Gil Evans: Out of the Cool
His Life and Music
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- $23.99
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
The life (1912–1988) and career of Gil Evans paralleled and often foreshadowed the quickly changing world of jazz through the 20th century. Gil Evans: Out of the Cool is the comprehensive biography of a self-taught musician whom colleagues often regarded as a mentor. His innovative work as a composer, arranger, and bandleader—for Miles Davis, with whom he frequently collaborated over the course of four decades, and for his own ensembles—places him alongside Duke Ellington and Aaron Copland as one of the giants of American music. His unflagging creativity galvanized the most prominent jazz musicians in the world, both black and white. This biography traces Evans's early years: his first dance bands in California during the Depression; his life as a studio arranger in Hollywood; and his early work with Claude Thornhill, one of the most unusual bandleaders of the Big Band Era. After settling in New York City in 1946, Evans's basement apartment quickly became a meeting ground for musicians. The discussions that took place there among Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, and others resulted in the “Birth of the Cool” scores for the Miles Davis Nonet and, later on, for Evans’s masterpieces with Davis: “Miles Ahead,” “Porgy and Bess,” and “Sketches of Spain.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
One of jazz's great musical arrangers and composers the author compares him to Duke Ellington and Aaron Copland Evans is principally known today for his groundbreaking work with trumpeter Miles Davis. In this comprehensive albeit somewhat dry biography, music journalist Crease depicts how Evans's life and career both shaped and were shaped by the changes in jazz. After a hardscrabble upbringing in California, Evans, a self-taught musician, quickly became a top arranger during the big band era of the 1930s. Even during this early period, he showed what was then an unusual trait: an interest in borrowing from other musical genres, principally classical. After World War II, Evans moved to New York City, where he became part of the scene that fueled jazz's postwar boom. Following a brief career downturn in the early 1950s, he rose to some prominence with the well-known and flamboyant Davis. Together, the two pioneered the relaxed, subtle sound of cool jazz referred to in the book's title. Unfortunately for the lay reader, Crease fails to define or explore the elements of cool jazz. She also gives little attention to Evans's personal life, which for a jazz musician of his generation was relatively quiet, though it included a brief breakdown and a divorce from a wife who many believed was alcoholic. There's little doubt that Evans, who died in 1987, deserves wider acclaim; unfortunately, this biography is unlikely to generate it.
