Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945) is an American
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
pianist and
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
.
Jarrett started his career with
Art Blakey
Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...
and later moved on to play with
Charles Lloyd and
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
. Since the early 1970s, he has also been a group leader and solo performer in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music. His improvisations draw from the traditions of jazz and other genres, including Western classical music,
gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
,
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
, and ethnic
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
.
His album, ''
The Köln Concert
''The Concert'' is a live recording of solo piano improvisations performed by Keith Jarrett at the Opera House in Cologne (german: Köln) on 24 January 1975. The double-vinyl album was released in 1975 by ECM. It became the best-selling solo a ...
'', released in 1975, became the best-selling piano recording in history. In 2008, he was inducted into the
Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...
in the magazine's 73rd Annual Readers' Poll.
In 2003, Jarrett received the
Polar Music Prize
The Polar Music Prize is a Swedish international award founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, best known as the manager of the Swedish band ABBA, with a donation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The award is annually given to one contemporary ...
and was the first recipient to be recognized with prizes for both contemporary and classical music. In 2004, he received the
Léonie Sonning Music Prize
The Léonie Sonning Music Prize, or Sonning Award, which is recognized as Denmark's highest musical honor, is given annually to an international composer or musician. It was first awarded in 1959 to composer Igor Stravinsky. Laureates are now s ...
.
In February 2018, Jarrett suffered a
stroke
A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...
and has been unable to perform since. A second stroke, in May 2018, left him partially paralyzed and unable to play with his left hand.
Early life and education
Jarrett was born on May 8, 1945, in
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Allenschteddel'', ''Allenschtadt'', or ''Ellsdaun'') is a city in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. The city has a population of 125,845 as of the 2020 United ...
to a mother of
Slovenian
Slovene or Slovenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe
* Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia
* Slovenes
The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( sl, Sloven ...
descent. Jarrett's grandmother was born in Segovci, near
Apače
Apače (; german: Abstall) is a town in Slovenia and it is located on the border between Slovenia and Austria. It is the seat of the Municipality of Apače, which is the northernmost municipality in the traditional region of Slovenian Styria. It ...
in
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
. Jarrett's father was of mostly
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
descent. He grew up in suburban Allentown with significant early exposure to music.
Jarrett possesses
absolute pitch and displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He began piano lessons before his third birthday. At age five, he appeared on a television talent program hosted by swing bandleader
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman (March 28, 1890 – December 29, 1967) was an American bandleader, composer, orchestral director, and violinist.
As the leader of one of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s and early 1930s, ...
. He performed in his first formal piano recital at the age of seven, playing works by composers such as
Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
,
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
,
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
, and
Saint-Saëns, and ending with two of his own compositions. Encouraged by his mother, he took classical piano lessons with a series of teachers, including
Eleanor Sokoloff
Eleanor Sokoloff (née Blum; June 16, 1914July 12, 2020) was an American pianist and academic who formed a piano duo with her husband, Vladimir Sokoloff. She taught piano on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music from 1936 until her death ...
of the
Curtis Institute of Music
The Curtis Institute of Music is a private conservatory in Philadelphia. It offers a performance diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in opera, and a Professional Studies Certificate in opera. All students attend on full scholarship.
Hi ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
.
Jarrett attended
Emmaus High School
Emmaus High School is a large public high school located in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. The school serves grades nine through 12 in Pennsylvania's East Penn School District in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania.
Emmaus High School is loc ...
in
Emmaus, Pennsylvania, where he learned
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and became proficient in it. He developed a strong interest in
contemporary jazz, and was inspired by a
Dave Brubeck performance he attended in
New Hope. He was invited to study classical composition in Paris with
Nadia Boulanger
Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist.
From a ...
, but he was already leaning toward jazz and turned it down.
After his graduation from Emmaus High School in 1963, Jarrett moved to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
to attend
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...
and play
cocktail piano in local Boston clubs.
Career
The Jazz Messengers
In 1964, Jarrett moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where he played at the
Village Vanguard
The Village Vanguard is a jazz club at Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. Originally, the club presented folk music and beat poetry, but it became primarily a jazz ...
in
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
.
Art Blakey
Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...
hired Jarrett to play with
The Jazz Messengers
The Jazz Messengers were a jazz combo that existed for over thirty-five years beginning in the early 1950s as a collective, and ending when long-time leader and founding drummer Art Blakey died in 1990. Blakey led or co-led the group from the o ...
. Jarrett's appearance on the Messengers' live album ''
Buttercorn Lady
''Buttercorn Lady'' is a live album by drummer Art Blakey's New Jazz Messengers recorded at The Lighthouse jazz club in 1966 and originally released that year on the Limelight label. The album was the first commercial recording to feature pianis ...
