This week, I want to talk about the song Nardis, played by the Bill Evans Trio. This song was originally written by Miles Davis for Cannonball Adderley, on his album, Portraits of Adderley. This was during Davis’s modal jazz period, which actually defines quite a bit of the song’s sound, but I will get to that later. Early this year, maybe in January, I found this song on a jazz radio, and I really liked how it sounded at first. I was just getting into my 4 month jazz only period, and I thought that this song was just going to be another one of the songs on the playlist. This song ended up being one of maybe 10 songs on the playlist that stays in my rotation to this day. I would say I mostly listen to hip hop, but I can’t not share any jazz songs on this blog.
The song’s structure is actually quite unique from what I can tell. When Davis wrote this song, I mentioned he was in his “modal period”. This was basically a time in jazz where innovators like Miles Davis and John Coltrane explored the realm of jazz music beyond the rigid structures of bebop. Bebop is a subgenre of jazz characterized by fast paced melodies and technical mastery, built on top of textbook chord changes, like the 2-5-1. Modal jazz allows the musician to explore different modes of chords. Modes of chords are different ways to play a scale of music. I am not very good at explaining them without a deep dive of music theory, but here is an article (2) that does it pretty well. While this is unimportant for one’s enjoyment of the song, I think it is worth mentioning because this is my blog, and it is interesting to me :). Also, it might be worth checking out this breakdown of Nardis here (3).
The reason I mention modes is because they allow for so much more freedom and color on the song. While this is not a quintessential modal jazz song, I think the trio does a great job at showing what melodies and colors can be created with the extra freedom. The song starts out with an infectious head, and leads into a solo by Scott Lafaro. This bass solo is one of my favorites of all time. There is something about his playing that is so simple but also so enchanting. His intricate melodies flow smoothly over Evans’s accompaniment. After around 2-3 minutes of the bass solo, Evans enters with his. This piano solo is very beautiful in my opinion, and as one YouTube comment said “not many notes, but the right ones”. This is the perfect way to describe this. He mixes melody and space perfectly, and it almost feels like the notes are so delicate, like a snowflake almost. I can’t think of another comparison, but the notes are designed with such intent, and they flow so naturally, too.
Overall, this song has a great balance between energetic and casual, and I think that this is due to Evans’ and Lafaro’s masterful playing. Paul Motian’s contributions on drums should also not be overlooked. I will probably post some other Bill Evans songs, as I tend to have a bias for cool, modal type stuff, which he is excellent at.
Links:
(1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxzeDpBvxv4
(2): https://www.musicradar.com/how-to/what-are-modes-in-music-and-how-do-they-work
(4): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Evans
(5): https://bungalowblog.medium.com/waltz-for-debby-1961-live-version-ce3fd33637c3