We Talked for a Minute

There’s something about Gil Evans. Ever since I heard the three-part profile of him on Nancy Wilson’s Jazz Profiles series on NPR, I’ve felt a nagging affinity for his swinging mood and his style in sound. Some of it has to do with his friendship and lifelong collaboration with Miles Davis, who I love in spite of, or because of his fraught reputation. Some of it has to do with the fact that he was born under the sign of Taurus, like I was, like Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Ella Fitzgerald, Mary Lou Williams, Malcolm X— they can try but they can’t divide the tribe. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child save for a specific group of loyal, creatively obsessive souls who are so motivated by beauty they become emissaries of Venus in the lives of others, sometimes mistaken for foolish or indulgent when the task is very serious, militant, often involuntary or a function of divine will. It’s rare to hear Gil’s voice, huddled in a warm, wane, twang, describing process, what he learned from Fletcher Henderson, his deep love for Louis Armstrong, his father, a coal miner, his upbringing around pop music and self-education in jazz. There’s a sparkle in his tone, awe in his cadence, sweet manic melancholy in it, and a nearly incriminating humility.