ELIANE ELIAS
Something For You: Eliane Elias Sings & Plays Bill
Evans
Blue Note
Eliane Elias is a great pianist and a very
good singer, an able interpreter of the music of her native
Brazil, and an overall ambassador for jazz music. She has
long had connections with piano great Bill Evans. It was
Eddie Gomez, best known for his work with Evans’ trio,
who recommended that Elias move to New York in 1981 after
hearing her play in Paris. Her husband, Marc Johnson, who
has played bass with her on many recordings, was Evans’
bassist from 1978 until the pianist’s death in 1980.
Elias’ piano playing has long shown Evans’ influence,
being lyrical and harmonically plush, even on her Brazilian
projects. Over the past five years or so, Elias produced
a series of albums that seemed designed to expose her to
a larger audience. While these albums, recorded for RCA,
were still of high musical quality, they tended to put her
singing out front, dispense with some of her piano solos,
and utilized modern production to achieve more of a pop
music sheen.
Now Elias has returned to Blue Note, the
label for which she recorded from the late 1980s until 2002
for a Bill Evans tribute album of sorts. Something For
You features Elias in a simple trio setting, with Johnson
on bass and Joey Baron on drums, performing songs associated
with or composed by Evans as well as some original touches.
The result is an album that pays tribute to Evans without
sounding imitative and which manages to add another chapter
to Elias’ career and growth as an artist.
It’s easy to focus on the more lyrical
performances, such as “You and the Night and the Music”
or the title track, as evidence of Elias’ empathy
with Evans, but there’s more to it than that. Elias
swings easily and effortlessly, the way Evans did, as heard
on her performance of “A Sleepin’ Bee”
where her piano work can’t help but make the listener
smile. On “But Not For Me” her piano solo is
absolutely perfect. Listening to Elias here, one can’t
help but imagine that her last several records were designed
to make her the kind of household name that Diana Krall
has become, but her unassuming ability to swing puts her
in a league of her own.
Of course, Elias can turn up the romance
quotient as well when called upon to do so. Some might wonder
at the presence of as much vocal work as there is on Something
For You, but Eliane’s vocal work is every bit
as evocative of Evans’ romanticism as her piano playing.
Leading off the Evans classic “Waltz for Debby”
with a slow delivery of the Gene Lees lyrics, one cannot
but marvelat the beauty of Evans’ melody. Then she
takes the piece into a straight, uptempo 4/4 for her piano
solo, bringing it back to a jazz waltz for the final chorus.
Johnson and Baron are supportive and highly
collaborative throughout, doing much more than merely keeping
time. As with Evans, both are full-fledged members of a
trio where any member can shade the music in a different
way at any time. Elias plays piano throughout with a nearly
palpable sense of joy, demonstrating that she is one of
jazz music’s highly underrated pianists at this time.
Many of her projects have had a Brazilian or Latin flavor,
which makes sense, but it’s great to hear her playing
straight ahead as she does here. This is definitely Elias’
best piano work on record since her performance on Johnson’s
2005 ECM recording Shades of Jade.
Something For You is a very personal
and intimate approach to the Bill Evans book. Familiar pieces
like “Blue In Green” are given vastly different
readings than those that listeners are most familiar with,
and the overall effect is one of great affection for Evans
rather than imitation of him. The album’s title track
is an unfinished piece that Evans had played on a cassette
and given to Marc Johnson when he was in Evans’ trio.
Elias wrote lyrics to it and presents them here. The disc
ends with part of the tape of Evans playing the piece, a
fitting conclusion to a recording that treats his music
as a living entity rather than putting it under glass in
a museum. It’s a triumph for fans of Eliane Elias,
and should prove satisfying for Evans fans as well as anyone
who loves modern jazz and jazz piano trios.