'' marked his commercial recording debut. However, there was friction between Blakey and Jarrett, and Jarrett left after four months of touring. During a show he was noticed by
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette (born August 9, 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer.
Known for his extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians including Charles Lloyd, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, ...
, who recommended Jarrett to his band leader
Charles Lloyd. The Charles Lloyd Quartet had formed not long before and were exploring open, improvised forms while building supple grooves, and they were moving into terrain that was also being explored, although from another stylistic background, by some of the psychedelic rock bands of the West Coast.
[Carr, Ian, ''Keith Jarrett'', p. 32.] Their 1966 album ''
Forest Flower'' was one of the most successful jazz recordings of the mid-1960s. They were invited to play
The Fillmore
The Fillmore is a historic music venue in San Francisco, California.
Built in 1912 and originally named the Majestic Hall, it became the Fillmore Auditorium in 1954. It is in Western Addition, on the edge of the Fillmore District and Upper Fil ...
in San Francisco, and won over the local
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
audience.
[Carr, Ian. ''Keith Jarrett'', p. 33.] The quartet toured across the U.S. and Europe, including appearances in Leningrad and Moscow.
Their concert at London's
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no govern ...
was attended by
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
. The band was profiled in ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' and ''
Harper's Magazine
''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...
'',
which made Jarrett a popular musician in rock and jazz. The tour also laid the foundation for a lasting musical bond with DeJohnette.
Jarrett began to record his own tracks as a leader of small groups at first in a trio with
Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking ...
and
Paul Motian
Stephen Paul Motian (March 25, 1931 – November 22, 2011) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, and composer. Motian played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties.
He first came to prominence in the ...
. ''
Life Between the Exit Signs
''Life Between the Exit Signs'' is the first jazz album by pianist Keith Jarrett as a leader. It was recorded on May 4, 1967 at Atlantic Recording Studios, in New York City and released on April 1, 1968, under the record label Vortex, a subsidiar ...
'' (1967), his first album as a band leader, was released by
Vortex
In fluid dynamics, a vortex ( : vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in th ...
followed by ''
Restoration Ruin
''Restoration Ruin'' is an album by Keith Jarrett on which he performs multiple instruments (including piano, organ, guitar, soprano saxophone, harmonica, recorder, bass guitar, drums, tambourine and sistrum), and sings his own lyrics. Recorded ...
'' (1968), which Thom Jurek of
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
wrote was "a curiosity in his catalog".
[Jurek, Thom]
Allmusic "Keith Jarrett" biography.
Retrieved 8 August 2015. Not only does Jarrett barely touch the piano, but he plays all the other instruments on what is essentially a
folk-rock album. Unusually, he also sings.
''
Somewhere Before
''Somewhere Before'' is a live album by pianist Keith Jarrett recorded on August 30 and 31, 1968, at Shelly's Manne-Hole in Hollywood, California with his first trio, composed of Charlie Haden (bass) and Paul Motian (drums).
Reception
The All ...
'', another trio album with Haden and Motian, was released in 1968 on
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...
.
Miles Davis
![Keith Jarrett-140908-0009WP](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Keith_Jarrett-140908-0009WP.jpg)
The Charles Lloyd Quartet with Jarrett,
Ron McClure
Ron McClure (born November 22, 1941) is an American jazz bassist.
Early life
McClure was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. He started on piano at age five, and later played accordion and bass. McClure studied privately with Joseph I ...
, and DeJohnette came to an end in 1968 after their recording of ''
Soundtrack
A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...
'' because of money disputes and artistic differences. Jarrett was asked to join the
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
group after the trumpeter heard him in a New York City club. During his tenure with Davis, Jarrett played both
electronic organ
An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed ...
and
Rhodes piano
The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...
, alternating with
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021) was an American jazz composer, pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", " 500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba", and ...
. The two appear side by side on some 1970 recordings, including the
Isle of Wight Festival
The Isle of Wight Festival is a British music festival which takes place annually in Newport on the Isle of Wight, England. It was originally a counterculture event held from 1968 to 1970.
The 1970 event was by far the largest of these early ...
performance of August 1970 in the film ''
Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue'' and on ''
Bitches Brew Live
''Bitches Brew Live'' is a live album by Miles Davis. The album was released in February 2011 and contains material compiled from two concert performances. Most of the songs on the album originally appeared on '' Bitches Brew''. The first three tr ...
