Bassist Scott LaFaro's death in the early summer of 1961, just 10 days after the Bill Evans Trio's triumphant Village Vanguard engagement was a devastating personal and musical, loss to the pianist, after which he took nearly a year off from recording or playing in public. (The Vanguard performances can be heard on SUNDAY AT THE VILLAGE, WALTZ FOR DEBBY and AT THE VANGUARD.) It fell to another bassist, Chuck Israel, to bring Evans out and re-establish the Bill Evans Trio as a going concern. Possessed of a warm tone, Israels' essentially supportive playing with the Trio made for a studied contrast with the brashly virtuosic LaFaro, which was not necessarily a bad thing.
As if to make up for lost time, the newly reconstituted trio recorded two albums' worth of material in June and May of 1962. MOONBEAMS is the "softer" of the two and introduced two graceful Evan's originals, "Re: Person I Knew" (an anagram of producer Orrin Keepnews's name) and the lyrical fugue "Very Early." While any of the early Riverside albums make an excellent introduction to Bill Evans, MOONBEAMS is perhaps the most exquisitely romantic of the bunch, much like Coltrane's BALLADS in this respect.
- Format: Vinyl
- Genre: Jazz
Track Listing:
A1 Re: Person I Knew
A2 Polka Dots And Moonbeams
A3 I Fall In Love Too Easliy
A4 Stairway To The Stars
B1 If You Could See Me Now
B2 It Might As Well Be Spring
B3 In Love In Vain
B4 Very Early
