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• 1 2025-03-23T18:24:40-04:00 "You Must Believe in Spring" by Bill Evans, contributed by Carolyn Hao (2025) 1 plain 2025-03-23T18:24:40-04:00 "You Must Believe in Spring" by Bill Evans
  
  
  
  This album has weighed heavily on me from the very first time I listened to it. I chose this album because of the way it speaks to and processes Evans’ personal loss; it is a manifestation of memory, both of himself and of the people whom he cared for most deeply.
  
  Considered by many to be one of the most prolific jazz pianists of all time, Bill Evans recorded over 50 albums throughout his life. He is best known for his sensitive playing style, and his compositions and stylistic interpretations remained steadfast and unchanging throughout his career even as the demands of mainstream audiences shifted. He is my favorite jazz musician, and I deeply adore his music.
  
  “You Must Believe in Spring” is Bill Evans’ final album. The final few years of his life were tumultuous and volatile. In just a short time, he lost his brother, Harry Evans, and his former partner, Ellaine Schultz, to suicide. This propelled him into a spiral of substance abuse, and he quickly developed an addiction to hard drugs, which ultimately drove him to his death. His final live performances were erratic. It was clear to many audience members that he was unwell, but he continued to perform regardless, often unconsciously speeding up in tempo and losing his sense of time altogether. Those closest to him knew that he had not much time left—and he knew it too.
  
  Before he passed away, he told a few close friends that he wanted this album to be released posthumously. Following his death, this album seemed to simultaneously memorialize him and reveal to the world his deepest and darkest pains. The album cover is a painting titled “Yearning” by Charles Burchfield, which features watercolor trees against the backdrop of a grey, rain-filled sky. The album features two original tunes, “B Minor Waltz (for Ellaine)” and “We Will Meet Again (For Harry)”. The two are both waltzes, slow moving and driven by reharmonizations of their central themes. The album also features a song titled “Suicide is Painless” from M*A*S*H.
  
  It is hard to concretely and objectively describe the ways in which his original pieces deal with and process loss. To some who listen without intention or context, there may not be any sort of clear universal message. But there is much to be deciphered from the simple harmonic & form-based structures in the piece. I intend to break down some of the things that I love about the piece “We Will Meet Again,” and how the harmonic and melodic structures of the piece reflect the enormity of Evans’ grief over the loss of his brother.
  
  The song is based in C minor, and starts with solo piano playing through the central theme in a very timeless/rubato feel. This melody, though simple, feels like breath. The 6 ascending notes which drop down a Major 7th creates a feeling of inhalation, suspension, and exhalation. The body of the song contracts and expands, both in terms of the inherent melody and the degree of intensity to which Evans uses when he presses down on the keys. At 0:48, on the third repeat, the timefeel of the song undergoes a drastic shift with the appearance of the drums and the bass. Notably, the drummer is using a mix of brushes and sticks to push the tempo forward, and we are thrust straight into a bass solo that builds on the harmonic material that has already been established by the piano. This harmonic material remains almost thoroughly unchanged throughout the entire piece, which reinforces the sentiment (and title) behind the song: we will meet again. The breathing melodic line seems to symbolize Evans’ return to a cyclical thought/grieving process. Though a waltz normally features a strong-weak-weak pattern, there is a sense of desperation in this particular piece which, in my ears, removes the emphasis of this pattern. The mid-section notably feels alive as well, despite the more structured tempo. At 1:44, the bass and the piano breathe synchronously, and the low frequencies descending melodic line carries a tender undertone. At 2:02, the piano solo begins. We are introduced to a new texture with the bass notes playing the root of each chord, not straying too far from the dotted quarter rhythm. The notes start to pick up in intensity and rhythmic breaks at 2:37, where the ascending arpeggiated piano line sets up another suspension, leading to the climax (and my favourite part) of the piece at 2:40, where the buildup stemming from the upward motion of the piano solo comes crashing down through chromatic downward motion. At 2:57, the original theme returns in full, intense and emotionally charged. The piano leads, and the bass and drums are careful not to take up too much space so as to distract from the innate directionality that underlies the melodic theme itself. As the intensity comes to a slow, we clearly sense that the journey is ending, as the chromatic stepwise motion is mirrored again (3:31). Our sense of time is broken once more at the very end of the piece (3:38), as the piano rushes forward, creating the first and last true melodic departure from the main theme, as if to say “I am moving on.”