Larry McDonough, piano and arrangements
Joel Shapira, guitar
“Intermodulating Undercurrents Live at the Kos: The Music of Bill Evans and Jim Hall” is a new live recording celebrating the music of pianist Bill Evans and guitarist Jim Hall. Larry McDonough and Joel Shapira performed the show during the pandemic to an outside social distance audience on October 3, 2021, on the patio of the Kos in Minneapolis, hosted by owners Kathy Kosnoff and Lyonel Norris.
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In 1962, pianist Bill Evans and guitarist Jim Hall met to record the first of two of the most influential jazz recordings. Piano and guitar duos are rare, as their similarities can make it difficult for the musicians to stay out of each other's way, but Evans and Hall made their similarities their strength. Both had used space as a key element in their music, moving away from the unrelenting intensity of bebop. DownBeat magazine jazz critic Pete Welding said of Undercurrent, "This collaboration between Evans and Hall has resulted in some of the most beautiful, thoroughly ingratiating music it has been my pleasure to hear." Four years later, Evans and Hall recorded the second and last of their duo albums, Intermodulation, of which music critic Michael G. Nastos wrote: "A duet recording between pianist Bill Evans and guitarist Jim Hall is one that should retain high expectations to match melodic and harmonic intimacies with brilliant spontaneous musicianship. Where this recording delivers that supposition is in the details and intricacy with which Evans and Hall work, guided by simple framings of standard songs made into personal statements that include no small amounts of innovation."
Pianist Larry McDonough and guitarist Joel Shapira interpret pieces from both recordings, along with a second set of pieces that Evans and Hall wrote but performed separately, along with originals in the spirit of Evans and Hall. Larry McDonough is a St. Paul jazz pianist and singer, performing around the world and recording with his group the Larry McDonough Quartet. He has performed with legendary saxophonist and composer Benny Golson, trombonist Fred Wesley, and trumpeter Duane Eubanks, as well as a who's who of Minnesota jazz artists, and was inducted into the Minnesota Rock Country Hall of Fame for his work in the group Danny's Reasons. Guitarist Joel Shapira is a nationally acclaimed musician also residing in St. Paul. He's a leader and member of multiple top Twin Cities' jazz ensembles, as well as a master of the demanding discipline of solo guitar. He performs regularly with world-class musicians, has numerous recordings to his credit, and is an artist featured on the NYC record label Unseen Rain Records.
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Ordering
Intermodulating Undercurrents Live at the Kos: The Music of Bill Evans and Jim Hall
$15.00
Available from Larry McDonough Jazz
651-398-8053
Joel Shapira Productions
651-235-1829
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Streaming
ITunes
Spotify
Deezer
I Heart Radio
Pandora
YouTube
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1st Set:
1. Darn That Dream (7:51) by Eddie DeLange and Jimmy Van Heusen, Round Hill Carlin, LLC, and Range Road Music, Inc., et al.
2. My Funny Valentine (4:58) by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Public Domain
3. Romain (4:45) by Jim Hall, Hal Leonard LLC and MJQ Music, Inc.
4. My Man's Gone Now (5:52) by Dubose Edwin Heyward and George Gershwin, HDS Hrvatsko Drustvo Skladatelja
5. Skating in Central Park (5:40) by John Lewis, Hal Leonard LLC and MJQ Music, Inc.
6. All Across the City (7:37) by Jim Hall, Janhall Music
2nd Set
8. Big Blues (3:42) by Jim Hall, Janhall Music
9. Blue in Green (5:01) by Bill Evans and Miles Davis, Downtown DMP Songs, Jazz Horn Music Corp. and East St. Louis Music, Inc., Arranged by Larry McDonough
10. Waltz for Debby (5:49) by Bill Evans, T.R.O. Inc. and Folkways Music Publishers, Inc., Arranged by Larry McDonough
11. Solace (5:04) by Joel Shapira, Joel Shapira Productions
12. Tuscarora (4:36) by Larry McDonough, Larry McDonough Jazz
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Liner Notes
Larry McDonough grew up listening to the music of Bill Evans. He found his albums at the city library in the late 1960s when he was in junior high school. He wondered what to expect from this pianist who looked like an accountant. As a classically trained pianist, McDonough immediately noticed Evans’ classical touch in jazz. He began transcribing his pieces and practicing them. When Evans came to Minnesota to perform when McDonough was in high school, music school, and afterward, he had to attend. He sat 10 feet from Evans but was too shy to approach him on the breaks. Evans’ death in 1980 was as significant to him as the death of John Lennon the same year. Over the years, he became friends with Evans’ widow, Nenette, who has supported his projects and provided him with some of Evans’ manuscripts. He was honored to be the only Minnesotan invited to study the Bill Evans Archive at the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies of Southeastern Louisiana University and to be chosen by movie director Bruce Spiegel to host Minnesota showings of his documentary film Bill Evans: Time Remembered.
