- Audio CD (Aug 6 2002)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Format: Original recording remastered
- Label: EMI Music Canada
- ASIN: B0000691U0
- Other Editions: Audio CD | Audio Cassette
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #10,760 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Product Details |
Track Listings
| 1. My Funny Valentine |
| 2. I Hear A Rhapsody |
| 3. Dream Gypsy |
| 4. Romain |
| 5. Skating In Central Park |
| 6. Darn That Dream |
| 7. Stairway To The Stars |
| 8. I'm Getting Sentimental Over You |
| 9. My Funny Valentine (alternate take) |
| 10. Romain (alternate take) |
Product Description
Product Description
If Bill Evans brought a kind of muted, ingeniously subtle body of innovations to jazz piano, then perhaps his only parallel in the realm of jazz guitar is Jim Hall. But for all their advances on their instruments, neither Evans nor Hall ever made themselves sound forbidding. And when they joined forces for this session, they sounded fantastically in-step and interwoven, with piano and jazz falling together into a pool of streaming improvisation on mostly slow-tempo pieces. Evans's sense of time and chord placement gets continual book-ends from Hall, who places his diaphanous strums in just the right places to not brook Evans's creative flow but rather to join in it and play almost alchemically. These are calm pieces, maybe too calm considering the constant turbulence in Evans's life. But the pair hit such a high mark with this recording that it reaches the intellect and the emotions at precisely the same instant. Quite a feat. --Andrew Bartlett
Album Description
Japanese remastered reissue of 1963 album, packaged in a miniature LP sleeve.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Creative geniuses Both,
By
This review is from: Undercurrent (Audio CD)
To the best of my knowledge "Undercurrent" is the first of two albums put out by Bill Evans & Jim Hall. The follow-up to this one was called "Intermodulation," also a duo setting.It begins with "My Funny Valentine" (alt. take), & then the same tune. This CD was my first real experience with Bill Evans; I had heard him with the Miles Davis Quintet, but I really bought the album as an LP to hear Jim Hall, but began a new & lasting admiration for Evans. The only other time I heard Hall & Evans together was in a quintet setting. If you like this duo on "Undercurrent" you'll certainly love them on "Intermodulation." My favorite tunes are "Getting Sentimental Over You" & "Romain" written by Hall. And now I have to add that my name is Jerry Dubinsky (not my stage name) & I DO NOT SELL FOR AMAZON. They have me down as "The Ten Buck Store" with which I am not associated.Get this CD. You'll be glad you did. Oh yes, Hall & Evans played together again, but in a quintet setting called "Loose Blues."
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Inspired Duo,
By MikeG (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Undercurrent (Audio CD)
The partnership of Evans and Hall as an unaccompanied duo was an inspired one which produced two albums - this first one and the follow-up, Intermodulation. The two artists had much in common. For example, both were concerned to produce music that had beauty, and even refinement, of sound with no lack of musical substance. Both liked to play quietly, with an emphasis on subtlety and understatement, although they could also 'swing' infectiously at almost any tempo. Both also had years of experience as sidemen or accompanists in other people's groups and this made them particularly sensitive listeners, able to respond to and interact creatively with other soloists. You can hear that kind of sensitivity and subtle interplay throughout this album, most obviously on the slower pieces but also on the fastest track, the original take of 'My Funny Valentine'. Listen especially to the way in which Hall's guitar fills in behind Evans's statement of the theme and then provides a driving rhythm under the pianist's improvisation. My favourite track is Hall's 'Romain', a moody, rather sombre theme which inspires the most intense and emotive playing on the album. It has some particularly haunting interplay between the players and displays the 'singing' qualities they could draw out of their instruments, especially at the magical point where Hall's solo leads into Evans's. It's good to have the bonus of an alternate take of this number on the CD edition, especially as it is slightly different: a bit slower, darker in mood and almost as good as the originally released version. Undercurrent was always a rather special album; but in my opinion it is much superior on CD, first because of its enhanced sound quality and the quiet background which this intimate, concentrated music needs, secondly because the bonus tracks on the CD provide the 'added value' of quality as well as quantity. The programme originally consisted, rather oddly, of five slow tempo tracks with one fast one. The addition of the mid-tempo swinger, 'Getting Sentimental Over You' and an alternate take of 'My Funny Valentine' creates a better balanced album, although an extra slow ballad from the session, 'Stairway to the Stars', is well worth having too. It's an album which you can play, if you like, as a piece of chilled out background music which won't disturb the cat; but there's a lot going on under its polished surface to make it music which has to be listened to, and to be returned to again and again.
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best jazz albums ever!,
By Phil Brooks (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Undercurrent (Audio CD)
There was pure magic at this session, the way Bill and Jim interact together on this CD is one of those special things that just happen. Besides these two being at the top of the class in jazz - and both having produced many, many fine recordings before and after "Undercurrant", this one is over the top. My favorite is "Skating in Central Park", but all the tunes are great, pure emotion flowing. The only possible negative thing that might be said is that most of the tunes are ballads, and the tempos don't vary that much. However, when somthing is working so well - why change it?
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