All jazz bassists recognize the pivotal role that the Bill Evans Trio played in creating a new model for the bass’ function in jazz. In this book, Chuck Israels (one of Bill’s long-time bassists) has created a masterpiece of explaining what that revolution consists of. Among other crucial concepts, he shows how the bass can both lay down the pulse and have a dialogue with the other musicians at the same time.

Backing up this analysis are 63 pages of Chuck’s improvised bass lines from his time...