Music sometimes takes a backseat to sound effects and dialogue in radio plays, but not in this lush play called Everybody Digs Bill Evans (the radio drama, not to be confused with the famous jazz album of the same title).
This 40-minute play, by Toronto-based playwright Bill Ballantyne, follows an imagined early career of Bill Evans when he was still a jazz unknown. The play pits his unique approach to impressionistic jazz against the expectations and commercial ambitions of music producers at the time. With some really delicious music in between!
First up, Captain Radio‘s review of a sound portrait by Mike Manafette, surveying the history of immigrants passing by Ellis Island.