Track Premiere: Our Love Is Here to Stay by Bill Evans: Sound, Video

The track will appear on Evans in England, a previously unreleased 1969 live recording out Apr. 13 on Resonance.

JazzTimes is honored to present the premiere of “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” as performed by the Bill Evans Trio featuring bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell at Ronnie Scott’s legendary London jazz club in December 1969. This track, along with 17 other previously unreleased recordings made during that London engagement, will appear on an upcoming album, Evans in England: Live at Ronnie Scott’s, to be issued by Resonance Records first as a limited two-LP on Apr. 13, Record Store Day, and then as a two-CD/digital release on Apr. 19.

Famous for being the final songwriting collaboration between George Gershwin and his brother Ira, “Love Is Here to Stay” was a frequent favorite in Evans’ live sets. The pianist also recorded it in the studio several times, beginning in 1963. The version heard here leads off Evans in England, the fourth archival Evans album that Resonance has released since 2012. These particular recordings were made by a French Evans aficionado known only as “Jo,” who contacted Leon Terjanian—director of the Evans documentary Turn Out the Stars—about them in 2016. Jo was 84 at the time, and he expressed his wish to Terjanian that the tapes should be made public in his lifetime. From there, Terjanian got in touch with Resonance’s co-president Zev Feldman, and arrangements were made.

“I’ve had some very deep, overwhelming experiences listening to music, where it’s almost like you have a blackout moment,” Feldman says. “I remember once when I was 12 or 13 years old I heard the Clash for the first time on the school bus. It was so powerful, like something was surging through my bloodstream. A few years ago, I met with a tape collector in Europe who had these tapes of the Bill Evans Trio from 1969 at Ronnie Scott’s in London, which are now coming out on Evans in England, and had that same kind of experience listening to them play ‘Our Love Is Here to Stay.’ They are like a trio of warriors communicating with music. There was no ball-hogging going on with Bill, they were passing it around, and telepathically connected. My favorite part is when we come out of Eddie Gomez’s solo, you’ll hear this shift and all of a sudden I feel like I’m levitating and floating towards the ceiling. My heart stopped when I first listened to this recording and it must have been such a remarkable thing to have been in the room that night. We’re really lucky to have these recordings.”