Comrade Conrad

[Jason Hollar]

Anybody play this Bill Evans tune?

I recently learned it with my faculty jazz band.

I gotta tell you -- this song has changed my life for the better -- as I shed on it almost everyday now.

If you don't know, it's in 4/4 for 16 bars, then modulates up a fifth (down a fourth) for the second half of the tune...but in 3/4 time.

When you get back round to the top again, it goes back to 4 and modulates again, and again, and cycles through all the keys.

I have a recording of the group version with Marc Johnston (I think) on bass.

Man this thing swings. And the last solo by Bill Evans just kills.

I'm so glad to be in a "workshop" group that is interested in tackling some of these more involved tunes...it's probably not something that might get called on a regular jam session! But if it ever does -- I'm ready now! Did I mention how cool this song was?!

[Sam Sherry]

Check Earl Zindars' "How My Heart Sings", recorded more than once by Bill Evans. (There's the album by that name, recorded in 1962 with Chuck Israels, and it's also on Getting Sentimental bootlegged in 1978 with the always-wonderful Michael Moore.)

The song is ABAC form. A & C focus on C or A minor and are in three. B in four with E and D pedal points.

The Real Book chart gets this tune mostly right.

[Jason Hollar]

Thanks for the tip -- and also congrats on your recent write-up in Jazz Improv magazine!

I'm just starting to dig deeper into Bill Evans. I'm hip to most of the "standard" stuff called on gigs...but the well runs very deep with this guy.

As the great jazz trumpeter and educator Hugh Ragin (from Denver) likes to say: "Bill'll killya!"

[Marcus Johnson]

Originally Posted by Sam Sherry

Check Earl Zindars' "How My Heart Sings", recorded more than once by Bill Evans. (There's the album by that name, recorded in 1962 with Chuck Israels, and it's also on Getting Sentimental bootlegged in 1978 with the always-wonderful Michael Moore.)

The song is ABAC form. A & C focus on C or A minor and are in three. B in four with E and D pedal points.

The Real Book chart gets this tune mostly right.

Yeah! I love that tune.

[Jason Hollar]

Cool -- just got this tune!

I see what you mean...man Bill Evans is so sublime. This is a very nice arrangement.

I have a great chart in the Chuck Sher "All Jazz" Real Book.

Yet another in a long, long list of tunes to shed!