BILL EVANS performed twenty-one sessions in The Netherlands during his musical career. This session index is rather complete. The very first time he played in The Netherlands was in Amsterdam in 1965 . In the Royal Concertgebouw with his neoclassical architecture and his famous acoustics, I attended a very inspired concert with Bill Evans on piano, Chuck Israels on bass and Larry Bunker on drums. They played among other things “Elsa”, “Someday My Prince Will Come” and “I Should Care”. Prior to the concert in the Concertgebouw the trio played in the afternoon in the NCRV Radio Studio in Hilversum. Unfortunately there is not any information about this performance on websites and in discographies . This concert is nowhere mentioned. An other session in 1975 febr 13th took place in De Boerenhofstede in Laren and not in Nick Vollebregts Jazz Café in Laren as mentioned in the existing current session index on internet. The correct date of the concert in 1979 in Lelystad is up to now not known.
The adapted and updated album index is build upon the extensive discographies compiled by Win Hinkle (Letter From Evans, Bill Evans Jazz Resource), Brian Hennessey (The Bill Evans Memorial Library) and by Peter H. Larsen (a music journalist and producer of the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra) who wrote the very first discography about Bill Evans in book form in 1984. The latter produced in 2002 a tribute album The Danish Radio Orchestra Plays Bill Evans with pianist Jim McNeely as solist.
Between 1965 and 1979 the trio played two separate sessions with the Dutch Metropole Orchestra: in 1969 selections from the album The Bill Evans Trio with Symphony Orchestra and in 1975 excerpts from his Symbiosis album. Furthermore he performed with Stan Getz and Toots Thielemans in the small artistic Dutch village of Laren, with its long jazz tradition. Several sessions are taped and released as CD. The only time he performed with his trio at the North Sea Jazz Festival was in 1978. His last Dutch concert, with Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums, occurred on December 10th, 1979, less than a year before his untimely passing in 1980 at the age of fifty-one.
Concert on Friday, August 9th, 1974, Singer Concertzaal in Laren, The Netherlands.
The concert series of 1974 Laren International Jazz Festival was continued with a performance by the Bill Evans Trio with Stan Getz. (Stan Getz, tenor saxophone; Bill Evans, piano; Eddie Gomez, bass and Marty Morell drums). Producer Joop de Roo still remembers very well how everything went wrong: In the studio in the afternoon everything went reasonably, although the problem remained as to exactly what changes should be played in the blues. Eventually it was decided not to play any blues at all. In the evening Bill Evans started off all right until Stan appeared and blatantly started an unannounced, unrehearsed blues, “Stan’s Blues”. Evans refused to go on playing and the whole set lasted only 25 minutes. The concert which they gave a week later at the Middelheim Jazz Festival, Antwerp in Belgium, on the other hand was exceedingly good. Released as album title: But Beautiful (Milestone records).
From the book International Jazz Festival by Hans Kroeze (Aktu & Promotions, Amsterdam, 1981)
The small Dutch village Laren has a long jazz tradition, Coleman Hawkins played already in 1935 in the former Casino of hotel Hamdorff. More recent jazzpodia are the former Boerenhofstede, the Singer Museum and Nick Vollebregt’s Jazzcafe. Bill Evans played several times in this locations. A Dutch public broadcasting organisation (TROS) began its radio jazz concerts in 1973 under the name SESJUN. For the first five years it was broadcasted from the Boerenhofstede in Laren, later Nick Vollebregt’s Jazzcafe became the permanent spot for a first class series of concerts. With producer Dick de Winter and Cees Schrama as broadcaster the program became very popular. Hundreds of famous musicians played on the sessions: besides Dutch and European jazz musicians Toots Thielemans, Monty Alexander, Bill Evans, Wynton Marsalis, Thad Jones & Mel Lewis, Dexter Gordon, Sarah Vaughn, Jimmy Smith, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Stan Getz, Freddie Hubbard and Johua Redman. Since 1982, a broad selection of these radio programs has been broadcasted by more than 200 public radio stations in the USA and Canada. In the afternoon on 1973 dec 16th Bill Evans played duo with Eddie Gomez on bass in music center De Doelen in Rotterdam and in the evening in theater Diligentia in The Hague. The advertisement is from the Dutch music magazine OOR by courtesy of the Nederlands Jazz Archief. On 1979 dec 10th the Bill Evans Trio with Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbara on drums played in cultuurcentrum De Oosterpoort in Groningen in the northern area of The Netherlands.
De Boerenhofstede 1975 
Nick Vollebregt’s Jazzcafe 1973/1979 
Singer Museum & Concertzaal 1974
De Doelen in Rotterdam 16 december 1973
