#AllThingsMUSIC: Bill Evans

Bill Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, United States, to Harry and Mary Evans. His father was of Welsh descent and ran a golf course; his mother was of Ukranian Rusyn ancestry and descended from a family of coal miners. Given Harry Evans Sr.'s destructive character, Mary Evans would often leave home with her sons to nearby Somerville, to stay with her sister Justine and the Epps family. There, Harry began piano lessons somewhere between age 5 and 7. Even though Bill was deemed as still too young to receive lessons, he soon began to play what he had heard during his brother's class. Soon, Bill would also receive piano lessons.

Later, the Evans brothers began to take piano lessons in Dunellen with local teacher Helen Leland. Evans remembered her with affection for not insisting on a heavy technical approach, like scales and arpeggios. He would soon develop a fluid sight-reading ability, but his teacher rated his brother as a better pianist. At age 7, Bill began violin lessons, and soon also flute and piccolo. Even though he soon dropped those instruments, it is believed they later influenced his keyboard style.

From age 6 to 13, Evans would only play classical music scores. He cited Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert as frequently played composers. During high school, Evans came in contact with 20th-century music like Stravinsky's Petrushka, which he deemed as "tremendous experience"; and Milhaud's Suite Provençale, whose bitonal language he believed "opened him to new things". Around the same time also came his first exposure to jazz, when at age 12 he heard Tommy Dorsey and Harry James's bands on the radio.

At the age of 12, Evans stood in for a sick pianist in Buddy Valentino's rehearsal band, where Harry was already playing the trumpet. During that period, Evans reported his first deviation from the written music, in an arrangement of "Tuxedo Junction" while playing with the rehearsal band. Evans used to listen to Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell, George Shearing, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, and Nat Cole among others. He specially admired the last one.

Soon after, Evans began to play in flat dates like dances and weddings, throughout New Jersey, playing music like boogie-woogie and polkas for $1 per hour. As a result, his schoolwork suffered. He also formed a trio with two local friends. During the gigs, he met multi-instrumentalist Don Elliott, with whom he would later record. An important acquaintance during that period was bassist George Platt, who introduced Evans to the harmonic principles of music.

^{Source: Wikipedia}