Joel Shapira first heard guitarist Jim Hall perform when he was 16. The following years he not only saw Hall perform numerous times in person, but listened to and studied his recordings, absorbing Hall’s poetic melodic sense, his peerless tone on the instrument, and his command of the modern jazz guitar idiom. In his early 20s when Shapira lived in New York City, he would encounter Hall on the streets of Greenwich Village and share with him his great admiration for his playing.
McDonough and Shapira have performed together in various ensembles over 20 years. Their mutual love for the music of Evans and Hall spawned this project. From the beginning, their interest was to celebrate the music of Evans and Hall and its influence on them, and not to mimic their performances. They performed this concert on October 3, 2021, for a socially distanced audience on the patio of the Kos in Minneapolis, hosted by owners Kathy Kosnoff and Lyonel Norris. They structured the show with one set of music that Evans and Hall performed on their two recordings, Undercurrent and Intermodulation, and a second set of Evans and Hall compositions they performed separately along with a couple of pieces written by McDonough and Shapira that were influenced by Evans and Hall.
Set 1
First up were three pieces from Undercurrent, released in 1962. Evans still was mourning the death of bassist Scott LaFaro in 1961. The quiet and dark style might have been influenced Evan’s mood. “Darn That Dream” reflects that mood, and McDonough and Shapira maintain it on the DeLange and Van Heusen standard, following the Evans and Hall structure of alternating sections of the melody. Next up is the Rodgers and Hart classic, “My Funny Valentine,” up tempo with the energy of Evans and Hall. They finish the Undercurrent selections with the Hall composition “Romain” with its unique structure of a melody and improvisations but never returning to the melody.
McDonough and Shapira take a brief detour to the 1966 recording Intermodulation to perform “My Man's Gone Now” from the opera Porgy and Bess. Evans earlier recorded it with LaFaro and Paul Motian on Sunday at the Village Vanguard, the last recording before the death of LaFaro. It is hard to listen to it and not think of Lafaro. One more selection from Undercurrent follows, the joyful “Skating in Central Park” by Modern Jazz Quartet pianist John Lewis. Close your eyes and you can see the skaters.
The first set ends with two Hall and Evans compositions from Intermodulation. “All Across the City” by Hall and “Turn Out the Stars” show the similarity in their compositional styles. To say that their harmonic structures are unusual would be a vast understatement. They are unique in melody, harmony, and structure. McDonough and Shapira float through them effortlessly.
Set 2
As the sun began to set, they performed a short second set of originals by Evans and Hall that they never recorded together, along with compositions of McDonough and Shapira. First up is Hall’s “Big Blues”, the only blues of the show with its syncopated hits.
Next up are two of Evans’ compositions. “Blue in Green” was written by Evans in 1959 but often is credited to Miles Davis. Davis recorded it with Evans on Kind of Blue and the Bill Evans Trio recorded it on Portrait in Jazz, both in 1959. McDonough included Evans’ introduction from Kind of Blue. “Waltz for Debby” was written by Evans in 1953 and first released on New Jazz Conceptions in 1957. He wrote it for his brother Harry’s daughter, and it became Evans’ most famous composition. McDonough and Shapira followed Evans’ arrangement, starting the song as a quiet waltz before transitioning into an energetic 4/4 swing. Had Evans lived longer, perhaps he and Hall would have performed more of their compositions together.
The set and evening ended with two Shapira and McDonough originals that demonstrate the influence Evans and Hall had on their compositions. “Solace,” written by Shapira and recorded earlier on his Triple Bridge CD, reminds the listener of the Hall composition “All Across the City.” McDonough’s “Tuscarora” was the title track of his solo piano CD Tuscarora: Short Stories for Jazz Piano, and later recorded on the Larry McDonough Quartet CD Simple Gifts. He wrote it, thinking about a favorite Boundary Waters Canoe Area lake, with “Blue in Green” in mind.
Hopefully this performance takes the fans of Evans and Hall to their happy place. For those new to their music, this recording can be your stepping stone to more of their music.
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Credits
Recorded live on October 3, 2021, at the Kos Patio in Minneapolis, MN, and mixed and mastered by Larry McDonough
CD Duplication by Quickturn Duplication, Edina, MN
Art and cover design by Eric Hanson
CD design by Larry McDonough, Palace Art and Music Gallery
Copy Editing by Carol Bergquist
Produced by Larry McDonough Jazz
© 2022 Larry McDonough Jazz and Joel Shapira Productions - All Rights Reserved
