 Perhaps
it was a white jazz musician's need to negate his very ordinary American boyhood, or maybe
it was in the genes he inherited from his alcoholic father--no one can be quite sure--but
Bill Evans, one of the most influential American jazz pianists ever, was a drug addict. He
picked up his habit shortly after joining the Miles Davis Sextet in the 1950s, but it took
Evans more than 20 years to be swallowed by the abyss of heroin, methadone, and cocaine.
Sitting at the piano in the shadow of Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Paul
Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones--the era's paragons of cool--could not have been easy for
the retiring musician who suffered harsh ribbing at the hands of both bandmates and fans.
Ironically, as the drugs distorted Evans's body and soul, his fingers coaxed ever more
sublime music from his keyboard. Biographer Peter Pettinger was himself a professional
pianist and a longtime listener of Evans, so he is expert at articulating the nuances of
the music. He is perceptive too in exploring the forces that imbued in one life so much
beauty and so much pain. The result is a book that is both a memorial to a burdened man
and an homage to his transcendent music. |