Bill Evans

The Grammy concert

The festival was only a year old when Bill Evans played there for the first time. On 15 June 1968, at the Casino, his trio (Eddie Gómez on double bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums) gave a concert recorded live.

Released as “Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival”, the record won the 1969 Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. For the cover, Evans chose a photograph of the Château de Chillon: American jazz adopting a Vaud landscape.

Montreux II and Montreux III

Evans came back. On 19 and 20 June 1970, again at the Casino, he recorded with Eddie Gómez and drummer Marty Morell the album that would be released on CTI as “Montreux II”.

Then, on 20 July 1975, he returned a third time, this time as a duo with Gómez, without drums. That became “Montreux III”, released on Fantasy.

Three concerts, three line-ups, three different labels, and three albums whose titles carry the name of the town. Few artists have left a discographic trace so explicitly tied to Montreux.

The through-line: Eddie Gómez

Eddie Gómez is present on all three Montreux recordings, from 1968 to 1975. In 1968 it was a trio with Jack DeJohnette on drums, the album that won the Grammy. In 1970 another trio, with Marty Morell, produced “Montreux II”, on CTI. In 1975 only a piano-and-bass duo remained, with no drums: “Montreux III”, on Fantasy.

Bill Evans died in 1980. His three visits to Montreux thus span half of his last active decade.