The Keith Jarrett Solo Piano Thread

http://www.jazz.com/assets/2008/1/17/albumcoverKeithJarrett-SoloConcerts-Bremen-Lausanne.jpg

Solo Concerts (Bremen/Lausanne) (1973), originally released as a three-LP set
The Köln Concert (1975), one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time
Sun Bear Concerts (1976), five complete Japanese concert recordings, originally released as a ten-LP set
Concerts (Bregenz/München) (1981), originally released as a three-LP set, only the Bregenz concert is included on the single CD release.
Dark Intervals (1987, Tokyo),
Paris Concert (1988) featuring a 38 minute improvisation, a composition (The Wind) and a blues.
Vienna Concert (1991), which Jarrett has stated is his finest solo concert recording
La Scala (1995), which was the first ever non classical concert in Milan's La Scala opera house
Carnegie Hall Concert (2006)

In college, I was an enormous fan of Jarrett's trio work with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette. But for a long time, I found the solo records to be pure ego trip -- a kind of pretentious throwback to the romantic era where performers were regarded as conquering heroes and the audience was filled with mindless punters who knew nothing about what they were hearing.

Then I heard Vienna Concert. In retrospect, it's not even among my favorite of Jarrett's solo albums. But I was struck by the long, quiet opening section, which is so incredibly slow, tonal and simple that it made me reconsider the whole enterprise. In time, I really began to appreciate the unique and special space that Jarrett inhabits with these concerts -- where he just experiments in front of enormous and attentive audiences for an undetermined amount of time in any musical language he chooses.

That others tried to do the solo piano concert thing (Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea) with varying degrees of success only seems to confirm how difficult this sort of thing is to pull off. More than anything else, in Jarrett's hands, these really were exercises in complete virtuosity -- technical for sure, but also conceptual, aesthetic and artistic.

In retrospect, this sort of artistic indulgence--and that's what it was--only could have caught fire in the 1970's. But in an era when music is inescapable and decidedly in the background, one of the most fascinating things I've discovered about these records is that they compel the audience to expend as much effort listening as Jarrett did performing them.

As for the records themselves, I'm familiar with Solo Concerts, which includes an unbelievable boogie-woogie passage that has to be heard to be believed. Concerts is OK. After the aforementioned introduction, Vienna Concert becomes sort of classicist. And, of course, there's Köln, which I enjoy but have never quite been convinced is the masterpiece it's hailed as.

I particularly love Sun Bear Concerts for its ambition, scope and arrogance. If I thought they'd accept it (over the obvious choice of Köln), I'd love to spend a year or two writing a 33 1/3 book on Sun Bear.

Am I alone on ILM in my fascination with these records?

I've always found his solo stuff a bit boring.

Carnegie Hall from '06 is amazing - it starts out good but at the midway point gets deep - the encores are unbelievable.

La Scala is good too but not as good.

When I'm in the mood for it I can listen to this stuff with immense pleasure - I don't consider it indulgent, I think it's really a brave and great thing to do, actually improvise unaccompanied. You are 100% OTM that the act of listening is here a get-what-you-give sort of thing - you can have Sun Bear on in the background and think "oh, nice," or you can listen hard and suddenly you're watching the construction of an organism.

Dark Intervals

John, I think it is indulgent -- I find it hard not to consider it anything BUT incredibly indulgent, but not in the pejorative way it's normally used. I think we're sort of conditioned to think any time an artist lets his or her good sense down and just reaches deep into themselves and does what they really want to do that it's necessarily a selfish, bad thing. It isn't -- but too often all we get is something that only the performer/creator understands and appreciates.

And so, while I think that this is great, I'm not so sure about brave -- in the 1970's, it wasn't necessarily that difficult to wank off for hours on end and release a 10-LP set of piano improvisations. There was definitely more of a cushion then, which is why other people tried this and failed to varying degrees. The hard part, and what made Jarrett's improvisations unique, was using that leash to create something very deep and profound -- something not just about the artist and his interests but also his relationship with his audience.

