[soft jazz music]
- [singing] It's a lazy afternoon
- The very first time I met him was at a record day
with a singer named Lucy Reed.
And I was introduced to him-- "How do you do?"
That's all it was.
[jazz music]
I became interested in his music
with the recording "Kind of Blue."
That's what started me.
[music continues]
It was the summer of '62,
but I believe that's when it was.
- Bill was floundering without management.
I induced Helen to become Bill's manager.
- Gene Lees brought us together.
- And I told her, "You've got to come and hear this guy.
- And he took me down to the Village Vanguard one night,
and that was it.
[soft jazz piano music]
Gene and I were together for many years.
- And it became an impassioned love affair.
[music continues]
- I think he was the first writer
to really write in depth about Bill,
when he was editor of "DownBeat."
- And I said, "This guy's a major artist,"
and I decided I wanted to put him on the cover.
- I really didn't have any aspirations
to be a record producer
because it was so much of a man's world.
[soft jazz piano music]
So the "Town Hall" album--
I actually produced that.
It was right after that
that I became official-- his producer.
[music continues]
When he signed with Verve Records
and Creed Taylor was the producer,
I was always there.
And Creed spoon-fed me. He brought me along.
He said, "You're a producer."
By the time Creed left in 1966,
I was already producing most of the records,
but Creed's name was still appearing.
[jazz piano music]
- Helen was-- she was very strong
and very good for Bill.
He'd have been dead without her.
I don't think Bill would've had the career he did without her.
- In the early '60s, that may have been
the last anybody had ever heard Bill Evans without my mom, yeah.
[music continues]
- In the musicians' world, everybody knew about Bill Evans.
It felt like I was recording with a symphony.
- The mutual respect--
Bill used to talk about Tony all the time.
They had this great feeling for each other.
Oh, and one day I picked up the phone,
called Jack, and said, "I have an idea."
- And Bill said, "Keep all the groupies away
"from the record day.
Just you and I come in, you know, and Helen."
[singing] Take care...
- They both said yes immediately.
I mean, it was the fastest "okay" I think I ever got.
[jazz piano music]
- Ellaine was so, so tuned in to Bill.
Ellaine was his strength, as much as she could be,
being a partner heroin addict with him.
[music continues]
- They were together for 12 years.
They were a devoted couple.
They were together when I met Bill,
and they had been together for a couple of years, I think.
- My mother and Ellaine were really, really tight.
- She became my closest friend.
She was brilliant.
Brilliant woman, but her life was Bill.
[soft jazz piano music]
Ellaine Evans was there at the Vanguard.
Ellaine turned me on to the stories of Franz Kafka.
She was wonderful. Talk about an attentive person.
She was so attentive to me as a youngster.
[music continues]
- We had come back from Japan,
and he was booked in California, and he met this other woman--
Nenette, N-E-N-E-T-T-E.
And Ellaine just wasn't able to handle it.
[train squeals]
[horn blares]
- It was at college when my mother called me and told me
when Ellaine committed suicide.
- She killed herself.
She had no life but Bill.
She just--
She was a very fragile person--
brilliant but very fragile.
[somber jazz piano music]
- Le pianiste Bill Evans.
[cheers and applause]
- My mom was totally centered on Bill.
She's producing Bill's albums.
[lively jazz piano music]
- My experience with Bill with big record companies
was unique.
Bill had a quality about himself as a man.
[soft jazz piano music]
It was almost like an aura.
He was not arrogant.
He was the kindest, sweetest man in the world,
but people did not mess around with Bill.
- And whatever album she was working on,
you know, listening to take after take--
In our household, Bill Evans was the religion.
[music continues]
- He was treated with the utmost respect
by the record companies.
"Awe" is a better word.
[music continues]