''. After Corea left in 1970, Jarrett often played electric piano and organ simultaneously. Despite his growing dislike of amplified music and electric instruments within jazz, Jarrett continued with the group out of respect for Davis and because of his desire to work with DeJohnette. Jarrett has often cited Davis as a vital musical and personal influence on his own thinking about music and improvisation.
Jarrett performs on several Davis albums, including ''
Miles Davis at Fillmore'', recorded June 17–20, 1970 at
Fillmore East
The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the (at the time) Lower East Side neighborhood, now called the East Village neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan of New York City. I ...
in New York City, and ''
The Cellar Door Sessions 1970
''The Cellar Door Sessions 1970'' is a boxed live album released in 2005. It was recorded over several nights in 1970 at the Washington D. C. nightclub The Cellar Door. Despite similar formatting to The Miles Davis Series of box sets, it is no ...
'', recorded December 16–19, 1970 at
The Cellar Door
The Cellar Door was a 163-seat music club located at 34th & M Street NW in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. from 1964 through January 7, 1982. It occupied the location of a former music club called The Shadows.
One of the premie ...
club in Washington, D.C.. His keyboard playing features prominently on ''
Live-Evil'' and he plays electric organ on ''
Get Up with It
''Get Up with It'' is a compilation album by American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Davis. Released by Columbia Records on November 22, 1974, it compiled songs Davis had recorded in sessions between 1970 and 1974, including those f ...
''. Some other tracks from this period were released much later.
DeJohnette left Davis' band in the middle of 1971, and Jarrett followed in December.
[Carr, Ian. ''Keith Jarrett'', p. 52.] Jarrett later reflected: "When Jack left I knew I was going to have to leave ... Nobody knew what Jack knew and could do what he could do simultaneously. That was the end of the flexibility of the band".
1970s quartets and Manfred Eicher
![Miles Davis-140916-0018-105WP](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Miles_Davis-140916-0018-105WP.jpg)
In 1971, Jarrett, Haden, and Motian participated in a four-day session for
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...
during which they recorded the trio album ''
The Mourning of a Star
''The Mourning of a Star'' is an album by Keith Jarrett recorded in 1971 with his regular working trio (bass player Charlie Haden and drummer Paul Motian) and released that same year by Atlantic Records. On five dates in July and August 1971 Ja ...
'' and two albums, ''
El Juicio (The Judgement)
''El Juicio (The Judgement)'' is an album by pianist Keith Jarrett recorded in 1971 and released in 1975. On four days in July and one in August 1971 Jarrett went into the Atlantic Recording Studios with his trio (Charlie Haden and Paul Motian) ...
'' and ''
Birth
Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...
'', on which the trio was augmented by saxophonist
Dewey Redman
Walter Dewey Redman (May 17, 1931 – September 2, 2006) was an American saxophonist who performed free jazz as a bandleader and with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett.
Redman mainly played tenor saxophone, though he occasionally also played ...
.
[Carr, Ian. ''Keith Jarrett,'' p. 56.] Redman became an official member of the group, which later became known as the "American quartet". They would go on to record over a dozen albums over five years.
The group was often supplemented by an extra percussionist, such as Danny Johnson,
Guilherme Franco
Guilherme Franco (born November 25, 1946 and died November 12, 2016 in São Paulo, Brazil) was a percussionist in the jazz and world fusion music genres.
Franco performed on the albums of many notable jazz musicians such as McCoy Tyner, Lonnie Li ...
, or
Airto Moreira
Airto Guimorvan Moreira (born August 5, 1941) is a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. He is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. Coming to prominence in the late 1960s as a member of the ...
, and occasionally by guitarist
Sam Brown.
Later in 1971, the quartet, with Brown and Moreira, recorded ''
Expectations'' for
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...
, with string and brass arrangements by Jarrett.
However, Columbia suddenly dropped Jarrett in favor of
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he help ...
, and Jarrett's manager negotiated a contract with
Impulse! Records
Impulse! Records (occasionally styled as "¡mpulse! Records" and "¡!") is an American jazz record company and label established by Creed Taylor in 1960. John Coltrane was among Impulse!'s earliest signings. Thanks to consistent sales and positi ...
,
[Carr, Ian. ''Keith Jarrett,'' p. 61.] for whom the group would record eight albums.
The quartet members played various instruments. Jarrett played soprano saxophone, recorder, banjo, percussion, and piano. Redman played
musette
Musette may refer to:
Music
* Musette de cour, or baroque musette, a musical instrument of the bagpipe family
* Musette bechonnet, a type of French bagpipe
* Musette bressane, a type of French bagpipe
* Oboe musette, or piccolo oboe, the small ...
