Bill Evans Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Chris Willman Music WriterThe full lineup of exclusive titles for April’s Record Store Day has been announced, with the expected title from official RSD 2022 ambassador Taylor Swift. Her first-time release of a “The Lakes” single leads the way for hundreds of releases that range from a deluxe “Blue Velvet” soundtrack reissue and two John Williams 90th-birthday releases to rarities collections from Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed and David Bowie… and from unreleased jazz concerts by Charles Mingus and Bill Evans to vinyl reissues of albums by Prince, Nicki Minaj, Mariah Carey, Childish Gambino, Stevie Nicks, the Cure, Kacey Musgraves and Pearl Jam.This year’s RSD will be on April 23 — the weekend after Easter, and Tax Day, to lighten the load on religious or business conflicts.

Jim Beard, a pianist, keyboardist, composer, producer and arranger known for his work with Steely Dan as well as jazz musicians Wayne Shorter and John McLaughlin, died Saturday, March 2, in a New York City hospital from complications due to a sudden illness. He was 63.

The world is mourning an entertainment legend.

Carmel Dagan Tony Bennett, the master pop vocalist who climaxed a professional career spanning eight decades with a No. 1 album at age 85, died on Friday morning in New York City. He was 96.Bennett, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, but had continued to perform and record.His peer Frank Sinatra called him the greatest popular singer in the world. His recordings – most of them made for Columbia Records, which signed him in 1950 – were characterized by ebullience, immense warmth, vocal clarity and emotional openness. A gifted and technically accomplished interpreter of the Great American Songbook, he may be best known for his signature 1962 hit “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The checkout lines for Record Store Day might move more swiftly than usual this year, due to the likely numbers of customers who will be buying one exclusive album and one exclusive alone — Taylor Swift’s “Folklore: The Long Pond Sessions,” the most massively coveted item RSD has seen or ever might see. And listen, we’ll be picking it up, too… if supplies last. (The title has been pressed in quantities of 75,000 for the U.S. and 115,000 for the world — about four times as many as any previous RSD title. Will those be enough to last on shelves for even a day? We’ll find out.) But slow down, Swifties. There are 300 other new releases where that one came from, and this is a chance to indulge some other retail-therapy whims or make some new discoveries. Yes, there are hundreds of middle-aged guys outside in line behind you who weren’t motivated to get up quite so early, and why should they be the only ones who get to enjoy newly minted LPs from the Cure, Arooj Aftab, Nas, Orville Peck, Charlie Parker or the Pixies on a Saturday night? There’s more to life than hoarding Taylor Swift, and it is hoarding absolutely everything that has a “limited edition” sticker slapped on it, with no prejudice as to the genre, level of obscurity or how long the artist has been dead.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The good news for Taylor Swift fans: She is participating in Record Store Day again with a vinyl exclusive, for the second straight year. The bad news is that it’s in quantities of … Wait, that’s good news, too — there will be 115,000 copies available of “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions,” worldwide, about 10 times the amount that were pressed for her RSD 2022 single. Is that enough to meet demand, or keep legions of Swifties from queuing up before dawn along with the Record Store Day regulars on April 22? Not likely, but the volume of the pressing —more than four times as many as any RSD exclusive to date — should keep panic over procuring a copy to a lower level.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Criticare a few artists who’ve been flagship artists for Record Store Day in its 15 years of existence — among them, the Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band and David Bowie, all of whom have had multiple exclusive LP releases for RSD — but maybe none have seemed quite so synonymous with the day as jazz piano great Bill Evans. And Resonance Records, the archival label that has been behind the wave of live Evans releases, is doubling down on the legend this weekend with twin titles, “Morning Glory” and “Inner Spirit,” both recorded in Buenos Aires in the 1970s but never officially released until now.As with all the previous Resonance Evans titles before them, this pair of double-LPs is not likely to last a full day in stock at most of the indie music shops that have ordered it.

Chris Willman Music WriterIt hasn’t yet come to pass, but there may come a year when Record Store Day gets the official dual title of National Bill Evans Day. While there are plenty of rock artists whose archives have been regularly mined for exclusive vinyl releases tied to the semiannual event, like David Bowie and the Grateful Dead, in jazz, it’s been Bill Evans whose fans have most benefitted from a serious of previously unissued double-albums digging into the vaults.

Jazz saxophonist Lee Konitz has died of pneumonia complications as a result of COVID-19, his son confirmed to NPR tonight (April 15). He was 93.

McCoy Tyner, a cornerstone of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history, has died. He was 81.

McCoy Tyner, a cornerstone of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history, has died. He was 81.

McCoy Tyner, a cornerstone of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history, has died. He was 81.

McCoy Tyner, a cornerstone of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history, has died. He was 81.

McCoy Tyner, a cornerstone of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history, has died. He was 81.

McCoy Tyner, a cornerstone of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history, has died. He was 81.