1929
Evans is born in New Jersey. While at Southeastern Louisiana University Evans works with Mundell Lowe and others. After army service, 1951-54, Evans studies at the Mannes School of Music in New York, 1955-56. He works with Jerry Wald, George Russell and others and makes his first recording in 1956.

1980
His early death from a stomach ulcer is brought on because of a lifelong narcotic struggle, heroin addiction and a later cocaine habit.

1958
Evans joins the Miles Davis quintet and plays a crucial role in Davis's use of modal jazz.

STYLE
Evans's early musical language was developed in a Bud Powell enthused post-bop climate; he also drew upon Lennie Tristano and Horace Silver. But he very quickly made his own way, developing a more lyrical, impressionistic approach to piano playing, founded on a technical ability in many ways never encompassed by his bop brethren and, more importantly, the imagination not to fall back on it too often. Never flamboyant, his playing was genuinely two-handed in structure, with a gentle tone, skilful pedal work and an ability to emphasise individual inner lines within a chord: the pianists' pianist. He possessed a harmonic subtlety distinctly his own, yet his improvised lines were melodically rather than harmonically inspired, and always gave a sense of breaking free from the underlying chord, which is why he showed no interest in the blues; he rarely fell back upon formulaic runs or annoying clichés, and his sense of delineating a singing, swinging phrase, his 'poise', were impeccable. In a real sense he changed the conception of piano in jazz, adding subtleties, shading and a pianistic language hitherto never imagined. Hancock, Jarrett and Corea, complete pianists all, drew on that legacy and to a certain extent have devalued his historic currency.

It is often claimed that Evans' playing tended to lack drive and swing, which is to misunderstand what he was about: bass and drums were reactive, even active, partners in the improvisational process and did not provide the same relentless rhythmic cushion employed by the likes of Oscar Peterson. Bassists like Scott La Faro and, later, Gary Peacock and Eddie Gomez provided contrapuntal textures and melodic invention underneath the piano lines; and Evans swings route one when matched with the big sound of Philly Joe Jones (Everybody Digs Bill Evans, 1958) or an (unusually) active Connie Kay (Know What I Mean?, 1961).

Once his style had matured, Evans showed little interest in any further jazz development, the familiar tale of many jazz pianists.