On June 18, I mentioned that listening to a track several times is very important in terms of appreciating jazz. To go even further, it is a most informative and enjoyable plan to listen to the same artist playing the same piece several times. At the very end of Bill Evans' life, he performed at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco for nine nights (from August 31 to September 8, 1980 - he died on September 15). The performances that he gave are among the greatest in jazz history, and most of them were released in 2000 as The Last Waltz: The Final Recordings. (The only thing to dislike about the release is the title - it's not original. I'll be writing about The Band on another occasion, by the way.) It is an eight-CD set, and every piece is worth hearing, but what I'd like to recommend today is to listen to the performances of the piece entitled, "Nardis". It was one of Evans' favourites and is on the album six (!) times. It is a Miles Davis composition and a fascinating piece of music, with unusual interchanges between E major and minor. (Come to think of it, it is probably time to stop defining keys as major or minor - today there is such free mixture of the two that it can actually be misleading. Incidentally, one of the big characteristics of jazz is that there is nearly always more than one thing going on at a time - melodically, rhythmically, and as in this case, harmonically.) The musicians, Evans with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera, knowing the song so well, play with unbelievable freedom, creativity, sophistication, intelligence, knowledge. You'll be adding your own descriptions once you hear it.