TY - JOUR

T1 - A música francesca reconfigurado no jazz modal de Bill Evans

AU - Mawer, Deborah

A2 - Borém, Fausto

N1 - This article is a Portuguese translation of 'French music reconfigured in the modal jazz of Bill Evans', in Janne Mäkelä and Jouni Eerola (eds.), Jazz Chameleon: 9th Nordic Jazz Conference Proceedings (Helsinki: The Finnish Jazz and Pop Archive, 2011), 77-89.

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Although French classical music, especially that of the twentieth-century, is commonly understood to have played a role in the improvisational thinking of the American modal jazz pianist Bill Evans (1929-1980), its relevance has rarely been probed in scholarly depth. These loci - French music and Evans - appear to offer an ideal opportunity for investigating relations between musical types: from parallels, potential intersections, through to specific eclecticisms, which could assimilate, adapt and individualize a given source. Implicit are ‘crossings’ and transformations of genre, culture, national identity and timeframe, as well as questions of influence; at issue are the nature and mutability of music materials. I aim to show the richness and significance of these interactions in two case studies: aspects of Kind of Blue (Davis, 1959) and 'Peace Piece' (Evans, 1958), in connection with Chopin (as an adoptive Frenchman), Ravel and Messiaen. Using critical ideas of Ravel (1928) and others, I argue that in French repertory particularly, Evans discovered an affinity with, and catalyst for, his improvisational priorities: lyricism, polyphonic lines, a rich harmonic palette of sevenths and ninths, subtle textures, voicings and exquisite tone - a vehicle for expressivity and imagination. Conversely, it is intriguing that relatively old French music has lived on, reconfigured - chameleon-like - within a new postwar context.

AB - Although French classical music, especially that of the twentieth-century, is commonly understood to have played a role in the improvisational thinking of the American modal jazz pianist Bill Evans (1929-1980), its relevance has rarely been probed in scholarly depth. These loci - French music and Evans - appear to offer an ideal opportunity for investigating relations between musical types: from parallels, potential intersections, through to specific eclecticisms, which could assimilate, adapt and individualize a given source. Implicit are ‘crossings’ and transformations of genre, culture, national identity and timeframe, as well as questions of influence; at issue are the nature and mutability of music materials. I aim to show the richness and significance of these interactions in two case studies: aspects of Kind of Blue (Davis, 1959) and 'Peace Piece' (Evans, 1958), in connection with Chopin (as an adoptive Frenchman), Ravel and Messiaen. Using critical ideas of Ravel (1928) and others, I argue that in French repertory particularly, Evans discovered an affinity with, and catalyst for, his improvisational priorities: lyricism, polyphonic lines, a rich harmonic palette of sevenths and ninths, subtle textures, voicings and exquisite tone - a vehicle for expressivity and imagination. Conversely, it is intriguing that relatively old French music has lived on, reconfigured - chameleon-like - within a new postwar context.

KW - eclecticism of Bill Evans

KW - hybridism in music

KW - French music and modal jazz

KW - music transformation and improvisation

KW - influence between classical and popular music

M3 - Journal article

VL - 28

SP - 7

EP - 14

JO - Revista Per Musi

JF - Revista Per Musi

ER -