Live at the Balboa Jazz Club, Vol. 1

by Ken Dryden This is yet another high-caliber performance from the last year of Bill Evans' life, the first set of a fairly well recorded evening in a Madrid night club. Evans' final trio (with Marc Johnson and Joe LaBarbera) concentrated on a fairly small repertoire but constantly worked on evolving their interpretations. A favorite Evans opener, his moody but delightful "Re: Person I Knew" (an anagram of Orrin Keepnews -- his first producer and co-founder of Riverside). A very gut-wrenching version of "My Man's Gone Now" is followed by a hard swinging take of Johnny Mandel's "Theme From M*A*S*H." While the sound is occasionally over-modulated, this CD is recommended.