, a Chinese double-reed instrument, and percussion, and Motian and Haden played a variety of percussion. Haden also produced a variety of unusual plucked and percussive sounds with his acoustic bass, running it through a
wah-wah pedal
A wah-wah pedal, or simply wah pedal, is a type of electric guitar effects pedal that alters the tone and frequencies of the guitar signal to create a distinctive sound, mimicking the human voice saying the onomatopoeic name "wah-wah". The ped ...
for one track ("Mortgage on My Soul" on the album ''Birth''). ''
Byablue'' and ''
Bop-Be'', albums recorded for Impulse!, feature the compositions of Haden, Motian and Redman, as opposed to Jarrett's own, which dominated the previous albums. Jarrett's compositions and the musical identities of the group members gave this ensemble a distinctive sound. The quartet's music is an amalgam of free jazz, straight-ahead post-bop, gospel music, and exotic, Middle-Eastern-sounding improvisations.
During this time, Jarrett received a letter from producer
Manfred Eicher
Manfred Eicher (born 9 July 1943) is a German record producer and the founder of ECM Records.
Life and career
Eicher was born in Lindau, Germany. He studied music at the Academy of Music in Berlin. He started as a double-bass player of classi ...
asking if he would like to record for the relatively new
ECM label. Jarrett was impressed by the fact that Eicher was primarily concerned with musical quality, as opposed to financial gain.
[Carr, Ian. ''Keith Jarrett,'' p. 59.] Jarrett's American quartet released two albums, ''
The Survivors' Suite
''The Survivors' Suite'' is an album by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett featuring his 'American Quartet' ensemble which included Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Paul Motian. It represents the first album they recorded for ECM and in terms of musi ...
'' and ''
Eyes of the Heart'', on ECM, and the label also issued ''
Ruta and Daitya'', consisting of duo tracks featuring Jarrett and DeJohnette recorded in early 1971 and tracks with Miles Davis after Jarrett gave tapes of the session to Eicher.
In 1972, Eicher proposed that Jarrett work with Norwegian saxophonist
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek () (born 4 March 1947) is a Norwegian jazz saxophonist, who is also active in classical music and world music.
Garbarek was born in Mysen, Østfold, southeastern Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war, Czesław ...
, whom Jarrett had met while in Europe with Charles Lloyd during the late 1960s. Their initial collaborations laid the groundwork for what would become known as the "European quartet", which also featured
Palle Danielsson
Nils Paul "Palle" Danielsson (born 15 October 1946) is a Swedish jazz double bassist born in Stockholm, Sweden. From 1974 to 1979, he was a member of Keith Jarrett's quartet. He is the brother of pianist Monica Dominique.
Career
Danielsson's ...
on bass and
Jon Christensen on drums. The group recorded five albums for ECM, each played in a style similar to that of the American quartet but with many of the avant-garde and Americana elements replaced by the European folk and classical music influences that characterized the work of ECM artists at the time.
Solo piano
![Keith Jarrett-commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Keith_Jarrett-commons.jpg)
Jarrett recorded a few solo pieces live under the guidance of
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
at
the Cellar Door
The Cellar Door was a 163-seat music club located at 34th & M Street NW in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. from 1964 through January 7, 1982. It occupied the location of a former music club called The Shadows.
One of the premie ...
in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, in December 1970. These were done on electric pianos (
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the So ...
and
Contempo). Most parts of these recorded sets were released in 2007 on ''
The Cellar Door Sessions
''The Cellar Door Sessions 1970'' is a boxed live album released in 2005. It was recorded over several nights in 1970 at the Washington D. C. nightclub The Cellar Door. Despite similar formatting to The Miles Davis Series of box sets, it is not ...
'', featuring four improvisations by Jarrett.
Jarrett's first album for ECM, ''
Facing You'' was released in 1971. He has continued to record solo studio piano albums intermittently throughout his career, including ''
Staircase'' (1976), ''
Invocations/The Moth and the Flame'' (1981), and ''
The Melody at Night, with You'' (1999). ''
Book of Ways
''Book of Ways'', ''the feeling of strings'', is a one-in-a-kind double album of improvised music performed by Keith Jarrett on clavichord recorded in July 1986 and released by ECM Records in 1987.
Making of
As Jarrett stated in an interview wi ...
'' (1986) is a studio recording of
clavichord
The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras.
Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to compositi ...
solos.
