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.