Bill Evans

Five sets over one Sunday in June 1961, recorded by Orrin Keepnews and split across two albums. This is the more exploratory half, and it captures the Evans, Scott LaFaro, and Paul Motian trio on its final day of recording together; LaFaro died in a car accident that July. One of the most celebrated live documents in jazz.

The companion record, drawn from the same five Vanguard sets, and the more lyrical half. The title track, "My Foolish Heart," "Detour Ahead," and "Some Other Time" are ballad performances of extraordinary delicacy. Evans plays as if each note is being placed on glass. For most listeners, this is where Bill Evans starts.

The first studio recording of the Evans, LaFaro, and Motian trio, and within the first bars of "Come Rain or Come Shine" you can hear that something fundamental has shifted in piano trio playing. LaFaro does not walk, he converses, and Motian floats above and around them both. This is where it starts.

The trio's second and final studio album, cut in a single February 1961 session. If Portrait in Jazz announced the concept, Explorations deepened it: three musicians even more attuned to each other, willing to follow an idea into uncertain territory with the safety nets of fixed roles removed.

The duo record with guitarist Jim Hall. No bass, no drums, and it should not work as well as it does: two chordal instruments so sensitive to each other's harmonic space that the music never feels crowded. Closer to a conversation between equals than to any conventional jazz format.

The 1958 trio date with Sam Jones and Philly Joe Jones, recorded just after Evans left the Miles Davis sextet. The cover carries endorsement quotes from Miles, Cannonball Adderley, Ahmad Jamal, and George Shearing, which tells you exactly where he stood among his peers by then.

Evans did not record for nearly a year after LaFaro's death. Moon Beams is the return: the first studio album of the new trio with Chuck Israels on bass and Paul Motian continuing on drums, and an all-ballad program. Quiet, interior, and unmistakably shaped by grief.

A rare Evans quintet date, with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Jim Hall on guitar, Percy Heath on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Hubbard's bright, brassy hard bop trumpet is not the first voice you would pair with Evans's introspective piano, and that tension is exactly what makes the record interesting.

A live recording from Amsterdam, captured in November 1969 but not released until 1981. The trio with Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell was a year old and settling into a working rapport the studio records only hinted at. The live setting brings out a warmth and relaxation that suits the material.