Recorded in New York City over the course of three sessions in May and June of 1962, Moon Beams is the first studio recording by the Bill Evans Trio following the sudden accidental death of bassist Scott LaFaro the year before. Chuck Israels replaces LaFaro, playing more of an accompanist’s role than was Scott’s style, and Paul Motian resumes his drumming duties with the trio. This lineup produced material for two albums that would be amongst Evans’s most popular. Moonbeams includes ballads from the ’62 sessions, which also yielded the more upbeat How My Heart Sings that same year. Moonbeams captures some of Evans’s most introspective playing, his sense of loss evident but soothed by Israels’s empathetic performances. Evans also expresses his lyricism underlaid with rhythmic firmness, even in the extraordinarily slow "Love in Vain."
