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From album
Sunday at the Village Vanguard
Bill Evans Trio · 1961 · Track 4
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The story behind
The first time Alice in Wonderland is played on a piano, the theme sheds its animated origins and becomes something more intimate. It is not the version from the credits of a Disney film, nor the children’s choir that accompanied it in 1951, but a ballad that stretches like a sigh. Bill Evans performed it at the Village Vanguard in New York City in June 1961, and in his hands the waltz turns fragile, almost ethereal. The recording lasts over eight minutes, yet there is no rush: each note sways between melody and abstraction, as if time itself had dilated on that stage.
The song was born for a film, but found its voice in jazz. Composed by Sammy Fain with lyrics by Bob Hilliard, it was a theme from the credits of Alice in Wonderland, that classic by Walt Disney where characters fall down holes and chase rabbits. However, in the Real Book — that pocket-sized catalog of standards carried by musicians — it appears in C major, not the original G major. Evans recorded it live, without cuts, and that choice gave it a different weight: the piano converses with the bass of Scott LaFaro and the drums of Paul Motian as if each instrument were breathing in the same rhythm. The trio’s final session at that venue was captured on an album that, decades later, remains essential listening for those seeking to understand 1960s jazz. Eleven days after that night, LaFaro died in an accident, and the record became an unintended farewell document.