Gil Evans

Canada, 1933–1988

Canadian-American arranger and bandleader (1912-1988) who treated an orchestra as a single instrument. Birth of the Cool, Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain were built around Miles Davis, and the voicings — french horn, tuba and woodwinds inside a jazz band — became a language of their own.

MusicRoots documents 4 artists who influenced Gil Evans and 2 artists Gil Evans influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Gil Evans?

• Duke Ellington — Evans dated his career to an Ellington concert in 1927, and heard him on the radio for years after.
• Louis Armstrong — Part of the radio education Evans described: 'Louis Armstrong came on all the time, and so did Duke.'
• Fletcher Henderson — One of the three earliest influences named for Evans — the arranger who first made a big band a written form.
• Claude Thornhill — Thornhill hired Evans in 1941 and handed him the sound he spent a career refining — those unusual brass and woodwind voicings.

Which artists did Gil Evans influence?

• Herbie Hancock — The fourth name on the list — orchestral colour applied to jazz harmony, which is what Speak Like a Child is doing with three horns.
• Jan Johansson — The other. Evans is where the idea comes from that an arrangement can be the whole statement, which is what Jazz pa svenska does with two instruments.