Keith Jarrett

I like him quite a bit myself. Especially Facing You and, to a lesser extent, the Koln Concert (both of these are popular favorites). Very lyrical & melodic improvised piano music. I had a chunk of his standards trio stuff on hand for a while but I wound up selling them -- it was good but I never listened to it. Still like to put on "In Front" from Facing You occasionally, though. And I'm still digeting the 3 LP Solo Concerts I picked up a couple months ago.

Jarrett goes back to the late '60s when he played in Charles Lloyd's proto-fusion group along w/ Jack DeJohnette. He's a 'controversial' figure (to put it mildly) amongst jazzers because of his HUUUUUGE ego, his disdain for electric instruments (despite the fact that he played an electric keyboard w/ Miles in the early '70s) and for his 'classical' pretensions. He's been ill in recent years, but he deserves big props for his furious attacks on the Ken Burns 'Jazz' series (he said something to the effect that Burns and Marsalis know NOTHING abt improvisation - unlike our Keith, natch...)

Other pianists who do something similar: Glenn Gould and Eddie Palmieri.

(I forgot to post the quote this is commenting on the first time around.)

Right, now I'm off to have a Keith...

1. 'Cos unlike you I've listened to the bloody records. If you can hear four keyboardists on any track, you're a better man than me...

2. There are a number of sessionographies on both the web and in the Miles Davis Box Set series, based on the studio records kept by Columbia, that list which musicians played on which tracks. None of them list fucking Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock all playing together in the studio at the same time. Similarly, there is no record of ANY Miles Davis gig where they all appeared together on stage at the same time. It didn't happen.

3. In fact, just to make sure, I did indeed astrally project myself back to the late sixties and early seventies and invisibly sat alongside Teo Macero while he recorded and edited EVERY bleedin' Miles Davis alb from 'In A Silent Way' to 'Agartha'.

Sorry for wasting yr time w/ 'the facts'.

I don't listen to the standards trio enough, but I like them quite a bit, and some of the things they pull out of those tunes are brilliant.

Yay for jazz on ILM!

Big article/interview in the New York Times this past weekend about the Carnegie Hall disc. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/arts/music/24chin.html?ref=music

The trio stuff is likeable enough, but when you have Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette backing you up, what could be bad? I find the solo improv stuff deadly boring. He was good with Miles, as far as I can tell, though there are times when there are two keyboards and I'm not sure which is him.

Destroy his attacks on the Burns thing and Marsalis. I agree that both are DEEPLY flawed but I don't think they get enough credit from "hip" critics and music fans. Marsalis has a beautiful sound (must be seen live to really appreciate) and a great sense of melody. Dissing him for not being more forward seems a little like dissing, I dunno, Tony Bennett for the same reason. Marsalis's reactionary comments can get a bit trying, but the man does more than most to get people to listen to jazz, and some of those people are likely to go on to check out the more avant stuff that Marsalis doesn't like. Same goes for the Burns documentary - a flawed, incomplete picture but did more good than harm, I think.

Keith Jarrett

NYTimes Arts & Leisure section, 1/21/01

[I can understand him being pissed, since he doesn't appear at all in the PBS broadcast version of Jazz, though I suspect you can hear the Corea/Jarrett duo bubbling about in the background as they gloss over Electric Miles.]

He's obviously immensely talented, but his solo stuff could use a bit of the Teo Macero post-production razorblade treatment.

He has a unique jazz-composition voice, unique enough that Becker/Fagen couldn't get away with not giving him a composer's credit on Gaucho.

For me, the American Quartet albums offer much to choose from, if you want to pick a Desert Island Disc, and the young Jarrett in Charles Lloyd's quartet had some fun enfant terrible moments of outness, IIRC. Everything else is, at minimum, likeable. Which ain't bad for a 40-year career.

Clever letter, but it's PBS, not the fucking Film Forum. What do you expect?

what a toolbox

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HPqK1JJOFxw&feature=related

want to punch!!!!!!

Tags: piano rape ownage keith jarrett solo improvision improvise awesome cool pwnage

Um, didn't you do the exact same thing with a Jaco Pastorius video a little while ago?

Did jazz-fusion abuse you as a child or something?

haha no!

it's just he acts like such a tool!!!!!!!!!!!! TOOL!

i like mahavishnu orchestra. at least the first two albums. and bitches brew, shit like that.

I like his playing well enough but I can't stand the humming :(

this clip probably deserves a poll thread

"best jazz fusion o-face"

ECM records scares me. seems like a cult of scandanavian evil jazz scientists

http://thetalkhouse.com/reviews/view/matthew-shipp-keith-jarrett-gary-peacock-jack-dejohnette

ok now let's have one going the other way, jarrett-on-shipp

never tire of watching this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB9mMABRM0c

has anyone listened to "a multitude of angels", the 4 cd release of his last four (italian) solo concerts from 1996? i read a review where someone wrote these concerts were magical. somehow i doubt that they can be as good as the sun bear concerts from 1976.

I haven't gotten to those yet, but I have been looking into a lot of concerts the past couple years beyond Koln & Sun Bear. The Paris Concert ('81) is really, really good.

