Must have been around '67 - '68, and most of what I heard from the dusty phono player in the Ivy Shop was Coltrane.  I recall John Lally was very into John Coltrane and his mid-sixties experimenting with soprano sax.  One album I remember was 'My Favourite Things' that also had some Gershwin and Cole porter songs.  By the late 60's this and other Decca Atlantic pressings of Coltrane were no longer in catalogue and hard to come by.  My particular favourite is Ole Coltrane - but I never heard John play this in the Ivy Shop. Copies of the Decca London Atlantic pressing, in mono only, were a rarity at that time. Stereo editions have been re-issued in recent years thankfully with the original album cover artwork.  The title track is something to immerse yourself into and be carried back to heady days in Richmond.

aye

BAGS & TRANE : was played and revered in both The Ivy Shop and J.Simons. It's the best thing either of them did.

www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000002I57/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=5174&s=music

g.g.

Bump for Bill Evans, he still is the king of nerd-Ivy cool.

There can be only one, and it was him.

I've always considered Shearing on JOASD as one of the highlights of the film. Kerouac was in awe of him:

Dean and I went to see Shearing at Birdland in the midst of the long, mad weekend. The place was deserted, we were the first customers, ten o'clock. Shearing came out, blind, led by the hand to his keyboard. He was a distinguished-looking Englishman with a stiff white collar, slightly beefy, blond, with a delicate English-summer's-night air about him that came out in the first rippling sweet number he played as the bass-player leaned to him reverently and thrummed the beat. The drummer, Denzil Best, sat motionless except for his wrists snapping the brushes. And Shearing began to rock; a smile broke over his ecstatic face; he began to rock in the piano seat, back and forth, slowly at first, then the beat went up, and he began rocking fast, his left foot jumped up with every beat, his neck began to rock crookedly, he brought his face down to the keys, he pushed his hair back, his combed hair dissolved, he began to sweat. The music picked up. The bass-player hunched over and socked it in, faster and faster, it seemed faster and faster, that's all. Shearing began to play his chords; they rolled out of the piano in great rich showers, you'd think the man wouldn't have time to line them up. They rolled and rolled like the sea. Folks yelled for him to "Go!" Dean was sweating; the sweat poured down his collar. "There he is! That's him! Old God! Old God Shearing! Yes! Yes! Yes!" And Shearing was conscious of the madman behind him, he could hear every one of Dean's gasps and imprecations, he could sense it though he couldn't see. "That's right!" Dean said. "Yes!" Shearing smiled, he rocked. Shearing rose from the piano, dripping with sweat; these were his great 1949 days before he became cool and commercial. When he was gone Dean pointed to the empty piano seat. "God's empty chair," he said. On the piano a horn sat; its golden shadow made a strange reflection along the desert caravan painted on the wall behind the drums. God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere.

Brubeck fascinated me for a short while - or so I thought.  It was actually Desmond I was listening to.  Marvellous player.  That's the way I prefer my jazz: not overwrought.  Jimmy Guiffre also suits me.  You can't beat Horace Silver, though, for sheer exuberance.

Bill Evans is on right now...  following half a dozen tracks from the glorious, stroppy Ben Webster... 
Evans - where does he fit in?
There are some excellent observations on this thread.
If you dig jazz, that is.

The time for more Evans grows near... 
I was listening to Oscar Peterson yesterday and twigged exactly why the old feller would have shied away from him.  Bits and pieces are acceptable but too much of it makes you stare out of the window and ponder whether you'll have corned beef, pastrami or salami with Swiss at lunchtime.

Bill Evans helped get me through two lockdowns!

Home schooling a 6 year old that didn’t want to be taught how to read and write and saw Power Rangers marathons as a viable alternative.

I’d sometimes stick ‘classical music for studies’ on YouTube. Sometimes Debussy. Often Bill Evans. I’m not saying either of us had a good time, but having these on as background kept both of us on a semi even keel. 

Sometimes I’d glance at the laptop and catch images of an unsmiling Evans and think ‘Yup. You and me both Bill’

I like his sound. Untainted by my lockdown experience, I often just YouTube it on my phone while ironing or polishing shoes. I couldn’t name any tracks but will be exploring further.

His early style and stance I like a lot. I intentionally bought a pair of spex similar to his. If I reach for something like a cord jacket I think of him. There’s a vibe about him. Like he’s a quiet man who has to do his thing but would rather be going unnoticed. I don’t know if that’s true?

Of course, like a lot, he later he succumbed to the 70’s Open University look.

Edited as I've been looking him up today. Clearly the wardrobe and haircut wasn't the worst thing he succumed to.

Last edited by Spendthrift (2022-05-18 03:29:32)

Square Dance...  In truth, Evans did swing a bit, though perhaps not as much as TSM.  Maybe he had to be in the right frame of mind, with the right people around him.
Clothing-wise, another thread mentions Hush Puppies - now as vile an object as I'd rather not imagine.  But what else did he dress in?  Tweed/corduroy jackets?  Flat-fronted trews?  The buttoned-up button-down?  A repp tie?

Keith Shadwick's in-depth study of Evans is packed with black and white photographs.  Clothes, shoes, hair, spectacles can all be studied at leisure, page after page. 
Gene Lees mentions Evans sporting, in the bitter cold, a 'windbreaker' - what, I guess, 60s children and parents in England referred to as a 'windcheater' (incapable of fending off the mildest of breezes in my experience) and not to be confused with a G9 or G4.  I think they were usually made of nylon or something similar.

There is a rare study of Evans smiling at his drummer.  Snapped at The Village Vanguard.