Portrait in Jazz

Portrait in Jazz (Riverside RLP 12-315) was recorded on December 28, 1959 at Reeves Sound Studios in New York and produced by Orrin Keepnews, with Jack Higgins engineering and George Horn mastering. It is Evans's fifth studio album as leader and the first of two studio albums by the trio of Evans on piano, Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums. It runs 43:20 on the original LP and 61:13 on a CD reissue, and the mono and stereo editions used different takes of "Autumn Leaves". Reissues include a 1987 OJC CD and a 2008 24-bit Keepnews Collection remaster, which adds takes of "Come Rain or Come Shine", "Autumn Leaves" and two alternate takes of "Blue in Green".

DownBeat gave it five stars and AllMusic's Scott Yanow 4.5, noting that LaFaro and Motian were nearly equal partners with the pianist. Biographer Keith Shadwick said it set the blueprint for every later working Evans trio, and Peter Pettinger called "Spring Is Here" a magnificent example of Evans's lyricism. The trio's concept of simultaneous improvisation began here. LaFaro died in July 1961, ten days after the group's Village Vanguard dates.