In 1973, Jarrett began playing totally
improvised
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
solo concerts, and it is the popularity of these concert recordings that made him one of the best-selling jazz artists in history. Albums released from these concerts were ''
Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne'' (1973), which ''Time'' magazine named "Jazz Album of the Year", ''
The Köln Concert
''The Concert'' is a live recording of solo piano improvisations performed by Keith Jarrett at the Opera House in Cologne (german: Köln) on 24 January 1975. The double-vinyl album was released in 1975 by ECM. It became the best-selling solo a ...
'' (1975), which became the best-selling piano recording in history, ''
All About Jazz
''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...
'', and ''
Sun Bear Concerts'' (1976), a 10-LP (and later 6-CD) box set. Another of Jarrett's solo concerts, ''
Dark Intervals'', was released in 1987.
After a hiatus, Jarrett returned to extended solo improvised concert format with ''
Paris Concert'' (1990), ''
Vienna Concert'' (1991), and ''
La Scala
La Scala (, , ; abbreviation in Italian of the official name ) is a famous opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the ' (New Royal-Ducal Theatre alla Scala). The premiere performan ...
'' (1995). These later concerts tend to be more influenced by classical music than the earlier ones, reflecting his interest in composers such as
Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
and
Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...
. In the liner notes to ''Vienna Concert'', Jarrett named the performance his greatest achievement and the fulfillment of everything he was aiming to accomplish. "I have courted the fire for a very long time, and many sparks have flown in the past, but the music on this recording speaks, finally, the language of the flame itself", he wrote.
Jarrett has commented that his best performances have been when he has had only the slightest notion of what he was going to play at the next moment. He also said that most people don't know "what he does." which relates to what Miles Davis said to him expressing bewilderment as to how Jarrett could "play from nothing."
Jarrett's 100th solo performance in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
was captured on video at Suntory Hall, Tokyo, in April 1987, and released the same year as ''Solo Tribute''. This is a set of almost all standard songs. Another video recording, ''Last Solo'', was released in 1987 from a solo concert at Kan-i Hoken hall in Tokyo in January 1984.
In the late 1990s, Jarrett was diagnosed with
chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or ME/CFS, is a complex, debilitating, long-term medical condition. The causes and mechanisms of the disease are not fully understood. Distinguishing core symptoms are ...
and was unable to leave his home for long periods of time. During this period, he recorded ''
The Melody at Night, with You'', a solo piano effort consisting of jazz standards. The album had originally been a Christmas gift to his second wife, Rose Anne.
By 2000, Jarrett had returned to touring, both solo and with the Standards Trio. Two 2002 solo concerts in Japan, Jarrett's first solo piano concerts following his illness, were released on the 2005 CD ''
Radiance
In radiometry, radiance is the radiant flux emitted, reflected, transmitted or received by a given surface, per unit solid angle per unit projected area. Radiance is used to characterize diffuse emission and reflection of electromagnetic radiati ...
'' (a complete concert in
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...
and excerpts from one in Tokyo) and the 2006 DVD ''Tokyo Solo'' (the entire Tokyo performance). In contrast with previous concerts (which were generally a pair of continuous improvisations 30–40 minutes long), the 2002 concerts consist of a linked series of shorter improvisations (some as short as a minute and a half).
In September 2005, at
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
, Jarrett performed his first solo concert in North America in more than ten years, released a year later as a double-CD set, ''
The Carnegie Hall Concert''. In late 2008, he performed solo in the
Salle Pleyel
The Salle Pleyel (, meaning "Pleyel Hall") is a concert hall in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, designed by acoustician Gustave Lyon together with architect Jacques Marcel Auburtin, who died in 1926, and the work was completed in 1927 by ...
in Paris and at London's
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...
, marking the first time Jarrett played solo in London in 17 years. Recordings of these concerts were released in October 2009 on the album ''
Paris / London: Testament''. The 2005 documentary ''The Art of Improvisation'', broadcast on
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...
on November 12, 2021 concluded with his trio performing a recognizable version of "
Basin Street Blues".
The Standards Trio
In 1983, at the suggestion of ECM head
Manfred Eicher
Manfred Eicher (born 9 July 1943) is a German record producer and the founder of ECM Records.
Life and career
Eicher was born in Lindau, Germany. He studied music at the Academy of Music in Berlin. He started as a double-bass player of classi ...
,
[Smith, Steve. "40 Years Old, a Musical House Without Walls". ''New York Times'', December 23, 2009.] Jarrett asked bassist
Gary Peacock and drummer
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette (born August 9, 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer.
Known for his extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians including Charles Lloyd, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, ...
, with whom he had worked on Peacock's 1977 album ''
Tales of Another'', to record an album of
jazz standards
Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list ...
