Previously Unissued Bill Evans Trio Broadcast Twofer Portraits At The Penthouse: Live In Seattle Arrives From Resonance Records On Record Store Day Black Friday, November 28, 2025

Deluxe Package Includes Notes by Award-Winning Writer Marc Myers, Testimonials by Trio Members Eddie Gomez and Joe Hunt, an Appreciation from Piano Legend Bob James, and More

Vinyl Release Will Be Followed by Deluxe CD Edition and Digital Download on December 5

Portraits at the Penthouse: Live in Seattle, a pair of May 1966 live performance broadcasts from piano genius Bill Evans, will be released as an LP by Resonance Records for Record Store Day Black Friday (November 28, 2025).

Originally recorded by radio personality Jim Wilke from live broadcasts on KING-FM, the collection has been transferred from the original tapes, restored and mastered by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab, and pressed onto 180-gram vinyl at 33-1/3 rpm at Le Vinylist in Québec City, Canada.

The on-location broadcast recordings will be available as a deluxe CD and digital download on December 5.

Both LP and CD editions include notes by award-winning journalist and blogger Marc Myers; remembrances from Jim Wilke and Charlie Puzzo Jr., son of the owner of The Penthouse Jazz Club; interview testimonials from the then-members of Evans’ trio, bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Joe Hunt; an appreciation of Evans by legendary pianist Bob James; and more.

Wilke originally hosted the May 12 and 19 performances, part of his regular Thursday night KING broadcasts from Charlie Puzzo’s titular Seattle club. Despite its name, the Penthouse was actually located on the ground floor of the Kenneth Hotel at First Avenue and Cherry Street just off Pioneer Square from 1962 to 1968.

Portraits at the Penthouse is, as Myers observes in his notes, the earliest known recording of Evans with bassist Eddie Gomez, who would go on to collaborate with the pianist for the next 11 years. By contrast, drummer Joe Hunt would only work with Evans for a few months, making this album not only the first but indeed one of the only documents of a sadly under-recorded version of the Evans trio.

The May 12 performance leads off with the Earl Zindars standard and Evans concert staple “How My Heart Sings”—which also appears in the May 19 performance, marking two of the pianist’s most energetic renditions of the tune (which he traditionally played up tempo). The repertoire also includes other Evans favorites, such as “Nardis,” Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight,” and the standards “Autumn Leaves” and “I Should Care.”

Myers’ notes describe the trio’s trial-by-fire process of learning to play together on this tour. The trio had formed only a month before for a two-week stand at a Chicago steakhouse, which served as a de facto tryout for Gomez and Hunt. The acculturation “was gradual, with Evans wondering from his piano bench if the two musicians were going to work out,” Myers says. “Downtime collaboration was key. Roommates on the road, Gómez and Hunt would play together in hotel rooms…. As you can hear, by the time the trio arrived at the Penthouse on May 12, they had pretty much gelled.”

“Starting out with Bill was a dreamlike experience,” recalls Gomez in his remembrance. “Bill had a book, a loose-leaf black book that had all his repertoire in it. The pages mostly had melodies notated with chord changes. I'd have the book on stage to refer to. If he called a tune or started playing it, I'd just frantically try to find the page. It must have looked ridiculous from the audience, this guy up on stage hurriedly leafing through a book, but that's what I did; I wanted to make sure I'd play the right notes and that I was even playing the right tune.

“Still, I was lucky,” he continues. “Bill was generous — he'd yell out encouraging things to me while we were playing, sometimes during one of my solos. That helped a lot, to hear that from Bill early in the first tour.”

“Listening back to these recordings, I have good feelings,” Hunt enthuses. “My God, it was exciting. And of course he was Bill Evans! The guy was fabulous. I took so many things away from playing with Bill. He demanded an individual voice. He wanted total independence. He wanted something to happen and then we'd go from there.”

Evans’ outsize stature in the jazz piano lineage surely needs no explication. However, in his appreciation, Bob James passionately describes the pianist’s towering presence in his own development. “He's a major, major influence,” James says. “I'm grateful that I powered my way through the imitation stage and was inspired by Bill to carve out my own path. My goal was to do what Bill did — he created a unique approach to the piano, developing a completely his personal style that comes out of the music…. When you can hear two seconds' worth of music and can say, ‘That's Bill Evans,’ it's great and powerful. That's what I was going for myself.”
“Bill made me realize that piano is a percussion instrument,” James adds. “That in order to play melodically on it, you can't just blow into it. It's not a breathing thing. You have to pretend that you're singing.”

Portraits at the Penthouse represents Resonance Records' eighth official release in cooperation with the Bill Evans Estate—and award-winning producer and Resonance co-president Zev Feldman’s 14th such production. “It’s never not lost on me how fortunate I am,” Feldman says. “I take great pride in these releases and couldn't be happier with how it turned out. I hope you feel the same.”

Resonance Records is a multi-GRAMMY® Award-winning label (most recently for John Coltrane’s Offering: Live at Temple University for "Best Album Notes") that prides itself in creating beautifully designed, informative packaging to accompany previously unreleased recordings by the jazz icons who grace Resonance's catalog. Headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA, Resonance Records is a division of Rising Jazz Stars, Inc. a California 501(c) (3) non-profit corporation created to discover the next jazz stars and advance the cause of jazz. Current Resonance Artists include Tawanda, Eddie Daniels, Tamir Hendelman, Christian Howes and Donald Vega. www.ResonanceRecords.org

For more information please contact:

Matt Hanks / Shore Fire Media

Ph: 718.522.7171 ext. 42 / mhanks@shorefire.com