Composer: #1 Gene Perla “Bill’s Waltz” – PM
Arranger: #3 Gene Perla
Big Band: #2 NDR BigBand
The Best 10 Jazz Instrumental CDs
#2 Gene Perla, Elvin Jones, Don Alias & NDR BigBand: “Bill’s Waltz” - PM

It's amazing that the band can keep such a good swing playing "on top" of your takes. I'm sure that has a lot to do with you! To me it sounds like you really tie things together on potentially difficult places. I remember talking to Andy McKee about how he had to "break the Elvin code" in order to make things swing, with that great, great tension that Elvin ALWAYS creates within a beat. You totally got it Gene. It sounds so relaxed and obvious. Nice compositions too, some of the struck me to be "timeless" if you know what I mean. Hope you have more in a drawer somewhere:-)

You must have had some serious considerations about this record since it has taken you almost 22 years to get from that day in the studio to this point. I don't know what those considerations might have been about, and I'm just emerging on the music scene myself, but I can only say this:

Thank's bringing it to life!
Thank's for sharing it with the rest of us!
Thank's for keeping Elvin alive!

All the best wishes, and a thousand thank yous!!

18 Oct 08
"Eclipse"
"Swissterday"

The original concept of the compositions revolved around the idea of orchestrating the late Jones' amazing drum sound. Way back in the fall of 1986, Perla (on Fender–Rhodes) and Jones spent two days in a New York City studio recording. What emerged from those tapes was Jones' amazing isolated drum technique for Perla to build and orchestrate his compositions around. In the original concept Perla had planned to use MIDI and play everything himself while concentrating on Elvin's one–of–a–kind drum attacks.

Then some 20 years later (2006) at a gig in Switzerland, Perla played some rough tracks of his long–standing project for drummer Danny Gottlieb, who suggested that Germany's NDR BigBand would be a perfect fit for these unique Elvin tracks. After going to Paris (May, 07') to arrange and orchestrate the music and then to Hamburg (July 07') to conduct the band, Perla then returned to the states for the final editing and mixing of the tracks.

The end result is 10 tracks featuring as close a facsimile as one could get to what it would have sounded like to hear Jones in a big band setting, something Perla says his friend always had a desire to do. Perla also states that as he now looks back, he is amazed at the fact that in seven out of the nine tracks, Jones did not even know the songs. He merely listened through the music once or twice (played by Perla) and nailed it!

Then after years with the project sitting on the shelf, Perla picked up where he had left off. Back in ’86, another close friend, drummer/percussionist Don Alias, then added some percussion to the two Latin–flavored tracks, and 20 years later the NDR BigBand donned headphones and fit their horns around Elvin's original drum grooves.

Quite frankly, and with the way these cats flow, it is almost hard to believe that the drum tracks were laid down over 20 years prior to the rest of the music. It is evident that this CD was a labor of love for Perla, a collection of originals (except for one track, “I'm Popeye The Sailor Man”) some 20–plus years in the making.

A very unique project that started out as two band mates jamming in the studio, but in the end would become a tribute to a dear friend. Bill's Waltz is a highly recommended collection and a piece of very unique jazz history.

Imagine, then, how some listeners will feel when confronted with Bill's Waltz, an album that reunites bassist Gene Perla with the late, great Elvin Jones (as well as deceased Latin percussionist, Don Alias, for two tracks)? Even worse, how will those listeners react when the album turns out to be pretty remarkable?

As related in his liner-notes, Perla recorded the basic tracks with Jones in the fall of 1986 (with Perla on Fender Rhodes). His intention had been to orchestrate the entire album himself using MIDI and playing all the parts. Alias was later brought in to add congas to two Latin tunes. Flashing forward twenty years or so, Perla played some prelimiary tracks of the Jones tracks for fellow drummer Danny Gottlieb, who suggested that Perla have the NDR Big Band (of Hamburg, Germany) play along with Jones's original tracks. Perla recorded some bass parts in 2007 and went to work with the band for five days, resulting in a Firewire hard drive loaded with Protools files which Perla and engineer Nick de la Motte set to work editing and mixing.

All well and good, some might say, but how does it sound? In a word: remarkable. The original 1986 recordings of Jones have been seamlessly integrated into the big band setting recorded more than two decades later. And Jones is in top form, producing his patented polyrhythms all over the place. The NDR band is fantastic, creating a provocative multilayered sound that manages not to overwhelm the work of the rhythm section. Perla himself steers the entire proceeding from the rear, everpresent but never overbearing (some consider this a defining mark of a truly great bassist). Soloists are not singled out in the notes, but everyone acquits himself admirably (one example is a particularly fine flute solo on “Eclipse”). Perla notes in the liners that Jones had more than once expressed his desire to work with a big band, and it is indeed wonderful to hear him in this setting.

But what of the improvisational spirit of jazz? How can an ensemble, however talented, interact with a prerecorded drum track? Here's a possible answer. One of the essential tenents of improv is saying “yes, and...” to a fellow performer's offer. In other words, the improvisor agrees with the offer and adds his or her own unique contribution. On the 1986 tracks, Jones is making plenty of offers and the 2007 ensemble is saying “yes, and...” to each of those offers. This is the very essence of improv. And it makes really tremendous music.

The project started in November 1986 and was concluded in August 2008. That is some gestation period!

There are 10 tracks on the album, Bill's Waltz (named after Bill Evans) and nine of these are original Gene Perla compositions. The exception being Sam Lerner's I'm Popeye The Sailor Man in which trombonist Dan
Gottshall struts his stuff with laid back confidence. The ensemble work of the big band, the soloists, and pre-recorded tracks is showcased in Perla's tune Bogota Morning Bird, allowing a fat sound to get behind Fiete Felsch and Peter Bolte on alto saxes and Gene Perla on bass.

I don't know why, but the overall sound, to my ears, is not that of a traditional US or UK big band. There is an intangible sound quality that makes you pay attention. Maybe it is the phrasing of the brass or the reed section that creates a 'foreign' sound and I don't mean that in a negative sense.

This album is a tour de force for Gene Perla. Having played with Elvin Jones at the Five Spot in NYC in the mid-1960s, Perla knows his man and the music, and as he says in his liner notes, "I can't begin to tell you how
many times I have shed tears listening to Elvin and thinking how he probably would be happy to hear himself in this project."

Couldn't have put it better myself, Gene!