Todays Song of the Day November 3, 2026 Bill Evans-Portrait in Jazz- Riverside Records-1960-"Come Rain of Come Shine"

 

Today’s song of the day brings us to the great pianist Bill Evans and an album that I have cherished for years, Portrait in Jazz from Riverside Records released in 1960. The cover showed a studious looking gentleman in a jacket and tie, staring into the camera with a serious, meek, almost yearbook-like portrait announcing this man has come. One could hardly look at the front cover and expect to hear what they would hear by playing the vinyl inside, but the nine tracks on the original release would change forever people’s minds about what a piano trio should sound like.

While it was the fifth album that was to be released by that time, it was importantly the first studio recording of the trio that included the revolutionary double bassist Scott LaFaro and the attentive, space creating drummer Paul Motian. This trio would soon set the standard for three-piece interaction and expression. Three equal parts merging into a coherent unit that complimented and encouraged each other by anticipation, intuition and freedom of spirit. The rhythm section would never be seen quite the same. Of the nine pieces on the album two, “Peri’s Scope” and “Blue and Green” were Evans compositions. Even though the pianist shared composition rights to “Blue and Green” with Miles Davis, with whom he first recorded it on Kind of Blue in March of 1959, most believed it was actually Evans creation as it was often common for band leaders to claim composition rights for the royalties.

Either of these two compositions are easily worthy of being chosen as a song of the day, but today I choose the Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer classic “Come Rain or Come Shine,” which Riverside chose to be the opening cut on the album. The song was written for the Broadway musical St Louis Woman that opened in March of 1946.  Evans’ approach enlivens the repeating melody with his own sense of how to accent and emphasize the pastoral sense within this music, as LaFaro serves up a deft accompaniment and Motian creates a floating backdrop. Evan’s splendid facility allows him to create embellishments that make his version a continuous fountain of ideas that percolate in front of the listener. His flourished cadenza is just inspired! The song became a continuing source of great inspiration for the pianist and over the years Evans included and recorded this song in his repertoire multiple times.