![]() Munich 2016 and Budapest 2016, recorded two weeks apart during a fruitful European summer tour, mark the most recent instantiations of this shift. In the process, Jarrett morphed his solo aesthetic away from grandiose expansiveness towards (relative) brevity and concision. When they do solo albums, typically what you hear is, ‘Where’s the bass? I’m waiting for the rhythm section.’ Only recently did I become a good enough player to use both hands properly under those circumstances.” I realized jazz pianists don’t do their left hand. ![]() In 2010, Jarrett told me that his initial forays into playing with the trio when afflicted with CFS allowed him “to get rid of a lot of habit patterns.” He continued: “I was broadening the palette of my left hand. On the concerts that generated Resonance, followed by The Carnegie Hall Concert, La Fenice, Paris/London – Testament, Rio, and Creation, the music is more complex, more inclusive, reflecting a remark he made to writer Nate Chinen in 2017: “I’m using what I learned, and I’m using everything I didn’t learn… I haven’t had to deny any of categories.” Keith Jarrett, Italy, 2006 (© Roberto Masotti/ECM Records) I’m much more appreciative of Jarrett’s solo corpus after 2002, when he returned to that platform after a self-imposed hiatus while recovering from the debilitating effects of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Still, it’s arguable that Jarrett’s most enduring influence lies less in his pianistic wizardry than the expansive compositional strategies that he put forth in the quartets. Eicher himself praised “his phrasing, touch, quality of suspension, way of rubato playing and the influences from Chopin and Debussy that I grew up with as a European.” Others appreciate the bottomless well of melodic variations and ingenious rhythmic formulations that infuse Jarrett’s improvisations, and the seemingly infallible chops with which he executes them. ![]() Jarrett’s immense crossover popularity came without a corresponding dip in peer-group respect - pianists in the jazz and classical arenas consider him gold standard for a variety of reasons. Personal taste aside, however, Jarrett’s ability to scratch-improvise cogent musical architecture alone on stage for long durations is sui generis and objectively spectacular. I’m drawn more to Jarrett’s ensemble projects than the solo concert albums between 19, when he earned international celebrity through early forays as Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne, the million-selling Köln Concert, and The Sun Bear Concerts, and sustained it on mid-career highlights like Vienna Concert and La Scala. During the ’70s, Jarrett also led and composed enduring books of music for the “European” Quartet, comprising Scandinavian musicians Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen, and the “American” Quartet (which recorded for Impulse!), in which Jarrett added Dewey Redman to his cusp-of-the-’70s trio with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian. ECM’s Jarrett catalogue also includes his original compositions for baroque organ, clavichord, harpsichord, string quartet and the trio, and interpretations of the keyboard music of Bach, Mozart, Handel, Shostakovich and Arvo Pärt. Another 21 albums feature Jarrett’s super trio with the late bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette, which disbanded in November 2014. ![]() But his corpus is extravagantly comprehensive. The majority of Jarrett’s ECM releases in recent years are solo, including his paired 2020 releases, Munich 2016 and Budapest 2016. Most of the time I feel that what I do is for a public that’s actually in the space.” The control room and the speakers are usually worse than the ones I have in my house. “There’s too many wires, too many light-stands, too much metal. Ever wonder why each of the 20 solo piano albums by Keith Jarrett since Facing You, his 1971 ECM debut, has documented a live concert performance? In a 2001 conversation, Jarrett explained the reason.
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