[Los Angeles Times Archives]

Friday, April 9, 1993
Orange County Edition
Section: Calendar
Page: F-24

PLAYING HOMAGE; DAVID BENOIT PLANS TO OPEN HIS COACH HOUSE SHOW WITH A SONG BILL EVANS COMPOSED FOR HIS OWN SON EVAN EVANS;

By BILL KOHLHAASE
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

It's natural for David Benoit, a keyboardist known for his expressionistic ways, to play the music of Bill Evans, the late pianist revered for his own expressive, deeply revealing style. Benoit, who appears at the Coach House tonight, says he'll open the concert with the title tune from his latest album, "Letter to Evan."

The tune, written by Evans a year before his death in 1980 from a bleeding ulcer and pneumonia, was addressed to his then 4-year-old son. Though Evans performed the piece in concert, he never recorded it.

It's a particularly serendipitous tale of how Benoit came by it while developing a friendship with Evan, now 17 and a student at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, and his mother, Nenette Evans, who live in Laguna Niguel. "Evan came in with his mother to see my show at the Coach House when he was 14, and we talked and made this connection and became friends," Benoit explained in a phone conversation earlier this week from his home in Palos Verdes.

"Pretty soon, Nenette started sending me manuscripts that (Bill) had written in his own hand, and 'Letter To Evan' was one of them," he said. "So I started having fun with it and asked her if I could record it."

Nenette Evans, speaking by phone from her home, said the sheet music penned by her husband gave directions to her son to listen and study the music at least once each year after his 12th birthday.

"It was a message, a will, a passing on of ideas with a hidden message inside the song. Something would be revealed to (Evan) through the study of the song. You'd have to have known Bill to understand the complexity of that. . . . There was some kind of secret inheritance in the song that comes through in the music itself. But I don't know what it meant."

Evan Evans, in a phone conversation from New Orleans where he was spending spring break with family friends, says he isn't sure that he's deciphered whatever message the tune may contain.

"It would be interesting for me to really analyze it some time, but if there's any message, I haven't found it yet. There were also some words written to the tune, so if there is any message, it wouldn't really be hidden."

His mother thinks that Evan, a classically trained trumpet player who has been composing since he was 11 and already has a handful of scoring credits, has gotten meaning from the music. "In a way, it's been sad for me, watching him go into music like his father. But Evan has a great mind, and he'll make a definite contribution."

Benoit says he, too, benefited from studying the senior Evans' work.

"I was turned on to him later in life, around 21. I was living in Hollywood at the time and just got really excited about his music. It's like Miles Davis in terms of trumpet players: Everybody has a different experience with Bill Evans," he said. "Mine feels so personal, especially now that I know Evan and the whole family.

"This most recent album captures a bit of what Bill Evans meant to me. I've been getting more and more into the deeper aspects of his playing, the way he shaped notes and brought certain notes out by giving them a little more authority. The deeper I get into his playing, the more I realize how little I sound like him."

The album also includes Evans' "Knit for Mary F.," as well as Dave Brubeck's "Kathy's Waltz," a number pulled from Brubeck's now-classic "Time Out" album.

"I wanted to do his 'Blue Rondo a la Turk,' " Benoit said. "But I didn't for two reasons: First, a lot of people have covered it. Second, I would have had to practice to get it where I wanted it to be before I recorded it." Benoit says his piano solo on "Kathy's Waltz" is a transcription of Brubeck's solo on the original recording.

The "Letter to Evan" disc also includes evidence of Benoit's growing interest in classical music. Examples can be heard on his version of Dave Grusin's "On Golden Pond," in which cello and flute play important roles, and Benoit's classically paced style on his own "Waiting for Love."

The pianist, who's been refining a new direction, says he renewed his classical studies two years ago and has even taken conducting lessons.

"Instead of going to a more be-bop or hard-bop or traditional style, I'm actually trying to find a new thing mixing elements of classical music and traditional elements with other influences, Brazilian and world beat. And I'm going to explore that direction more.

"I think we've just run out of breathing space with synthesizers and fusion. I think a lot of people are feeling like, hey, we've got to go somewhere else now. We've been pounding the pavement with this kind of music for five or six years. Let's try something different."

Benoit, whose first studio assignment found him playing piano for Robert Altman's 1975 film "Nashville" (that's Benoit playing honky-tonk behind the closing credits) is now musical director for the new ABC-TV series "Sirens."

In addition to his solo work, Benoit has recently completed a fusion project with guitarist Russ Freeman and will tour Asia later this spring with an all-star band that includes guitarist Larry Carlton.

For the Coach House concert, Benoit will concentrate on material from "Letter to Evan" in the company of drummer David Anderson, bassist Dave Enos, guitarist Peter Sprague and Orange County-bred saxophonist Eric Marienthal.

"Eric's always our first choice here, being a local boy," Benoit said.

And, yes, Evan Evans says he'll be home from New Orleans in time to catch the show.

* David Benoit plays tonight at 7 and 9:30 p.m., at the Coach House,
33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $19.50. (714) 496-8930.

PHOTO: David Benoit says, "This most recent album captures a bit of what Bill Evans meant to me."
PHOTOGRAPHER: RANDY LEFFINGWELL / Los Angeles Times
Type of Material: PROFILE