Just listened last week to this interview w/ Jarrett.

I don't know if the songs on Facing You are improvised, but "Landscape for Future Earth" is one of my favorite songs anywhere.

Facing You is improvised, I believe. That's actually my favorite, even though there is no audience. "In Front" feels like the entire history of jazz condensed into one rolling, funky 10-minute tune.

So in a rush of excitement, I went and got tickets to see him in late January at Carnegie Hall with my wife and bought Sun Bear on Amazon used for $40. I figure the guy can't do these things forever.

Anybody go to the London show on Monday...

Well, I saw Jarrett at Carnegie Hall tonight. He was in a frisky mood. He opened by quoting from the liner notes from Changeless and saying--with no trace of irony--that an economy that doesn't value art or artists isn't worth saving or stimulating. Then he played a 5 or 6 piece set for 45 minutes or so, including an atonal piece to open with, a blues, and one of his patented lyrical ballads, which my wife agreed was gorgeous. The second set was comparatively brief -- a gospel piece, another atonal thing and a modal piece or two. And then...about 6 encores including "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (which he's been playing a lot, I gather) and "Angel Eyes."

In all there was a lot of jazz, actually -- soloing over chord changes, which I don't normally associate with his solo concerts. He had all sorts of crazy stuff to say -- like that he doesn't make studio records because there's no audience and that "sometimes you just connect." It was interesting, b/c while I thought it was a very good show with some transcendent moments, I wasn't totally blown away -- but he seemed to think it was a very special night. The MC said at the outset that the show was being recorded for a CD, so maybe folks will be able to judge for themselves...

In all there was a lot of jazz, actually -- soloing over chord changes, which I don't normally associate with his solo concerts.

bought Rio from 2011 at a store down the street from the hotel I'm in & I'm listening to it tonight - same vein as Carnegie and this observation is spot-on and, to me, really interesting - he's really much more engaged with Jazz-capital-J imo right now, drawing connections between that ecstatic 70s style & "the tradition" I guess - I think it's terrific, it really repays multiple listens. The Carnegie Hall concert NTI saw was indeed recorded & released and is a total treasure in my opinion, especially the encores, which just keep climbing into rarer air as they go.

oh wait hold up. Carnegie the album is '06, my bad. anyway, ten minutes later, Rio is still doing the trick - I haven't listened to the big 70s records in a long time but I'm beginning to wonder if I don't like where Jarrett's at now better than I do the huge-canvas vision of those immense concerts

Bremen, 1975, nine days after Koln

just digging in now, pretty great stuff

I'm working my way through A Multitude of Angels, his October 2016 release of the last solo piano concerts he did before the long chronic fatigue break. The first of the 4 CDs is Modena, Italy (they're all Italy) - it's really good, it's got a lot more of the knotty, less melodious stuff that crops up a fair bit in earlier stuff but he really sticks with it in Modena - to the point where, when it transitions into the that's-the-Jarrett-I-know major-key stuff, he seems to make a point of gliding back and forth between the rhythmic, stop-start stuff he'd been doing and the place he's going an extra time or two - it's pretty remarkable.

I hate to fault the liner notes for being pretentious as he's talking about a hard time in his life but lol this guy really must be hard to hang out with. But the music's sublime.

Somehow I totally missed this thread. The Sun Bear Concerts have always been my favourite, I listened to them many times in my adolescence. They somehow always seemed to me so complete encompassing tender romantic parts which then are transformed into atonal passages which sound like he is crossing the desert. Then he comes slowly back to the motiv and there is a transcendental climax. Etc.

There is a new album out on Friday, a concert in Venice from 2006, the record is called Fenice. I read a review which reminded me a lot of The Sun Bear Concerts. I am intrigued. This short extract sounds a lot like a lyrical piece by Schumann I find, that forebodes well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uxWhwCKZN4