, simply titled ''
Standards, Volume 1''. Two more albums, ''
Standards, Volume 2'' and ''
Changes
Changes may refer to:
Books
* ''Changes'', the 12th novel in Jim Butcher's ''The Dresden Files'' Series
* ''Changes'', a novel by Danielle Steel
* ''Changes'', a trilogy of novels on which the BBC TV series was based, written by Peter Dickinson ...
'', both recorded at the same session, followed soon after. The success of these albums and the group's ensuing tour, which came as traditional acoustic post-bop was enjoying an upswing in the early 1980s, led to this new standards trio becoming one of the premier
working group
A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...
s in jazz, and certainly one of the most enduring, continuing to record and tour for more than 25 years. The Trio went on to record numerous live and studio albums consisting primarily of jazz repertory material.
The Jarrett-Peacock-DeJohnette trio also produced recordings that consist largely of challenging original material, including 1987's ''
Changeless''. Several of the standards albums contain an original track or two, some attributed to Jarrett, but most are improvisations on jazz standards. The live recordings ''
Inside Out'' and ''
Always Let Me Go
''Always Let Me Go'' is a live album by American pianist Keith Jarrett's "Standards Trio" featuring Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette recorded in concert in April 2001 at the Bunkamura Orchard Hall and Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, in Japan and released ...
'' (released in 2001 and 2002 respectively) marked a renewed interest by the trio in wholly improvised
free jazz
Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...
. By this point in their history, the musical communication among these three men had become nothing short of telepathic, and their group improvisations frequently take on a complexity that sounds almost composed. The standards trio undertook frequent world tours of recital halls (the only venues Jarrett, a notorious stickler for acoustics, will play) and was one of the few truly successful jazz groups to play both straight-ahead (as opposed to
smooth
Smooth may refer to:
Mathematics
* Smooth function, a function that is infinitely differentiable; used in calculus and topology
* Smooth manifold, a differentiable manifold for which all the transition maps are smooth functions
* Smooth algebrai ...
) and free jazz.
A related recording, ''
At the Deer Head Inn
''At the Deer Head Inn'' is a live album by American pianist Keith Jarrett with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian recorded in concert in September 1992 in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania at the Deer Head Inn and released by ECM Records in 1994. Th ...
'' (1992), is a live album of standards recorded with
Paul Motian
Stephen Paul Motian (March 25, 1931 – November 22, 2011) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, and composer. Motian played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties.
He first came to prominence in the ...
replacing DeJohnette, at the venue in
Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania
Delaware Water Gap is a borough in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located adjacent to the Delaware Water Gap, the pass through which the Lackawanna Corridor and Interstate 80 run across the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border alon ...
, 40 miles from Jarrett's hometown, where he had his first job as a jazz pianist. It was the first time Jarrett and Motian had played together since the demise of the American quartet sixteen years earlier.
The Standard Trio disbanded in 2014 after more than 30 years. The final concert of Keith Jarrett's trio was on November 30, 2014 at the
New Jersey Performing Arts Center
The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), in downtown Newark, New Jersey, United States, is one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States. Home to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO), more than nine million visitors ( ...
,
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.[Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", "B ...]
's composition "Straight, No Chaser". Peacock died in September 2020.
Classical music
Since the early 1970s, Jarrett's success as a jazz musician has enabled him to maintain a parallel career as a classical composer and pianist, recording almost exclusively for ECM Records. ''
In the Light'', an album made in 1973, consists of short pieces for solo piano, strings, and various chamber ensembles, including a string quartet and a brass quintet, and a piece for cellos and trombones. This collection demonstrates a young composer's affinity for a variety of classical styles.
''
Luminessence
''Luminessence'' is an album composed by American pianist Keith Jarrett featuring saxophonist Jan Garbarek and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Südfunk-Sinfonieorchester conducted by Mladen Gutesha recorded in April 1974. It was released o ...
'' (1974) and ''
Arbour Zena
''Arbour Zena'' is an orchestral work composed by American jazz pianist Keith Jarrett featuring saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Charlie Haden and members of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by which was recorded in October 197 ...
'' (1975) both combine composed pieces for strings with improvising jazz musicians, including
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek () (born 4 March 1947) is a Norwegian jazz saxophonist, who is also active in classical music and world music.
Garbarek was born in Mysen, Østfold, southeastern Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war, Czesław ...
and
Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking ...
