with him at the end of the evening, although he was always humble, shy and somewhat reticent. I saw that Art D’Lugoff, owner of the Village Gate, died a few days ago. I have many memories of seeing Sonny downstairs at the Gate back in the late 1970s. He was on a bill with McCoy Tyner and, between them, they had the old place shaking. My favorite memory of the Gate goes back to when I was a teenager, 16 or so, and I was underage and shouldn’t have been allowed inside. Plus, my girlfriend was only 14. We were walking on Bleecker Street looking for something to do. I saw a sign: Top of The Gate, Now Appearing: Bill Evans Trio. I knew of Evans from my dad. We walked up the stairs and they put us at a table, no questions asked. We ordered whiskey sours. During a break I went up to Evans and asked if he would play Waltz For Debby. He probably got a dozen requests like that a night. I figured it would impress my girlfriend. I called him Mr. Evans. He barely looked at me and he never played Waltz for Debby that night. It didn’t matter. I felt so cool just being there. Yeah, I’ll definitely go see Sonny on Dec. 6.