Isn't the paris concert from 1988? I have never listened to it completely but it starts promisingly.

you're right, '88. I gave it a couple listens on long-ish drive last week and it's really really good.

I was just reading about the first album he recorded after receiving his chronic fatigue syndrome diagnosis (or at least the album on which he came to terms with the disease and began playing differently in response) and it sounds like it might be really interesting. It's called The Melody At Night, With You. Anyone heard it?

Here's a gorgeous performance of a tune I thought was milked dry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3D8Ri84hmw

I haven't heard Melody At Night With You, but I'll take this revive opportunity to shout out Book Of Ways, his album of clavichord improvisations from 1987. Really fascinating stuff, especially this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mcdc9ctmfo

God that "Porgy" is so amazing. Such a great combination of reverence & exploration, trying to find a way to make it fresh without taking anything away from worn-but-essential tune. wonderful stuff

"a melody at night with you" is fine but it has nothing to do with his solo improvisations which i think are the apex of his oeuvre. in his 1970s improvisations he touches something metaphysical, there is also an orgasmic quality to it and there are often long, difficult free-jazzy passages and lots of ostinato, especially in the "sun bear concerts". "bremen/lausanne" and "bregenz/munich" (that is from 1981) are also fine, the "köln concert" is the "easiest" and most tuneful of these concerts. i also love the scandinavian quartet with garbarek, danielsson and christensen esp. the live recordings "nude ants" and "personal mountains". i haven't heard "sleeper" yet a 1979 concert which was released not so long ago. the quartet has got a lyrical and impressionist quality with a strong rhythm section.

I've never braved the Sun Bear Concerts despite a deep affection for both Koln, Paris Concert, and Jarrett in general. I feel like the time to listen to that was before the invention of the internet or something. I mean, that's a lot of time to invest.

you are right, you need some time for "the sun bear concerts", i listened to them on repeat in my late teens. i still have the beige vinyl box from ca. 1980. but in the end no other instrumental music ever came close to it. often i was writing while listening, they inspired me. it was also the background music for my meetings with my best friend where we discussed about philosophy and stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWw1TJL-Ob4

OK, I lost it at "The Entertainer" part

Well, this really sucks:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/21/pianist-keith-jarrett-unlikely-to-perform-again-strokes

It is really sad, but even in this context that NYT thing put me off with his absolutely massive ego.

sad.

been on a bit of a Jarrett kick lately, just been listening to the sun bear concerts the last couple of days, and a few months ago my wife got me Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne on vinyl for my birthday

If any musician is entitled to have a massive ego and to crow about it, it's Jarrett. Are you referring to the quote "I feel like I’m the John Coltrane of piano players"? That's pretty much fair comment, and I'll defend his right to say it.

xp

:(

what a nice present xxp

xp - it was actually the second part of that quote that rubbed me wrong:

“Everybody that played the horn after he did was showing how much they owed to him. But it wasn’t their music. It was just an imitative thing.”

He's right about Coltrane and as much as I can respect Jarrett's immense talent and legacy, I disagree with his implication that everyone playing the piano after him is just imitating him.

But, again, I don't mean to dismiss Jarrett's legacy in the least, this is nowhere near the first time I've been soured by hearing about how highly he thinks of himself.

That's pretty much fair comment, and I'll defend his right to say it.

It really, really isn't. As I said elsewhere, it's a good thing he waited until McCoy Tyner (a much, much more influential player who did a lot more to reshape jazz language than KJ) was dead to say that shit.

I agree about McCoy Tyner being way more influential, but in the context of him being unable to play piano for the foreseeable future, I can cut him some slack for talking up his legacy. Glad he's still got some fighting spirit at least.

Agreed on Tyner being hugely more influential, at the same time at this point would you really expect anything less from Jarrett? I mean we should be praising the restraint he showed not phrasing it "John Coltrane probably felt like he was the Keith Jarrett of saxophone players"

That said I been listening to the Impulse band records again lately and man they are really great, though to me usually in spite of Jarrett rather than because of him

jarrett's ego and his art are pretty inextricable — he wouldn't have even tried half the things he did in his career without being an egomaniac.

Yeah, I don't think he's ever needed any slack to talk himself up. Also don't think pointing his ego out is a knock on his legacy, but statements like that are why I stick to listening to him and ignore his interviews.

statements like that are why I stick to listening to him and ignore his interviews.

I do this with most artists. I recommend it.

I think he has made some good music but about 1/10 enough to justify the bluster

honestly is Jarrett even that widely imitated? Who out there is trying to sound like him?

Other than Donald Fagen

Ha

My slightly unsympathetic initial reaction to this news was less “Well, he’s an egotistical asshole” than “This dude has released enough albums for five lifetimes.” His deal with Eicher afforded him the ability to follow his every whim over nearly five decades – from recordings of old instruments (Clavichord, Hymns) and pseudo ethnic instruments (Spirits) to composers both real (Bach, Shostakovich) and imagined (Gurdjieff), among others.

Of course you have all the recordings of different jazz (Standards Trio, European Quartet, etc.) and solo permutations – of which ECM released dozens.

