Just Yve – In A Sentimental Mood
Yve Evans, piano and vocals
Liner notes by Floyd Levin
The Time: 8:00 PM, Tuesday, May 17, 1994.
The Place: Yve Evans, seated at the grand piano is alone in the intimate studio. A glass panel separates her from the equipment ladened control booth.
The Characters: Engineer Jim Latham, seated complaisantly before an elaborate control board, faces the adjacent studio. He is flanked by a cavern of digital devices linked by a tangle of patch cords. This observer, armed with a notebook, is at his side. Producer W. Prince Moore, pacing the small room sipping coffee, remained standing throughout the evening.
Presumably just as a warmup tune, Yve played the introduction to "What'll I Do?" and soon veered into the impassioned lyrics of the 1924 Irving Berlin hit. Sensing that she was ready, Latham had activated a DAT tape deck as soon as the music began. Without pausing, Yve continued – tune after tune. The recording date was underway.
Once he had set the balance and positioned the microphones, the engineer never entered the studio, never turned a dial, or moved a lever. Wisely, he just let the talented lady sing and play.
Despite the tension a recording session usually creates, Yve seemed relaxed and oblivious of her surroundings. She kicked off her shoes. There was no music in sight – no lyric sheets. The words and music flowed effortlessly from the wellspring of her fertile memory. With eyes closed, she deeply concentrated on the songs' sensitivities. Her unique vocal and instrumental improvisations shaped each one to fit her individual concept. Probing deeply beneath the surface of "Lover Man", she personally italicized the poignant lyrics that Billie Holiday made famous half a century ago.
Yve stoically allowed one tune to blend into another. She repeated very few. When she did, they bore no semblance to her original versions. Surprisingly, there were no playbacks. "Night and Day", "My Man", "More Than You Know" – the sentimental mood inundated the studio with the sensual images of anticipated love, sustained love, and lost love. She spelled it all out with a passionate reprise of the Nat Cole hit, "L-O-V-E".
Yve firmly grasped the full emotional strength of Andy Razal's shockingly frank racial statement, "Black and Blue". Her voice reflected the pain and despair of his incisive lyrics to the Fats Waller masterpiece.
She astutely merged two or more disparate songs like "Over the Rainbow", and "Fly Me to the Moon". By gathering emotions from each, she created a logical musical statement transcending their individual impacts. Weaving "Mean to Me", "Goody Goody", and "Fine and Mellow" into a unified whole, she, inexplicably, formed a perceptive musical montage.
After playing continually for two hours, with only one brief break, she sang the lovely hymn, "Near to the Heart of God" which revealed rich gospel roots. Her brief announcement, "O.K. I'm done.", indicated that the session was over.
Thanks to this lovely music, recorded and mixed digitally as she played and sang, you have heard Yve Evans, exactly as she sounded in the Burbank Studio when she was – "in a sentimental mood".
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