An Accidental Muse

Vocalist Karen Gallinger wasn’t having much luck as she explored directions for her fourth CD. Her first idea, a guitar-accompanied project, didn’t develop the way she’d hoped.

Her love for the music of pianist Bill Evans suggested a theme. After all, the year 2000 marked the 20th anniversary of the troubled pianist’s death at the age of 51. But after weeks of searching various sources for lyrics set to the music of the revered trio leader, who was an associate of Miles Davis, she had little to show.

Then her luck changed.

After a disappointing day of collecting what little Evans material she had managed to find and concluding that much more time would be needed, she ventured out that evening to immerse her cares in music at a local Laguna Beach nightspot. There, she was seated at a table with Nenette Evans, the pianist’s widow and a resident of Laguna Niguel.

Suddenly, Gallinger couldn’t believe her luck. “I had no idea that there even was a Bill Evans wife, let alone that she was living nearby. And here I was sitting with her. The universe brought us together that night.”

But the impact of that celestial serendipity was not immediately apparent. “I told her I was researching a tribute album for Bill, and she said something like, ‘Yeah, you and everybody else.’ I told her about the trouble I was having finding lyrics to his songs. She told me to send her a copy of the album when it was finished.”

Before leaving that night, Gallinger gave Evans a copy of her previous CD, “My Foolish Heart.”

Evans was impressed with what was on the disc. “I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t heard of this wonderful singer before,” she said. “I was deeply moved by her talent and her interpretations of the music. I immediately wanted to help her with her project.”

Gallinger picks up the story. “Nenette called me early the next morning and said, ‘Get up, we’re going to breakfast.’ She brought a bag with a wealth of material and a ton of lyrics.”

That exchange produced much of the material that will appear on Gallinger’s next recording, “Karen Gallinger, Remembering Bill Evans: A Vocal Tribute,” set for release this spring on Seabreeze Records. Included with several new, Gallinger-penned lyrics will be unrecorded Evans material, including a lyric written by the pianist but never performed.

Sunday, in an effort to defray the costs of producing the album, the fruits of that meeting were presented publicly. During the second set of a three-set performance at the Orange County Musicians Assn. building in Santa Ana, Gallinger sang eight of the 13 songs from the forthcoming album, backed by pianist Tom Zink, bassist Kevin Axt and drummer Chris Wabich. In the audience of 100 or so Evans and Gallinger fans was Nenette Evans.

“It’s amazing how Karen has reached into the music,” Evans said after the performance. “She’s so involved; it’s as if she bleeds with the music.”

Nenette Evans, who met the pianist at Howard Rumsey’s defunct Redondo Beach jazz club Concerts By the Sea, was married to him in 1973 and is the mother of his son, Evan Evans, 24, a film score producer in Glendale. She is active in educating and supporting other jazz widows with copyright and estate questions as well as being the administrator of the Evans estate. She was raised in Fullerton, moved east after marrying the pianist and returned to Orange County after his death.

Her memories also play a part in Gallinger’s project. The singer introduced her lyric to Evans’ never-recorded “Catch the Wind” with the story of Evan Evans, then 5 years old, remarking at his father’s funeral that if Dad could only catch the wind, he could breathe. The innocent remark inspired Gallinger to come up with her melancholy verses.

Gallinger, a Carmen McRae-influenced vocalist whose deep tones remind many of Sarah Vaughan, has an amazing ability to cover boisterous blues and quiet ballads (she sang jazz in her first set Sunday, then the Evans material, and closed with her electric blues band). Well-suited to the sensitivity of the Evans material, she nonetheless imparted strong doses of her good-natured personality in her lyric to one of Evans’ more lively tunes, “Funkanello” (“I don’t mean to be rude/I’m just feeling Funkanello”). She managed Janice Boria’s athletic lyric to Evans bop-paced “Five” with aplomb.

Evans’ relationship to his brother Harry, who committed suicide, was the focus of Gallinger’s lyric to “Time Remembered,” retitled “Dawn Preludes” for Gallinger’s CD, on which she performs backed by guitar and cello.

The most insightful piece of the afternoon was “Remembering the Rain,” with Evans’ lyrics, discovered after his death by his wife. Performed in public for the first time, its tight rhyming pattern and general wit had much in common with the style of Gallinger’s writing.

Information on Bill Evans, including memoir selections from Nenette Evans, can be found at https://www.billevans.org.

For information on Karen Gallinger performances call (714) 536-7358 or check the Web site at https://www.apc.net/kareng/index.html