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Evans was born Ian Ernest Gilmore Green in Toronto , and later took the family name "Evans" from his stepfather. After spending some years in California, from 1946 onwards he lived and worked in New York City . In the late 1940s Evans rented a basement apartment behind a Chinese Laundry, which became a meeting place for musicians looking to develop the music from bebop, though Charlie Parker himself was among those involved. With Miles Davis , Gerry Mulligan , and others Evans collaborated on a band book for a Nonet starting in 1948, which had a booking for a week's appearance at the Royal Roost as an intermission group on the bill with the Count Basie Orchestra. Capitol Records recorded the group at three sessions in 1949 and 1950; these Recordings were later collected and reissued on LP as ''The Birth of the Cool''. Later, when Davis was under contract to Columbia Records producer George Avakian suggested several potential arrangers to the trumpeter who immediately fixed on the option of working with Evans again. The three main albums constituting their associarion are '' Miles Ahead '' (1957), '' Porgy And Bess '' (1958) and '' Sketches Of Spain '' (1960). Later, another collaboration '' Quiet Nights '' (1962) was issued, but against the wishes of Davis, who broke with his then producer Teo Macero for a time, as a result. Although these four records were marketed primarily under the name of Davis (often credited as ''Miles Davis and the Gil Evans Big Band'') Evans's contribution was just as important. Their work was a companionship of classic big band jazz with a skillful soloist. All these collaborations feature Evans's big-band arrangements, onto which Davis played with extraordinary melodic and stylistic skill. Evans also contributed behind-the-scenes help to Davis' classic quintet albums of the 1960s . From 1957 Evans recorded under his own name, and in 1964 was responsible for the arrangements on the big band tracks on Kenny Burrell's ''Guitar Forms'' album. In the 1970s, following Davis and many other jazz musicians Evans worked in the Jazz Rock idiom, gaining a new generation of admirers. Evans died in Cuernavaca , Mexico . DISCOGRAPHY
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