian Escoude (who join Fuller and the trio for the finale on All the Things You Are). A rare interview with Evans made right after the Nice concert has also been included on this release, as well as another unissued concert by the same trio taped in Italy a few days later.

Bill Evans Trio - Consecration, The Last Complete Collection (1980) {8CD Set Alfa Japan OOR2-61~68 rel 1989}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.10 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.00 Gb
Artwork @ 300 dpi -> 10 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1980, 1989 Alfa Records Japan | OOR2-61~68
Jazz / Post Bop / Modal Music / Piano

I had assumed that these recordings fit into the category of “he plays well under the circumstances.” Forget the qualifiers. Listening to this set and the previously released The Last Waltz is a bit like sharing the experience of the wild-eyed poet who has returned from feasting on the milk of paradise in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.” After tasting such nectar, nothing henceforward can satisfy the palette. So if the two sets (16 discs) comprising Evans’ last stand seem extravagant in quantity and price, consider the possibility that they represent the musical equivalent of Keats’ Grecian Urn, offering “all ye know and need to know.”