Pianist’s Goal Is to Play Through Bill Evans’ Eyes

Harry Pickens playing a musical tribute to pianist Bill Evans is a little like George Gershwin playing a tribute to Debussy. Their two styles could not be more different.

Evans, a major though little-known figure in the history of jazz, is remembered most often for his quiet, introverted delicacy. He died in 1980. Pickens, a dynamic, 6-foot, 9-inch pianist who has a commanding stage presence, works in an exuberant, extroverted style that is almost the antithesis of Evans’.

Despite such musical differences, Pickens will play a tribute to Evans at 8 tonight at the Words & Music Bookstore in Hillcrest.

“Everybody in San Diego who has heard me is going to be totally surprised,” Pickens said this week. “I personally prefer to play in a way that expresses joy. I don’t get into a Bill Evans mood and essence. There was an undertone of melancholy in his music.”

Pickens, who abandoned the New York jazz scene last year for San Diego, will also comment on Evans’ impact on jazz and show video footage of Evans both playing and speaking about the creative process.

Evans’ exalted position in the world of jazz made him an easy choice as the first in a series of jazz tributes Pickens plans to play at Words & Music.

“Bill Evans was by far the most influential pianist of the 1960s,” Pickens said. “He influenced Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett, and of course those three became the most influential pianists of the ‘70s.

“So that says something for Bill. He was a musician whose influence on jazz music will be considered one day as being nearly as profound an influence as John Coltrane.”

Indeed, Evans, Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley helped bring about a landmark shift in jazz as members of Miles Davis’ now legendary 1958 sextet. But Evans has yet to gain a large audience, Pickens said.

“Evans represented an essential transition in jazz. He blended European influences with jazz influences in new ways. He brought a new subtlety to the music, a new hierarchy of values and an emotional depth that is rivaled by very few musicians in the idiom.

“Listening to his trio, particularly in the early ‘60s, was like listening to a string quartet. And it demanded that kind of subtlety on the part of the listener,” Pickens said.

Words & Music proprietor Victor Margolis, himself a pianist, was surprised and delighted at the unlikely Pickens-Evans pairing.

Margolis praised Pickens as “a risk-taking pianist. There are many jazz people who play it very safe. He doesn’t play it safe at all. He is willing to go out on a limb musically and find his way back.”

Pickens, who has worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Milt Jackson and James Moody, among others, said he uses an “accelerated learning” technique to get into another musician’s style of playing.

“To get that undertone of sadness and melancholy, I have literally had to get inside (Evans’) head and his feelings. The more I know his world view--how he saw the world--the more accurately I can express his intent.”

To prepare himself for tonight’s concert, Pickens envisioned himself performing as Evans, and repeatedly played selected recordings that are “intensely reflective” of the other pianist.

Pickens has programmed Evans standards such as “Peace Piece,” “A Waltz for Debbie,” “Peri’s Scope” and “Israel.”

Pickens will also play from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday with the Charles McPherson Quartet at the San Diego Museum of Art Sculpture Garden Cafe in Balboa Park.