""Sometimes an intermission is part of the music," American jazz pianist Bill Evans is told in Everybody Digs Bill Evans. The first fiction feature from music video and documentary filmmaker Grant Gee is an intense portrait of an interval in Evans's life where he stopped playing, deep in grief and heroin addiction after the death of his bandmate in a car crash."
"Evans, a pianist who cut his teeth playing in Miles Davis's band, formed his own trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian in 1959. Two years later, they played a residency at New York's Village Vanguard which was live-taped and released as two of the most revered jazz records of all time, Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby."
""When you listen to those recordings, it's like listening to one organism," said Danielsen Lie. "So when Scott LaFaro died, it was like cutting off a limb. He was totally unable to play in the months that followed. But then, everyone who played with Miles Davis had been told to play less, and constantly be aware of the musical effect of silence. It's very, very important in jazz to shut up. So for me it's kind of a metaphor for what jazz is about too.""
Everybody Digs Bill Evans portrays a period when jazz pianist Bill Evans stopped playing after bassist Scott LaFaro's death, sinking into grief and heroin addiction. Evans formed a trio with LaFaro and Paul Motian, and their 1961 Village Vanguard residency produced Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby. LaFaro's death ten days later sent Evans into deep depression and months of inability to play. The film uses smoky living rooms, grainy black-and-white and lurid colour flashes to depict Evans leaving his empty apartment to stay with blue-collar parents in Florida and with his brother's family in Manhattan. Bill Pullman plays his alcoholic father; Valene Kane plays partner Ellaine Schultz.
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