One thing to think about as a sax player reading this review, is the impact of studying a jazz player’s solos who is not a saxophone player. Bill Evans takes his time and leaves space at moments where you are left wondering what will happen next. So often, I listen to sax players who seem intent with filling up every ounce of space available in their solos. What I love the most about Bill Evans’ piano playing is his deliberate use of space. There is so much more I could write about, I truly love Bill Evans’ playing and what is captured on these pages in this book! It is just a plethora of incredible flowing lines, phrasings, chord voicings and melodic ideas that can be worked on for a lifetime. Many transcriptions these days only include the solos because of copyright limitations but Hal Leonard has included these great melodies and written them out in detail. There are rehearsal letters and the transcriptions are spaced out evenly and cleanly making them easier to read.Īnother great feature of the Bill Evans Omnibook is that the melodies are included on every transcription. Each solo has the chord symbols written above each measure. The Bill Evans Omnibook for Piano is very easy to read considering that many of the piano transcription are so complicated. As I work through the book, I can always come back here to this page to easily find the recordings to listen to as I look at the transcriptions. This is as much a resource for myself as it is for all of you. *I have posted all the recordings of these solos I could find on Youtube at the bottom of this page (I found all of them). Here is the complete list of the solos:Īlice in Wonderland, Autumn Leaves, Bill’s Hit Tune, Blue in Green, Days of Wine and Roses, Emily, Everything Happens to Me, Five, For Nenette, How About You?, How My Heart Sings, I Loves You Porgy, It Could Happen To You, Just You Just Me, Letter To Evan, My Foolish Heart, My Funny Valentine, My Romance, Nardis, Night and Day, One for Helen, Peace Piece, Peri’s Scope, Quiet Now, Re:Person I Knew, Skating in Central Park, A Sleepin’ Bee, Some Other Time, Stella By Starlight, Song from MASH, 34 Skidoo, Time Remembered, The Touch of Your Lips, Turn Out the Stars, Very Early, Waltz for Debbie, What Kind of Fool Am I?, Who Can I Turn To, You Go To My Head, You Must Believe in Spring The book is 356 pages long and has 40 solos in it. The coils are big enough that it is easy to change the pages quickly on the fly. It is coil bound so it is easy to open on a music stand and it stays open and flat when you are reading from it. The Bill Evans Omnibook is created with the same standard of excellence as the other Hal Leonard Omnibooks. Evans’ playing to spend the countless hours it must have took to transcribe all of these solos. Whoever this person is, they must be a dedicated fan of Mr. Maybe he wants to remain anonymous? Regardless of that, I just have to comment on how amazing this person’s ears must be to hear all these chords, voicings, inversions and rhythms. The person who transcribed all of these great Bill Evans’ solos does not seem to be mentioned in this Omnibook. The colors of his chord voicings, the melodic and lyrical performance, the rhythmic variances in his playing and the interplay and communication between the piano, bass and drums is exciting and rewarding to listen to. I also like playing his music when I have company over to the house as it just sets up the perfect ambiance and class to a dinner or social event. I love listening to his beautiful piano playing when I want to relax and just chill out. I have many piano recordings of Bill Evans in my CD library. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block chords, and trademark rhythmically independent, “singing” melodic lines continue to influence jazz pianists today.” “William John Evans (Aug– September 15, 1980) was an American jazz pianist and composer who mostly played in trios. Here is a short bio of Bill Evans from Wikipedia: I can think of no better non-saxophone playing musician to check out than the incomparable Bill Evans on piano. These are all saxophone players of course, so in the interest of being more “well rounded”, I thought it would be a good idea to check out a non-saxophone Omnibook. Hal Leonard has already released many other great Omnibooks that I have already reviewed here including the Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker Volume 2, Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane Omnibooks. Today, I am reviewing the Bill Evans Omnibook for piano that is published by Hal Leonard. *I posted all the recordings I could find on Youtube that go with this transcription book at the bottom of this review………Enjoy!
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