Time Remembered: The Life and Music of Bill Evans [DVD]

This multi award-winning documentary tells the story of jazz pianist Bill Evans' turbulent life and his contribution to jazz music. Features over 40 interviews, including several renowned musicians: Tony Bennett, Billy Taylor, singer Jon Hendricks and jazz drummer Joe LaBarbera. The film also compiles a wide range of historical information about the jazz pianist including his first TV recording which appeared on CBS Look Up and Live in April 1958, playing Come Rain or Come Shine With the passage of time, Bill Evans has become an entire school unto himself for pianists and a singular mood unto himself for listeners. There is no more influential jazz-oriented pianist and Evans has left his mark on such noted players as Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and Brad Mehldau. Borrowing heavily from the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, Evans brought a new, introverted, relaxed, lyrical, European classical sensibility into jazz - and that seems to have attracted a lot of young conservatory-trained pianists who follow his chord voicings to the letter in clubs and on stages everywhere "This film took me 8 years to make. Eight years of tracking down anybody who knew Bill and who played with him, to try and find out as much as I could about the illusive and not easy to understand Bill Evans. I feel very honored to have had the chance to interview and get to know good guys that spent a lot of time with Bill: Billy Taylor, Gene Lees, Tony Bennett, Jack DeJohnette, Jon Hendricks, Jim Hall, Bobby Brookmeyer, Chuck Israels, Paul Motian, Gary Peacock, Joe LaBarbera. It was a once in a lifetime experience talking to these gifted talented guys about their time in jazz music, about their 'Time Remembered' with Bill Evans." - Bruce Spiegel, producer