[12] During high school, Evans came in contact with 20th-century music like Stravinsky's Petrushka, which he called a "tremendous experience", and Milhaud's Suite provençale, whose bitonal language he believed "opened him to new things."

[16] Evans also listened to Earl Hines, Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell, George Shearing, Stan Getz, and Nat King Cole among others.

During the summer, the band did a three-month tour backing Billie Holiday, including East Coast appearances at Harlem's Apollo Theater and shows in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.

He hosted a jazz program on the camp radio station and occasionally performed in Chicago clubs, where he met singer Lucy Reed, with whom he became friends and later recorded.

He met singer and bassist Bill Scott and Chicago jazz pianist Sam Distefano (his bunkmate in their platoon), both of whom became Evans's close friends.

He took a sabbatical year and lived with his parents, where he set up a studio, acquired a grand piano and worked on his technique, believing he lacked the natural fluency of other musicians.

Along with his studies, Evans played in low-profile "Tuxedo gigs" at the Friendship Club and the Roseland Ballroom, as well as Jewish weddings, intermission spots, and over-40 dances.

[9] Evans soon began to perform in Greenwich Village clubs with Don Elliott, Tony Scott, Mundell Lowe, and bandleader Jerry Wald.

AllMusic critic Scott Yanow said about the album: "Bill Evans' debut as a leader found the 27-year-old pianist already sounding much different than the usual Bud Powell-influenced keyboardists of the time... A strong start to a rather significant career.

There are glimpses of the later trademarks of Evans' style..."[29] Although a critical success that gained positive reviews in DownBeat and Metronome magazines, New Jazz Conceptions was initially a financial failure, selling only 800 copies the first year.

At that time, Russell assembled trumpeter Art Farmer, guitarist Barry Galbraith, bassist Milt Hinton and Bill Evans on piano for three recording dates, along with several rehearsal sessions.

The live radio appearance that was broadcast on May 17, 1958, and also released on the album titled Makin' Wax, is known as the earliest documented evidence of the collaboration between Bill Evans and Miles Davis.

In 1960, he performed on singer Frank Minion's album The Soft Land of Make Believe, featuring versions of the Kind of Blue compositions "Flamenco Sketches" and "So What" with added lyrics.

[55] On one occasion while injecting heroin, Evans hit a nerve and temporarily disabled it, performing a full week's engagement at the Village Vanguard virtually one-handed.

[9] During this time, Helen Keane began having an important influence, as she gave significant assistance helping to maintain Evans's career despite his self-destructive lifestyle, and the two developed a strong friendship.

Despite Israels' fast development and the creativity of new drummer Larry Bunker, the album Bill Evans Trio with Symphony Orchestra, featuring Gabriel Fauré's Pavane and works of other classical composers arranged by Claus Ogerman, divided critical opinion.

[56] Other albums included The Tokyo Concert (1973); Since We Met (1974); and But Beautiful (1974; released in 1996), featuring the trio plus saxophonist Stan Getz in live performances from the Netherlands and Belgium.

[58] Both Bennett and Evans stated that it was not just a singer with accompanist affair, but rather a mutually stimulated creative effort to enhance some well known hits with a new twist on familiar melodies and harmonies.

[48] At the beginning of a several-week tour of the trio through the Pacific Northwest in the spring of 1979, Evans learned that his brother, Harry, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, had died by suicide at the age of 52.

[48] On September 15, 1980, Evans, who had been in bed for several days with stomach pains at his home in Fort Lee, was accompanied by Joe LaBarbera and Verchomin to the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, where he died that afternoon.

[59] A tribute, planned by producer Orrin Keepnews and Tom Bradshaw, was held on the following Monday, September 22, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

[77] Biographer Peter Pettinger notes that Evans "assimilated 'a thousand influences,'" including pianists such as Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, Oscar Peterson, Al Haig, and Lou Levy as well as horn players such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Stan Getz.

[82] J. William Murray notes that "Evans was very adept at drawing Western European compositional techniques into jazz and there are elements of Bach, Chopin, Debussy, and Ravel in his writing.

Contemporaries whose works he often played include Michel Legrand, Johnny Mandel, and Earl Zindars as well as, to a lesser extent, Burt Bacharach, John Lewis, Henry Mancini, Gary McFarland, Thelonious Monk, Claus Ogerman, Steve Swallow, and Denny Zeitlin.

Other songs by his contemporaries and colleagues he recorded include "In Your Own Sweet Way" by Dave Brubeck, "You're Gonna Hear from Me" by André Previn, "The Peacocks" by Jimmy Rowles, "Dolphin Dance" by Herbie Hancock, and, atypically, "I Do It for Your Love" by Paul Simon, which nonetheless "continued to inspire the pianist's most complex thoughts" in his final years.

Some known examples include "Waltz for Debby" for his niece; "For Nenette" for his wife; "Letter to Evan" for his son; "NYC's No Lark", an anagram of Sonny Clark in memory of his friend the pianist; "Re: Person I Knew", another anagram, of the name of his friend and producer Orrin Keepnews; "We Will Meet Again" for his brother; "Peri's Scope" for girlfriend Peri Cousins; "One for Helen" and "Song for Helen" for his manager Helen Keane; "B minor Waltz (For Ellaine)" for girlfriend Ellaine Schultz; "Laurie" for girlfriend Laurie Verchomin; "Yet Ne'er Broken" an, anagram of the name of cocaine dealer Robert Kenney; "Maxine" for his stepdaughter; "Tiffany" for Joe LaBarbera's daughter; and "Knit For Mary F." for fan Mary Franksen from Omaha.

"[93] Evans has left his mark on such players as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett, Steve Kuhn, Warren Bernhardt, Michel Petrucciani, John Taylor, Vince Guaraldi, Stefano Bollani, Don Friedman, Marian McPartland, Denny Zeitlin, Bobo Stenson, Fred Hersch, Bill Charlap, Lyle Mays, Eliane Elias, Diana Krall, Ralph Towner, John McLaughlin, Lenny Breau, Rick Wright of Pink Floyd, Denis Matsuev, and many other musicians in jazz and other music genres.

"[96] Likewise, American minimalist composer and keyboardist Terry Riley included Evans in "the Pantheon of my teachers and heroes" in the liner notes to his solo piano Lisbon Concert.

[97] Many of Evans's own compositions, such as "Waltz for Debby", "Peace Piece", "Blue in Green", "Very Early", "Time Remembered", "Turn Out the Stars", "We Will Meet Again", and "Funkallero", have become often-recorded jazz standards.

In addition, his early death inspired the composition of two widely covered tribute songs by others, Phil Woods' "Goodbye, Mr. Evans" and Don Sebesky's "I Remember Bill".