The Last Nights In Cuernavaca

Doc Nagel says that anybody who doesn't know Gil Evans music won't get this poem or even care to get this poem. Sasha Shusteff, one of the folks who used to use the Zoetrope Virtual Studios poetry page, gave it a great review with some very hip comments, and after I prodded him said he had never knowingly heard a Gill Evans arrangement, and said he didn't care, that he loved the poem all on its own merits.

HAH! Take that, Doc Nagel!

But the reason we're all here is to read Uncle Jim waxing sentimental over Gil Evans. Right?

This was actually an accident. I was surfing the net looking for information on jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, and I happened to stumble across Evans' bio. I read it, and suddenly it occurred to me that Evans died, if I'm remembering this correctly, literally within weeks of my first exposure to the wonderful, bizarre, heartful, rolling arrangement that is known by the name Svengali. (Doc Nagel, I'm sure, will dispute me on this: he gave me my first copy of the thing, and after I wore that out & subsequently lost it, he gave me my second copy of it.)

Come to think of it, I don't care if I am wrong. Gil Evans was an arranger, which, in my mind, makes him a musicians' musician. He envisioned, created, plumbed music out of thin air, and then drew it out of extremely diverse and talented and independent musicians, and some of his works are painfully beautiful. Svengali, in particular, stands out in my mind. It is one of a few albums that I have, in fact, memorized every note of, most of which I can bring to mind with little or no effort. (The same cannot be said of Evans' work with Miles Davis on Sketches of Spain because, in point of fact, Miles Davis was a Blue Meanie, and working with him must have been a bitch.)

I usually give myself a hard time for not knowing someone I admire has died, but with Gil I'm letting myself off the hook. His quiet passing in the wilds of Mexico back in 88 coinciding with my introduction to his peculiar brand of alchemy almost seems the sort of thing he would have.... um.... arranged.