Anders Danielsen Lie and Will Sach in Everybody Digs Bill Evans [© Shane O’Connor 2026 Cowtown Pictures. Hot Property]
IF you haven’t seen the melancholy masterpiece Everybody Digs Bill Evans, I urge you to do so before it disappears from large screens.
There have been criticisms of the movie from some quarters, such as how it concentrates on a single, brief and gloomy period of his life, but that gives the movie a focus most musical biopics don’t have.
Some have lamented that there isn’t much of Bill’s playing in there, but that makes it all the more thrilling and cathartic when it does appear, as in the scene where his parents (brilliant performances by Bill Pullman and Laurie Metcalf) listen to the Sunday at the Village Vanguard album. And Anders Danielsen Lie, who also plays most of Bill’s piano parts, does a wonderful job of portraying a troubled, grieving genius.
Two very familiar faces on the London jazz scene also contributed to the movie.
Will Sach [www.willsach.com]
Bassist player Will Sach, a regular face at Jazz in Kentish Town (see https://jazzattheparakeet.com/), portrays Scott La Faro, whose death in a car wreck sent Evans into a dark spiral.
And when the film flashes forward and bursts into colour to show an older, hairier Evans playing a wild, unhinged version of Suicide is Painless (Theme from M.A.S.H.), that is actually Welsh whizzkid Joe Webb at the keyboard.
You can hear this pair as part of new series of concerts at the intimate Bechstein Hall – which was the original name of its larger sibling, the Wigmore Hall, until anti-German sentiment in the First World War caused a change – on October 15.
It’s unlikely to be a Bill Evans tribute concert – the pair are exceptionally versatile, able to play music from any era of jazz – but it’ll be quite the gig by two players at the top of their game.
Other concerts at the 100-seat hall include Ronnie Scott’s MD James Pearson scoping out the history of jazz piano from Ragtime to Big Band (September 24); Ian Shaw bringing along his new show, Elton, Bowie, Waits, Ray & Me (October 29), with support from his well-honed wit, and young and highly rated NYC singer Anaïs Reno accompanied by our very own Jamie Safir on piano on November 17.
The multi-talented hyphenate that is Nikki Yeoh, who has nurtured many of the current crop of jazz piano players, lands on November 19, followed by the ebullient, irresistible Liane Carroll on December 10, a pre-Christmas treat.
For tickets and more details see: https://bechsteinhall.com/whats-on/
These shows are put together by a new outfit called All Blue Music, which combines the promotional talents of Joseph Paice and Simon Cooke. Together they helped shape London’s blossoming jazz landscape through their work at Pizza Express (Paice) and Ronnie Scott’s (Cooke). Keep an eye out for more shows from the pair.*
Giacomo Smith [giacomosmith.com]
• Both Will Sach and Joe Webb have worked extensively with sax/clarinettist Giacomo Smith, notably in Kansas Smitty’s House Band. I have long admired Smith’s playing (and dress sense) – he can get me involved in areas of music I am usually pretty agnostic about, such as gypsy jazz (my bad, I know).
He is a master virtuoso and technician, especially on clarinet, but it is the sheer joy and musicality of his playing that does it for me.
I was looking forward to hearing his new quartet recently, but a house move got in the way, so I sent local sax man Danny Silverstone of the Equinox Jazz Quartet along to Ronnie’s to check it out.
This is his report from the jazz frontline:
FIFTY-SIX years after my first visit to Ronnie Scott’s I went to the newly refurbished Upstairs. And what an amazing job they’ve done, with no expense spared to create a mid-50s supper club vibe with all the trimmings great acoustics and sight lines.
I was there to see the newly formed Giacomo Smith quartet. It was billed as the launch gig for Smith’s new album Artfullee, although Giacomo ruefully announced that the CDs he’d hoped to sign and sell had mistakenly gone to Denmark.
Smith is a multi-instrumentalist equally fluent on alto and soprano sax, clarinet, and bass clarinet, all of which were evident on the night. Born in Italy, raised in the USA and resident and omnipresent on the London jazz scene over the last 15 years, Smith is best known for his devotion to and reimagining of 1930s era jazz, most notably through his Kansas Smitty’s band.
This is his first outing within a classic jazz format – his agent had apparently suggested it – and the packed house was primarily treated to original tunes from his non-launch album.
Smith is an accomplished performer on each of his horns and his young backing trio performed well. I was particularly impressed with the playing, both reflective and percussive, of Tom Ward on piano.
The music was mainly located within a pre-bebop mainstream, with their ballad playing stealing the show for me. The standout tune – Largo Montebello – was written in Turin and could have been a soundtrack to a new wave Italian movie of the 1950s. Expect to see and hear more from this quartet. [Danny Silverstone]
In the meantime you can see more of Giacomo and his superlative clarinet work with The Entertainers, featuring Joe Stilgoe, Upstairs at Ronnie’s on October 6 and November 10 (www.ronniescotts.co.uk/find-a-show/joe-stilgoe-the-entertainers-2 ) and also with his own big band performing his brilliant version of Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite (and more, including original compositions) at Cadogan Hall on December 14 (https://cadoganhall.com/whats-on/giacomo-smiths-big-band-presents-ellingtons-nutcracker-suite/).
We’ll give you a heads up about Giacomo’s album Artfullee when it finally turns up.
For updates on performances by the Equinox Jazz Quartet with Danny Silverstone see https://www.equinoxjazz.org/gigs
You can read his thoughts on jazz here: https://mylifeinjazz.co.uk/
I wrote a piece about Bill Evans for GQ almost a decade ago, when jazz was still in its uncool phase. It’s a little dated in its reference points, but the basic Bill facts are there:
https://robtryan.com/2016/11/16/everybody-digs-bill-evans-composer-of-the-week/
