Song of the Day 2/22: Bill Evans, “Peace Piece”

I don’t know all that much about the situation in the Ukraine, and if you’re honest about it neither do you. I just think that the fewer innocent people who die over all this, the better.

Bill Evans was so fucking great that he just sat at the piano after a recording session for his “Everybody Digs Bill Evans” LP one December day in 1958 and made this up on the spot. It’s been used in several soundtracks, but only the first three and a half minutes or so, before the music starts to become discordant. Even when he was in the flow, Evans couldn’t stay peaceful forever.

With one exception, to accompany a modern dance performance, Evans would not play the composition live because he felt that the piece would lose its meaning outside of its moment of creation. But when Evans played with Miles Davis on “Flamenco Sketches” the next year, Miles quoted it to open the tune.

Despite Evans’ feeling about spontaneity, the Kronos Quartet arranged it for strings on their Bill Evans tribute album.