. The strings here have a moody, contemplative feel that is characteristic of the "ECM sound" of the 1970s, and is also particularly well suited to Garbarek's keening saxophone improvisations. From an academic standpoint, these compositions are dismissed by many classical music aficionados as lightweight, but Jarrett appeared to be working more towards a synthesis between composed and improvised music at this time, rather than the production of formal classical works. From this point on, however, his classical work would adhere to more conventional disciplines.
''
Ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...
'' (1977) is a composed solo piano piece recorded by
Dennis Russell Davies
Dennis Russell Davies (born April 16, 1944 in Toledo, Ohio) is an American conductor and pianist, He is currently the music director and chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic.
Biography
Davies studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard Sch ...
that is somewhat reminiscent of Jarrett's own solo piano recordings.
''
The Celestial Hawk
''The Celestial Hawk'' is an album of contemporary classical music written by Keith Jarrett and performed by Jarrett with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher Keene. It was recorded in March 1980Keith Jarrett discographThe Cel ...
'' (1980) is a piece for orchestra, percussion, and piano that Jarrett performed and recorded with the Syracuse Symphony under
Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene (December 21, 1946 – October 8, 1995) was an American conductor.
Early life and education
Keene was born in 1946 in Berkeley, California, the son of Yvonne (née Cyr) and Jim Keene. His mother was of Acadian, German, and Sco ...
. This piece is the largest and longest of Jarrett's efforts as a classical composer.
''
Bridge of Light
''Bridge of Light'' is an album of contemporary classical music written by Keith Jarrett and performed by Jarrett with The Fairfield Orchestra conducted by Thomas Crawford. It was recorded in March 1993Keith Jarrett discographBridge of Lightacce ...
'' (1993) is the last recording of classical compositions to appear under Jarrett's name. The album contains three pieces written for a soloist with orchestra, and one for violin and piano. The pieces date from 1984 and 1990.
In 1988, New World Records released the CD ''Lou Harrison: Piano Concerto and Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra'', featuring Jarrett on piano, with Naoto Otomo conducting the piano concerto with the
New Japan Philharmonic
The is a symphony orchestra based in Tokyo, Japan. It was founded in 1972 with Seiji Ozawa as honorary conductor laureate. The Philharmonic's primary concert venue is the Sumida Triphony Hall. From 2003 to 2013 its music director was Chr ...
. Robert Hughes conducted the Suite for Violin, Piano, and Small Orchestra. In 1992 came the release of Jarrett's performance of
Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Peggy Winsome Glanville-Hicks (29 December 191225 June 1990) was an Australian composer and music critic.
Biography
Peggy Glanville Hicks, born in Melbourne, first studied composition with Fritz Hart at the Albert Street Conservatorium in M ...
's ''Etruscan Concerto'', with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the
Brooklyn Philharmonic
There have been several organisations referred to as the Brooklyn Philharmonic. The most recent one was the now-defunct Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, an American orchestra based in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in existence fr ...
. This was released on Music Masters Classics, with pieces by
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his for ...
and
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...
. In 1995 Music Masters Jazz released a CD on which one track featured Jarrett performing the solo piano part in ''
Lousadzak
''Lousadzak'' (The Coming of Light), Op. 48, is a 1944 concerto for piano and string orchestra by the American-Armenian composer Alan Hovhaness. The work is known for its use of aleatory that is said to have impressed fellow composers Lou Harrison ...
'', a 17-minute piano concerto by American composer
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness (; March 8, 1911 – June 21, 2000) was an American- Armenian composer. He was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers, with his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies (surviving manuscripts indicate over 70) a ...
. The conductor again was Davies. Most of Jarrett's classical recordings are of older repertoire, but he may have been introduced to this modern work by his one-time manager
George Avakian
George Mesrop Avakian (; russian: Геворк Авакян; March 15, 1919 – November 22, 2017) was an American record producer, artist manager, writer, educator and executive. Best known for his work from 1939 to the early 1960s at Decca Re ...
, who was a friend of the composer. Jarrett has also recorded classical works for ECM by composers such as
Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
,
Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...
,
Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...
, and
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt (; born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in pa ...
.
In 2004, Jarrett was awarded the
Léonie Sonning Music Prize
The Léonie Sonning Music Prize, or Sonning Award, which is recognized as Denmark's highest musical honor, is given annually to an international composer or musician. It was first awarded in 1959 to composer Igor Stravinsky. Laureates are now s ...
. Usually associated with classical musicians and composers,
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
is the only other jazz performer to have won it.
Other works
Jarrett has also played
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
,
clavichord
The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras.
Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to compositi ...
, organ,
soprano saxophone
The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sop ...
