Peace Piece

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"Peace Piece" is a jazz piece recorded by

Flamenco Sketches", which Evans recorded with Miles Davis the following year; Davis took a liking to the piece and wanted to reuse it.[1][2]

Although a peaceful piece, it contains many discordant notes in the latter half. The composition, with its free form peaceful melody and timeless, meditational quality, has featured in numerous soundtracks of films and music in ballet choreography and has been recorded by fellow jazz musicians. It can be heard in

Eddie Gómez on bass and Jim Hall accompanying on guitar.[3]

Evans evokes the feeling of being alone in the piece and recalled that a teenage fan said that when he first heard it he "felt like he was standing all alone in New York".[3] Evans had many requests to play the piece live in his last years but he refused because he believed that the composition would lose its value and meaning as it had been an inspiration at the moment only. He only ever played it once live with the Bill Evans Dance Company in Seattle in 1978 to accompany an abstract and lyrical modern dance put on by the dancers.

Chuck Israels, later a bassist of the Bill Evans Trio, speaking of Peace Piece on his website:[3]

Peace Piece is an example of the depth of Evans' compositional technique. It is an ostinato piece, composed and recorded long before the more recent superficial synthesis of Indian and American music; in fact, it owes more to Satie and Debussy than to Ravi Shankar. The improvisation starts simply over a gentle ostinato, which quickly fades into the background. Evans allows the fantasy that evolves from the opening motive (an inversion of the descending fifth in the ostinato) more freedom than he would in an improvisation tied to a changing accompaniment. He takes advantage of the ostinato as a unifying element against which ideas flower, growing more lush and colorful as the piece unfolds. Polytonalities and cross rhythms increase in density as the ostinato undulates gently, providing a central rhythmic and tonal reference. The improvisation becomes increasingly complex against the unrelenting simplicity of the accompaniment, until, near the end, Evans gradually reconciles the two elements."

Jacques Réda, a poet and jazz critic, has written a poem in French about Peace Piece.

Peace Piece bears some resemblance to Frédéric Chopin's Berceuse in Db major;[8] both pieces use a two-chord left-hand ostinato throughout, and they both have an ornamented melody line.

American jazz musician and YouTuber Charles Cornell notes that Bill Evans may have been influenced by Erik Satie's Vexations [9]

In popular culture

The piece has been used in several films, including

Niemand in de stad
(film) in 2018.

In 2003, text art collective Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries used "Peace Piece" in 0PERATI0N NUK0REA, a fictional story about the nuclear destruction of Seoul in a future war between South and North Korea.

Covers

The track 'Fix It' by Lady Blackbird from the 2021 album 'Black Acid Soul' uses Peace Piece as its musical base.

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-313-34199-1
    . Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  2. ^ Jazz journal international. Billboard Ltd. 2008. p. 14. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  3. ^ a b c d Peace Piece, BillEvans.nl
  4. ^ Rusch, Bob (1 January 1993). Cadence. B. Rusch. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  5. ^ Jazz times. Jazztimes. 1982. p. 194. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  6. ^ Cadence. B. Rusch. 1995. p. 84. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  7. ^ The Advocate. 1997. p. 72. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  8. ISBN 9781107037533
    . Retrieved 4 February 2017.
  9. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hodDvJa9LF4&ab_channel=CharlesCornell
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