| Everybody Digs Bill Evans | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | End of March 1959[1] | |||
| Recorded | December 15, 1958 | |||
| Studio | Reeves Sound Studios, New York City | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Length | 42:36 original LP 48:45 CD reissue | |||
| Label | Riverside RLP 12-291 | |||
| Producer | Orrin Keepnews | |||
| Bill Evans chronology | ||||
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Everybody Digs Bill Evans is an album by jazz musician Bill Evans. It was released in early 1959 on the Riverside label.
Everybody Digs Bill Evans was Evans's second album, done two years after his first record as a leader. Though his producer (Orrin Keepnews) had wanted Evans to record a follow-up album to his debut sooner, the self-critical Evans felt he had "nothing new to say" before this album.
The recording captures Evans at a time when he frequently played extended musical ideas using block chords, a technique also favored by Milt Buckner, George Shearing, Oscar Peterson, and other jazz pianists. That combined with his use of pedals gave him a sound considered by critics to be innovative. Though Evans had quit the Miles Davis band a month before the album was recorded, Davis was enamored of Evans's piano sound as it was developing through 1958, and decided to use him as the pianist for four of the five tracks on the 1959 recording Kind of Blue.
Everybody Digs Bill Evans was reissued in 1987 with one bonus track. It will be reissued again in 2024 for Record Store Day.
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| All About Jazz |   [2] |
| Allmusic |  [3] |
| The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide | [4] |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [5] |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | [6] |
Writing for Allmusic, music critic Michael G. Nastos called the album "a landmark recording for the young pianist... Though not his very best effort overall, Evans garnered great attention, and rightfully so, from this important album of 1958."[3] Samuel Chell of All About Jazz wrote: "With its varied tempos, rhythms and programming, Everybody Digs Bill Evans sustains interest without allowing the listener for a moment to mistake the singular, inimitable voice of the leader. It's not hard to understand why many Evans followers, 'casual' and otherwise, list it as their favorite of the pianist's recordings. It's doubtful there's a more introspective, meditative trio set on record, yet the pianist shows he can dance as well."[2]
It was voted number 3 in the 50 All-Time Overlooked Jazz Albums from Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.[7]
