“Time Remembered”
Composed by Bill Evans.
Recorded by Bill Evans for Milestone Records on August 21, 1962 in New York.
Bill Evans, piano, directing: John H. “Zoot” Sims, tenor saxophone; Jim Hall, guitar; Ron Carter, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.
The story:
As an attorney who represented in civil litigation people who had been injured, I was often confronted with the vexing challenge of placing a monetary value on time, as time is a factor in the theoretical calculations that go into juries deciding an amount of money to compensate injured parties. I cannot say that I ever mastered that elusive process because there were simply too many abstract concepts involved for the people who sit on juries to understand. Lawyers are notorious for attempting to construct thought experiments that often collapse of their own weight. I know that I was often required to dig myself out from under my own less than understandable arguments about time, money and many other things while at trial. Nevertheless, I always thought that I had a good understanding of the concept of time.
Time, of course, is a critical element in the making of music. But the time I’m talking about here is not that version, it is the kind measured by the simple ticking of a clock: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. The passage of time is something I have been acutely aware of my whole life. I recognized early on that time is the most precious currency we have in our lives, and I have always tried to spend my time doing things that are, whenever possible, positive, constructive and rewarding. I have been very fortunate throughout my life to have had many memorable experiences, often involving wonderful people.
Recently, Rebecca and I were in Manhattan visiting my adult children. My daughter, who lives in the Gramercy Park area, invited us to meet her for lunch at a restaurant on Broadway just west of Madison Square Park. We had a delightful time together. As we were getting ready to leave, she said, “there is a bookstore next door that is very nice. But I don’t know if it’s still open. The windows have brown paper lining them on the inside.” We walked a few steps to the bookstore. Much to my surprise and delight, it was the Rizzoli bookstore, and it was indeed open. When we entered, we noticed that a young woman was standing on a small scaffold painting pictures on the brown paper in the windows.
As we began to browse through the rooms filled with books and soak-in the atmosphere of this store, I was reminded of the experience I had in the spring of 1968 on my first visit to Manhattan. That experience took place in the Rizzoli bookstore that then was located on Fifth Avenue in the Rockefeller Center area. (The story of that adventure is told in the post here at swingandbeyond.com on Billy Strayhorn’s magical composition “Chelsea Bridge,” and it can be accessed at endnote 1.) I had never gone back to that old Rizzoli store in my many returns to New York over the past five-plus decades, even though I was in that neighborhood many times. I assumed that it had closed and was gone forever.
The atmosphere of this bookstore, like that of its predecessor, can be described as warm and inviting. There was subtle lighting and lots of mahogany-colored wood paneling. Instead of the suited middle-aged male clerks who worked in the old Rizzoli bookstore in 1968, the staff here was comprised largely of attractive young women. They were dressed in a manner typified by youthful Manhattanites who have an awareness of fashion and style, but limited financial resources. They looked good, but with a suggestion of hipness. I felt exhilarated by all of this.
But, as much as I enjoyed all of the visual atmosphere in this bookstore, what hit me with the most emotional intensity was the music that was playing there at a discreet volume. As soon as I became aware of it, I recognized it as Bill Evans playing his composition “Time Remembered” in the recording of it he made in 1962 that also included inspired performances by tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims and guitarist Jim Hall. It is introspective music of great beauty and subtlety. As that recording progressed through its six-minute length, I reflected on many things, including the passing of time. How, I wondered, could almost 58 years have passed since I first had an experience like the one I was now having? Perhaps my good understanding of the concept of time was not as good as I thought it was. (2)
The music:
Bill Evans performed “Time Remembered” often, and many recordings of it by him exist, though most of them are in a piano trio format (piano/bass/drums). I like this instrumentation because it adds two other solo voices to Evans’s piano – Zoot Sims on tenor saxophone, and Jim Hall on guitar.
This is high-content music, despite its apparent simplicity when encountered for the first time. I consulted by music guru, Dennis Roden, about the form of “Time Remembered,” and this is what he said: “This is a 26 bar form, 2 8-bar phrases and a 10-bar phrase. Very impressionist – the harmonies don’t move as expected. Wikipedia had a good description:” “The work is built over four modes, dorian, phrygian, lydian and aeolian, and is notable for lacking dominant-like seventh chords, thus using only major and minor chords and their extensions (and employing many added 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths). According to Reilly, these two factors give the work a modal and impressionistic flavor. Shadwick notes that the piece “moves unexpectedly in its harmony and has an unusually long verse structure, forcing the soloist to concentrate hard on his shifting position within the maze.” (3)
Technical details aside, this is quite simply beautiful music. Evans’s playing on this recording is quintessential: the musical complexities are melded into something that is a joy to hear – gorgeous velvety, ethereal sounds. Zoot Sims, renowned for his great ability to swing mightily, is a masterful sound painter in this setting. His tone is particularly warm and affecting, and it reveals that both he, and his fellow four brother, Stan Getz, had imbibed as young men at the same fount of jazz, the playing of Lester Young. Guitarist Jim Hall also contributes playing that is most consonant with that of his colleagues. (Zoot Sims is pictured above right; Jim Hall left.)
The floating quality of this music is enhanced by the contrapuntal use of the bass, played here by Ron Carter, and the whispering, sometimes arrythmic drumming of Philly Joe Jones.
This recording was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) Here is a link to the story of my long-ago visit to an earlier iteration of the Rizzoli bookstore in Manhattan, along with Billy Strayhorn’s “Chelsea Bridge”: https://swingandbeyond.com/2017/02/11/chelsea-bridge-billy-and-billy-strayhorn-and-may/
(2) The Rizzoli bookstore I discussed in this post is located at 1133 Broadway, on the first floor of the St. James Building, just north of Worth Square.
(3) The “Reilly” referred to is American jazz pianist Jack Reilly. The “Shadwick” is Keith Shadwick, one of Bill Evans’s biographers. Reilly also noted that: “the work is influenced by both the sixteenth century modal works of the polyphonist masters (Palestrina, Byrd, Frescobaldi, etc.) and the works of impressionist composers (Debussy and Ravel).”
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