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Dixieland Monterey’s Musician-of-the-Year (2008):
Yve Evans
by Doug Pinkham
 Yve Evans is far more than a consummate pianist and vocalist. She’s a many-faceted jewel — philanthropist, philosopher, healer, friend to everyone and soon-to-be ordained minister! But until you’ve talked with her quietly for an hour or so, you have only a general idea of who she really is — what she’s like in real life, what energizes her music and what animates her.
We all know Yve as a superb singer and pianist, at home with the blues, gospel and jazz. She’s been on the Dixieland Monterey stage many times, and always packs the house. Her love for people permeates her music. It’s her way of giving to others. She says, “I’m always living in the hope that the lives I’ve touched have been edified”. She touches people through her music and, as she says, hugs — lots of hugs.
Yve’s father was a soldier in the U.S. Army, so the family moved around a lot. They ended up in San Bernardino. Her mother was a gospel singer, pianist and minister. She taught Yve to play the piano and how to sing. She soon developed a talent for memorizing short songs and then 5-verse hymns and when she was three she debuted before a church congregation of 1500 on Easter Sunday. She remembers putting on family shows--Yve’s mom played and the children sang. So Yve discovered that singing makes a space of its own and heals. ”That space is a place nobody else can touch. It’s good for the mind and body,” she says.
Yve had a broad education in Japan, Europe and the U.S., including opera and theater studies at the University of California, Irvine School of Fine Arts. She studied classical piano in Nuremburg, Germany and the U.S. Her style has been influenced by great vocalists including Sarah Vaughn, Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Darin, Della Reese, Ella Fitzgerald, June Christie, Joe Williams and Ernestine Anderson, as well by her associations with keyboard artists like Dorothy Donegan, Bill Evans, Errol Garner and George Gaffney.
For almost 50 years, now, Yve has been busy with her music, traveling the country and the world. Japan, Brazil, Germany, Canada, Spain and Italy were highlights. She is always busy with bookings, particularly in Southern California where she is widely known. The first jazz festival Yve worked was the Classic Jazz Festival LAX about 20 years ago. Some five years later, Yve and her manager, Prince Moore, went to the Desert Dixieland Festival at the Riviera Hotel in Palm Springs. Prince introduced her to Bob Finch of the Chicago 6 and asked if she could sing a song with the band. She did, and the crowd went wild, so she sang another and was invited to sing in the next show. The following year she he was hired by the Classic Festival and has been going strong ever since: Mammoth Lakes, Dessert Dixieland, Indian Wells Jazz, Palm Springs Jazz, Park City (Utah) Jazz, Idylwild Jazz in the Pines, Lake Tahoe Jazz, Sacramento Jubilee, LA Sweet and Hot, Sun Valley Jazz, Monterey Bay Blues Festival, Sisters Jazz, Chilliwack, B.C. Jazz , Coos Bay Jazz and Dixieland Monterey’s Jazz Bash-by-the-Bay. Recently, she says, she was impelled to put it to God this way: “I’d like to work less for more”. So now she’s donating her talent more and more to fundraisers for community service organizations like one of her favorites, the Palm Springs area Jewish Family Services.
Nowadays, she gets a real lift out of mentoring children because she’s convinced that music makes better and smarter citizens. Yve says, “Little people are sponges. Love them. It helps to put into them what they will remember and draw out old stuff they don’t need to remember.” Her philosophy of teaching: ”Don’t try to get kids to sound like someone, but like themselves. She tells the kids, “Playing music is not only a gift — t is a privilege. Strive to be the best you can be. And remember, it’s important not to be important, but to do interesting things”.
Yve lost her husband in 1991. Later, as she tells it, when she was looking for a place to settle down, she came to a road junction in Santa Clarita, just north of Los Angeles. The sign to the left said “Shopping Center” and the one to the right said “Friendly Valley”, so she chose “Friendly” over “Shopping”, turned right and found a 1960s neighborhood with echoes of Bob Hope — just right for her funny bone. She lives there today, happily, with Smokey, her amazing 28-year old cat (almost half her own age!).
Toward the end of 2006, when Yve announced that she had been diagnosed with cancer, she said on television “I have cancer. I’m not sick...I have lymphoma.” When she lost her hair during chemotherapy, three of her friends — Ava Dupree, Drue Mees and Yolanda Klappert — got together and shaved their heads in support. Said Ava in a television news report, “If an angel got to take human form and walk on the earth, that would be Yve.” Yve says that two or three times things looked somber and when the doctor said “You’re going to die”, her answer was: “If I live, I live. If I die, I live.”
In May, 2007, she announced that she was cancer-free and getting better every day. Her presence at this year’s Jazz Bash-by-the-Bay is proof of that! She attributes her return to health to prayer — plain and simple. The prayers of countless people--people she didn’t even know. “Now,” she says, “ I no longer need to recapture a moment, I just stay in it all the time.” If Yve were to sum it up, she’d say: “Celebrate each day!”
So, welcome back, Yve! We’re glad you’re with us! Let’s all celebrate!
You’re invited to visit Yve any time at www.yveevans.com.
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Yve Evans is far more than a consummate pianist and vocalist. She’s a many-faceted jewel — philanthropist, philosopher, healer, friend to everyone and soon-to-be ordained minister! But until you’ve talked with her quietly for an hour or so, you have only a general idea of who she really is — what she’s like in real life, what energizes her music and what animates her.