Way to Play by Proper Box UK - Creative Kids' Roadway Toy Set for Imaginative Play | Perfect for Indoor & Outdoor Fun, Birthday Gifts

England's Proper recording label has been doing these quite excellent box sets of jazz giants for quite some time. As the 50 year copyrght to the recordings expire for countries outside the U.S., they are available for repackaging/compilation. The set in questions covers what many consider the late, great pianist Bill Evans most fertile period, including just about all of the familiar items recorded with his classic trio with drummer Paul Motian and bassist Scott LaFaro, who was to perish in an automobile accident just a few days after the Village Vanguard sessions were recorded. The sound quality is very good and the recordings are not needle drops, unlike other European labels. IMHO Evans and Oscar Peterson are the all-time greatest jazz pianists: the price is right, the contents are just about perfect! What are you waiting for?There''s not much one can say about this cd. It is a history of a musical genius who left a permanent mark on jazz. For the newcomer to Evan's work it will have a pandora effect. It will open the listener's ears for the first time to an unexpected experience. Enjoy...I'm still learning about jazz, personally, but the masters will take you all the way. What's not to love about getting five vintage Evans albums in entirety for the cost of one CD? Beautiful, mind-expanding and, often, quite healing, this.The worst cd I have ever seen., and I have bought many from Amazon.This cd mislabels many Jazz standards;It calls Honeysuckle Rose, Conception, As Time Goes By, Easy Living, The Way You Look Tonight,Displacement, The Man I love, Our Delight.In addition it is customary on Jazz cds to give the names of the composer and the lyricist. Neither are given.This packagehas been slapped together in an irrespondsible and incompetent manner.This is most unfortunate, because solocompilations of Evans are few and hard to find.beautiful musicThis is a great sampler for folks who want to explore some of Evans' best work. It contains six complete albums as originally released (without bonus tracks or alternate tracks on later reissues), plus some great performances from Birdland.Except where I note below, the albums were recorded for the Riverside label. What I especially love about this set is a good many tracks feature what many (including myself) consider to be the best trio, with Evans backed by Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums.Sound quality is a notch above most box sets from Proper. I own a lot of their sets and for the most part the quality across the board is acceptable. The quality of the sound in this one is superb.At the time of this review there are no track list nor sound samples. I am going to link to the source album, most of which have sound samples on their respective product pages, as well as provide a track list for each of the four discs in this set. Here is what you will be getting:==========DISC ONE==========Tracks 1 through 11 are the album titled From the very first notes of the opening tune, Cole Porter's "I Love You," Bill makes his statement. His lines at this stage may lack some of the complexity of Bird's and Bud's, but they are no worse because of his difference from the formidable predecessors. His phrasing is that of a story-teller, intent on taking the listener with him on every step of a rapturous yet unequivocally clear, pellucid, economical journey. Not a note is wasted and there are no "stylistic devices": when Bill does play a rare "run" up the scale to end his first solo on a high note, it's a scale unlike that played by Bud or Red or Wynton. Every note is played with the same equal pressure; each note is distinctly separated from the preceding and succeeding note. As usual, he plays "deep in the key," extracting the fullest and most "true" sound of which his instrument is capable--the precision, resonance, and consistency of each note in his single-note lines almost beautiful beyond words--and without precedence in this music. And does the man swing! Not the laid-back, behind-the-beat phrasing of many of his contemporaries but the urgency and forward "push" of the best Bud Powell piano playing.I would recommend the individual albums ahead of this collection. To begin with, they're recorded on labels respectful of the piano's complex overtones and of the pianist's individual touch, which was not always the case on some of Bill's mid-career dates for Verve and Impulse. In any case, the title of this collection doesn't lie: his "way to play" seems the only way, as accessible to the listener as it is unique to him alone. It would simply be impractical to for those of us not born with Bill's musical sensibilities, his strong shoulders and extremely large hands with those thick, inerrant fingers to play like him. No one can. He was quite possibly one of the last century's 3 or 4 greatest musicians.If you've been able to listen to Alyn Shipton's Jazz Library programmes on BBC Radio 3 over the last few years, you'll probably be aware how often ProperBox collections appear as a repository of recommended recordings. With that in mind, it was great to see a ProperBox featuring the work of Bill Evans. It has frequently been noted that we're living in something of a Golden Age for the piano trio - Brad Mehldau, Marcin Wasilewski, John Law, Keith Jarrett, Tord Gustavsen and the late Esbjorn Svensson to pick a few that already feature in my collection. Well, here's one of the musicians who is surely a part of their collective DNA.There's something about the piano trio that makes it a perfect little miniature ensemble. It sounds complete in its own right. You can listen to duos of piano with.... a variety of instruments, and I find there's always a tendency to think that it sounds great in spite of the limitations of the line-up. You can add instruments to a piano trio, such as trumpet, saxophone or guitar and they can all give an extra something, but the trio can stand on its own and doesn't need anything added. That's especially so when the pianist is someone of the stature of Bill Evans.Much of the material in this collection features the best-known line-up with Paul Motian on drums ans Scott La Faro on bass. There are also trios featuring Motian with Teddy Kopick on bass and another with Philly Joe Jones on drums and Sam Jones on bass. Then disproving my notion about the need or otherwise of adding to the trio, there's a quartet featuring Bob Brookmeyer also on piano with Connie Kay on drums and Percy Heath on bass. The recordings date from 1956 to 1961, spanning the period when Evans worked with Miles Davis on "Kind Of Blue" and the fourth disc is taken up with live recordings from the legendary Village Vanguard set of 1961, recorded just a few days before Scott La Faro's tragic early death. This being a ProperBox, you get a complete discography giving details of the line-ups and recording dates and extensive additional notes in the 24-page accompanying booklet.The recordings have been digitally re-mastered - very successfully to my ears. The Village Vanguard disc has a presence that sounds completely fresh. Contrast this with criticism of some of the other unofficial Bill Evans collections that you'll find for sale on Amazon.There's a great variety of music here, with plenty of standards and tunes that you might recognize from his time with Miles. When you're listening they can each, in the moment, sound just right. So, if you want to go back to the genesis of the modern jazz piano trio, this box has it right - it really is The Way To Play.What can I say? As a professional pianist myself, there has never been, and never will be, a player like Bill... Love you boy...4 excellent cd's of Bill Evans. I am no Jazz buff but I know what I like and I like this.Great music!Très belle collection de cd,qui réunit des morceaux plus superbes les uns que les autres.Du grand Evans qu'on écoutera ,et ré-écoutera....bref:archi fan!Envoi rapide,produit conforme à la photo.