I mean, it is sad for this to come to an end, if this is indeed it – just as it was when his labelmate Eberhard Weber had his career snuffed out by strokes a few years earlier. I can’t begin to imagine how awful and terrifying it must be for your livelihood to be snuffed out like that in an instant.

But when you pull the camera back a bit, it’s hard not to ask: has *any* artist ever been indulged like Jarrett has? As listeners and fans, we have been so lucky to have had him ... but it is undeniable that he has been extraordinarily fortunate to be able to share all this with us as well – and how singularly rare that is for a jazz artist. Which of course he didn’t remotely acknowledge in that NYT piece.

I imagine Jarrett would say his talent deserved (or even demanded) that indulgence. Which perhaps it did. But others have as well and received far less of an opportunity.

honestly is Jarrett even that widely imitated? Who out there is trying to sound like him?

this is what's kind of "offensive" -- off, anyway -- about this schtick from him. Gwylim Simcock is kind of doing a Jarret spiel, a little, but is anybody outside of very different free improvisation dudes (I'm thinking of Schlippenbach / Taylor / et al) sitting down at the piano and just following their muse for an hour-plus? I'm sure the answer is "yes" at a small level but Jarrett's own version of that (leaning melodic & lyrical, tending to split the difference between melodic & repetitive-for-effect; he has other lookouts, especially in recent years some less tonal math-y sounding stuff, but his main thing is still the "wow, you made something gorgeous on the fly" thing he does) you can kind of only get from Keith Jarrett records. Plenty of people inspired by him, me included!, but the idea that he inspires specifically imitative/trendsetting admiration like Trane, I mean he's gotta know that's false. He's certainly indebted to ground laid by Tyner and Bud Powell imo -- I think more highly of where he's taken that than several people on this thread, I think, but I don't think even the hardest core Jarrett dude is gonna say "his influence is pervasive in jazz piano." Which you of course must say re: Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

(not on piano obv)

There's a funny if not entirely coherent sentence in the Wiki for Spirits:

While Allmusic review by non-jazz or "ethno" music specialist, The Tina Turner Story author Ron Wynn awarded the album 3 stars, calling it, "More a technical showcase than a musically worthy enterprise", other views have contested those claims as "incompetent".

That "other view" is from one of the user reviews on the Allmusic page, calling it "the most incompetent review on amg". Rather than rely on this kind of sniping, it might have been better for the Wiki editor to have passed over this review in silence rather than cast aspersions on the qualifications of a mere author of a Tina Turner biography.

The Sun Bear Concerts set is crazy good. Would love to find this in the wild but that’s a massive vinyl set.

Did he ever have any albums sell as well as The Köln Concert? It’s a really interesting record, and he’s a really interesting artist, to have such a breakthrough saleswise.

It was often claimed that Jarrett was the ECM label’s cash cow – Manfred Eicher relied on Jarrett releases to subsidize less popular recordings on the label.

Wonderful interview with Rick Beato, but it's heartbreaking to see Jarrett clearly not well after his stroke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgL30jDhoQU

Thanks for the link and, yes, very heartbreaking. There was a print interview somewhere where he made it clear that he couldn't play with both hands anymore, but it's still tough seeing that.

it is, but his right hand does amazing stuff...and he seems so much more agreeable than you usually hear about him. I mean, the guy interviewing him is an acolyte, clearly, but he's very forthcoming and gentle

Jarrett is a musical genius in a very real way, but I wish I never read any interviews with him as he comes off as a top level arrogant ahole. Some of that arrogance I get as if you can come up with music like the Koln concert off the top of your head, you are at a musical wizard level non parallel, but lord he makes someone like Miles Davis seem like a humble guy next door by comparison.

That and the humming stuff does sound really odd.

I watched about half of that video last night and agree it was, probably not by coincidence, the warmest and most approachable I’ve ever seen Jarrett.

And honestly, I might actually go see a concert of him playing with one hand, if he ever does that. Because it’s still completely amazing.

FWIW, Gene Lees once wrote a great remembrance of Bill Evans where he recalls him playing a run of shows with one hand. It's like something of a movie - Evans (at the time struggling with his heroin addiction) hits a nerve in his arm which temporarily renders it useless. Unfortunately he's in need of money, and having borrowed frequently in the past, he isn't in a position to do that again. Rather than cancel his upcoming gigs, he's show up with only one good arm, and then to everyone's amazement, proceeds to play a whole show thanks to the skillful and ingenious use of one hand and the piano's foot pedals.

*something out of a movie
*he shows up

That piece he plays with the Eastman Orchestra is extraordinary

I can see a Rick Ruben-produced album of vulnerable one-handed covers in the future

More historical precedents (successful one-handed pianists):

Paul Wittgenstein

Leon Fleisher

Tateno Izumi, as well, who like Jarrett had a stroke.

I can see a Rick Ruben-produced album of vulnerable one-handed covers in the future

I’m kind of fascinated by Paul Wittgenstein, feel like I first read about him in a David Markson book, although maybe not the one named after his brother’s non-existent mistress. Sometimes think I want to read Alexander Waugh’s The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War.