Classic Recordings, Bill Evans & Jim Hall, 'Undercurrent'

By 1961, pianist Bill Evans had been rolling with his classic trio for a couple of years; this short-lived group, featuring drummer Paul Motian and bassist Scott LaFaro, was the same trio that recorded his much-celebrated Sunday at the Village Vanguard set, which continues to be cited as a highlight of Evans' career and live jazz records as a whole. This trio would be cut short, however, with the death of LaFaro just ten days after the Village Vanguard set was recorded, subsequently causing Evans to cease performing for several months in mourning. Persuaded to return to music by Riverside record producer Orrin Keepnews, Evans appeared on vocalist Mark Murphy’s 1961 album Rah, as well as a short solo piano session, and Evans' work in music continued long after that. This duo recording with guitarist Jim Hall, Undercurrent, was also one of these first albums Evans made following his period of mourning – recorded over two dates in spring of 1962.

Jim Hall had not long since moved to New York by the time he entered the studio with Evans – mostly spending his time in the bands of Art Farmer, Sonny Rollins and Lee Konitz around this time – and despite having fewer studio records to his name than Evans by this point, Hall was already a well-recognised session musician around the jazz capital. The pair had supposedly been mutual admirers by this point, as well as sharing some stylistic common ground with their roots in bebop, so their pairing made perfect sense. Even texturally their instruments pair together incredibly well in the duo format, Hall’s percussive strumming and Evans’ left-hand playing substituting the drummer and bassist roles respectively, and given both players’ instruments of choice there’s always the risk of too many notes gumming up the mix, but Evans and Hall trade off each other so superbly that there’s not a single trip-up or clash.

There’s only so much chaos a piano/guitar duo can conjure up, but the slightly more frenetic take on ‘My Funny Valentine’ that opens the record comes close; Evans jumps headfirst into erratic chordal playing, whilst Hall manages to hold his own against Evans’ barrage of notes with the only thing resembling the original melody appearing towards the end from Hall. Elsewhere the Jim Hall original ‘Romain’ begins a little more placidly before the duo steadily ramp up the volume, though the pair never go full-on free improv on us; these were two men with their feet firmly in the more traditional end of the musical spectrum. It’s in the softer moments that Undercurrent really excels, leaning into the delicate conversations between Evans and Hall; sequenced back to back, ‘Skating in Central Park’ and 'Darn That Dream’ both feature some of the strongest interplay between the two, the former in particular seamlessly weaving the two voices between one another.

Other tunes like ‘Dream Gypsy’ have Evans carrying the swing rhythm while Hall plays the leading melodies, or indeed goes off on his own altogether like on ‘Stairway to the Stars’, Hall again doing most of the lead work. Just by virtue of its two-person line-up, Undercurrent carries quite a weight of expectation, and to many it seems it doesn’t disappoint. For sure in the grand scheme of jazz it’s a fairly accessible record, particularly compared to the soon-to-emerge post-bop and electric eras. This wasn’t the only time Jim Hall and Bill Evans worked together, most notably on 1966’s slightly less romantically-titled Intermodulation, and besides a handful of mutual sideman dates these two records would be the only duo dates by them; perhaps it’s a shame there weren’t more.