Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray, and Friends by Lillian Terry

Author:Lillian Terry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Illinois Press

ACT III—FAREWELL

A few years later I was in New York visiting with a friend in Greenwich Village. She told me that the Village Vanguard had announced a performance by Bill Evans for that same night. We queued patiently and luckily found a corner to squeeze in, behind the pianist.

I listened to him, noting that he had grown much thinner, had let his hair grow long, and was also sporting a beard. He looked older than his age, and with his large glasses he resembled a scholarly prophet. Yes, he had changed with time, and I wondered about his health, but his music moved one deeply as ever.

At the applause of his enthusiastic public he turned, nodding his thanks. His gaze fell on me and I smiled, knowing he could never remember one day in Bologna some time ago. He seemed to smile back and then turned to bend down low, over his swollen hands resting on the piano keys, about to play again, while I felt like a teenager before her idol.

No, he could not have remembered…and yet he was beginning to play a tender, dreamy tempo ballad called “Emily”…

That night at the Village Vanguard was my last encounter with Bill Evans: the magic weaver of dreams. May I suggest you listen to his solo performance of “The Londonderry Air” while you close your eyes and surrender to his soothing melancholy?

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