Lesson #1: You don’t always have to wait for

your “solo” to start improvising.

The first things that struck me about Bill’s approach to “What is this Thing Called
Love” are how freely he interprets the melody and how much he improvises
before his full-blown solo choruses begin.

“What is this Thing Called Love” has a relatively simple and repetitive melody
with lots of space in between phrases.

So, Bill starts improvising during the head in by decorating the melody with
bebop-esque surrounding tones and melodic fills during the gaps between
phrases. His fills create a kind of call and response between his improvisations
and the original melody. It’s almost like he’s commenting on or responding to the
melody in real time as it unfolds.

Additionally, sometimes he holds on the longer notes of the melody, whereas at

other moments he plays them crisp and short.

Most likely he’s trying to deal with the fact that the piano lacks the same power
as a voice or horn in its ability to sustain long notes. Since the piano lacks the
ability to shape long held notes, he shortens some of the melody’s held-out notes
and adds melodic fills.

Also note how he creates balance and variety by contrasting his relatively busy
playing on the A sections by playing a simplified, stripped-down version of the
bridge.
Here’s a simplified and analyzed notation of the head in:
Lesson #2: Be able to play unaccompanied
improvised melodies and clearly outline the
chord changes.
At the end of the head in (and the beginning of Bill’s full-blown solo), the
drummer (Paul Motian) drops out completely and the bassist (Scott LaFaro)
starts playing in “broken” time, freely switching between playing whole notes,
half notes, and walking quarter-note lines.

So, Bill has to start his solo without the full harmonic and rhythmic assistance of
the rest of the trio. Bill could’ve made it easier to maintain the form, harmony,
and groove by comping for himself with chords in his left hand, but instead, he
chose to improvise unaccompanied single-line melodies in his right hand.

Impressively, Bill very clearly communicates the underlying harmonic

progression during this chordless passage. His choice to leave out chords gives
the solo’s beginning a beautiful sense of openness, lightness, and space.

Also, by starting with such sparse musical texture, it leaves ample room for the
trio to build energy and volume later on as the solo progresses by adding more
voices and instruments.

Bill’s start to his solo on “What is this Thing Called Love” is a reminder to us all
that you haven’t truly mastered a tune until you can play single-line melodies by
yourself and communicate a clear sense of the time, groove, form, and chord
progression.

Here’s an analysis:
Lesson #3: Add variety to your solos by
breaking up swung eighth-note lines with
eighth-note and quarter-note triplet rhythms.
During the first 16 bars of his solo, he clearly sets up two contrasting phrases.
The first half features swing 8th-note lines, the second half features quarter-note-
triplet rhythms.

He follows the same pattern but in reverse (triplet-based rhythms followed by

8th-note lines) starting with the last two bars of the bridge in his second chorus
(around 1:35 in the recording).

Here are the first 16 bars of his solo, again:

And here’s the phrase I mentioned in the second chorus:
I hope you find this analysis helpful and inspiring. Bill Evans was a pure genius
and we can all learn so much from analyzing and listening to his work.