Portrait in Jazz is the debut of the "classic" Bill Evans Trio of Evans, LaFaro, and Motian. As with any Bill Evans album, you can count on hearing a Miles Davis song and this time, amid the mostly-standards studio set, the selection is "Blue In Green", released just a few months after Kind Of Blue put that song on the map. The authorship of the song has long been questioned. It is usually credited to Miles Davis alone, but this album took the bold step of giving Evans co-author status. Today it is generally considered to be a Bill Evans song foremost, but the practice of the time was usually to give the leader credit for anything original from the recording session.
As I have mentioned before, you can just feel the difference when Bill Evans is at the keys. His ethereal (dare I say ghostly) style makes him one of my favorite jazz pianists, and one of the few jazz artists at this time where I've felt comfortable enough to stray beyond the "top 100" tier of albums.
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