Leon Lee Dorsey, Mike Clark, and Michael Wolff

Letter to Bill Evans

Jazz Avenue 1

Letter to Bill Evans is the seventh installment of the partnership between bassist Leon Lee Dorsey and drummer Mike Clark, many of which we’ve covered here. For this outing, they enlisted pianist Michael Wolff, who has long internalized the music of Bill Evans, whom he met and considers his first-time mentor. Wolff also has deep ties to Clark, the two having played in Wolff’s band Impure Thoughts and on Wolff’s 2021 recording, Live @ Vitello’s (covered here). The duo also formed the Wolff & Clark Expedition and put out two recordings. Wolff had previously appeared with Dorsey and Clark on 2020’s Play Sgt. Pepper. This may seem to be a bit of an odd choice for Dorsey and the high energy Clark (celebrating fifty years in The Headhunters) but they don’t’ necessarily try to emulate Evans although on many tracks you’ll hear Clark’s delicate brush work. As per usual, they will swing when given the littlest opportunity. They split the difference relatively evenly.

All out swinging takes hold on “My Romance,” “Peri’s Scope” with Clark stirring it up on eights, and standout, written by Miles but long identified with Evans, “Nardis,” which features intense, definitively glorious piano from Wolff and a briefer turn for Dorsey.  The trio injects some high strutting funk into “Interplay,” riding Dorsey’s unshakably sturdy walking bass line while Clark channels his drumming hero Philly Joe Jones, who appears along Evans, bassist Percy Heath, guitarist Jim Hall and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard on the 1962 classic, Interplay. The trio takes flight on the closer, “You and the Night and the Music,” where Wolff performs something we may never have heard from Evans, double octave melody lines.  Yet, the swinging aspect of Dorsey and Clark, as we said, comes as no surprise. That is their stock and trade.

The more revealing aspect of the album, as expected, given that it nods to Evans, is the delicate, tender, restrained playing on the ballads. While Wolff has long established his versatile reputation, we rarely hear Clark on brushes and with the whispering cymbal sweeps that we hear on this effort. The prime case in point is “Time Remembered,” complete with Wolff’s nearly two-minute intro.  Along with “Nardis,” “Waltz for Debby” is another tune most often associated with Evans, with the trio’s rendition faithful and unequivocally just as elegant. “Turn Out the Stars” is a master class in restrained execution, down to the crescendo that comes mid-piece.

Once Dorsey and Clark decided to go in the direction of Bill Evans, Wollf was a rather obvious choice, not just due to his relationship with Clark but because he is one of Evans’ most devoted acolytes.  He first heard the pianist at age 15, listening to Live at the Village Vanguard, courtesy of his piano teacher. Wolff claims that it was “life changing.” He tne heard Evans live in San Francisco at the age of 18 and met his hero while playing dates with Cal Tjader. He caught Evans any time the pianist appeared in the Bay Area, often had breakfast with his hero, and over the years, internalized most of Evans’ music.

It all comes together, almost full circle, in these latter stages of Wolff’s and Clark’s career, perhaps with a tad more energy than what we associate with Evans. That is rather remarkable given the average age of this trio at 70 years of age. Evans died young at 51 in 1980, and his later years were far from vibrant, as we know. Dorsey and Clark keep us guessing and there’s no doubt they have plenty more left in the tank.

 

Jim Hynes

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