Peace Piece - Bill Evans
This is a stunning tune, built around a simple two-chord ostinato (some people say that it’s I-V7sus4, but I think in the context it’s clearly I-IVsus2). It has a hauntingly beautiful quality to it, and was once famously described by a young jazz fan as “standing all alone in New York.” If the song sounds familiar it might be because you’ve heard it; Bill Evans used the same motif in the song “Flamenco Sketches” from Miles Davis’ infamous Kind of Blue album. Although Davis is credited with all the songs on the record, I believe that Evans probably had a much larger effect on the phenomenally successful album than Davis would have admitted. In particular, “Blue in Green” is clearly an Evans-inspired chart, with its gentle and cyclical chord progression. Anyway, a perfect song for a cloudy Autumn morning.
(One of my favorite parts of the song is the chair creak at the end - sort of like sprezzatura in audio form)