, and drums. He often played saxophone and various forms of percussion in the American quartet, though his recordings since the breakup of that group have rarely featured these instruments. On the majority of his recordings in the last 20 years, he has played acoustic piano only. He has spoken with some regret of his decision to give up playing the saxophone, in particular.
On April 15, 1978, Jarrett was the musical guest on ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
''. The 2001 German film ''Bella Martha'' (English title: ''Mostly Martha''), whose music consultant was an
ECM Records
ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's a ...
founder and head
Manfred Eicher
Manfred Eicher (born 9 July 1943) is a German record producer and the founder of ECM Records.
Life and career
Eicher was born in Lindau, Germany. He studied music at the Academy of Music in Berlin. He started as a double-bass player of classi ...
, features Jarrett's "Country", from the European quartet album ''My Song'' and "U Dance" from the album ''Tribute''.
Lawsuit against Steely Dan
Following the release of the album ''
Gaucho
A gaucho () or gaúcho () is a skilled horseman, reputed to be brave and unruly. The figure of the gaucho is a folk symbol of Argentina, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and the south of Chilean Patagonia. Gauchos became greatly admired and ...
'' in 1980 by the U.S.
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1971 in New York by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Initially the band had a stable lineup, but in 1974, Becker and Fagen retired from live ...
, Jarrett sued the band for copyright infringement. ''Gaucho's'' title track, credited to
Donald Fagen and
Walter Becker
Walter Carl Becker (February 20, 1950 – September 3, 2017) was an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was the co-founder, guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter of the jazz rock band Steely Dan.Russonello, Giovanni,Listen t ...
, bore a resemblance to Jarrett's "Long As You Know You're Living Yours" from Jarrett's 1974 album ''
Belonging''. In an interview with ''
Musician
A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...
'' magazine, Becker and Fagen were asked about the similarity between the two pieces of music, and Becker told ''Musician'' that he loved the Jarrett composition, while Fagen said they had been influenced by it. After their comments were published, Jarrett sued, and Becker and Fagen were legally obliged to add his name to the credits and provide Jarrett with publishing royalties.
Idiosyncrasies
One of Jarrett's trademarks is his frequent, loud vocalizations. Jarrett is also physically active while playing jazz and improvised solo performances, but the vocalizations are generally absent whenever he plays classical repertoire. Jarrett has noted his vocalizations are based on involvement, not content, and are more of an interaction than a reaction.
Jarrett is highly intolerant of audience noise, especially during solo improvised performances. He feels extraneous noise affects his inspiration and distracts from the purity of the sound. Cough drops are routinely supplied to Jarrett's audiences in cold weather, and he has been known to stop playing and lead the crowd in a group cough.
He has also complained onstage about audience members taking photographs,
and has performed in the dark to prevent this.
Jarrett is opposed to electronic instruments and equipment, which he has described as "toys".
His liner notes for the 1973 album ''Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne'' states: "I am, and have been, carrying on an anti-electric-music crusade of which this is an exhibit for the prosecution. Electricity goes through all of us and is not to be relegated to wires." He has largely eschewed electric or electronic instruments since his time with Miles Davis. However, in October 1972, he played electric piano and piano on
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...
's ''
Sky Dive
''Sky Dive'' is the twentieth album by jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, recorded in 1972. It was his fourth album released on Creed Taylor's CTI label and features performances by Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, George Benson, Ron Carter, Billy Cobh ...
.''
Cultural references
Jarrett was referenced in Season 5, Episode 6 of
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
's ''
The Sopranos
''The Sopranos'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime drama television series created by David Chase. The story revolves around Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey-based American Mafia, Italian-American mobster, portraying h ...
'' in 2004, titled "
Sentimental Education
''Sentimental Education'' (French: ''L'Éducation sentimentale'', 1869) is a novel by Gustave Flaubert. Considered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century, it was praised by contemporaries such as George Sand and Émile Zola, but ...
"; in the episode,
Tony Blundetto mentions "piping in a little Keith Jarrett" among his plans for the massage studio he is building.
Personal life
Jarrett lives in an 18th-century farmhouse in
Oxford Township, New Jersey
Oxford Township is a township in Warren County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 2,514, reflecting an increase of 207 (+9.0%) from the 2,307 counted in the 2000 census, which had in ...
in rural
Warren County Warren County is the name of fourteen counties in the USA. Some are named after General Joseph Warren, who was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War:
* Warren County, Georgia
* Warren County, Illinois
* Warren County ...
, where he uses an adjacent barn as a recording and practice studio.
Jarrett was a follower of the teachings of
George Gurdjieff
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (; rus, Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гурджи́ев, r=Geórgy Ivánovich Gurdzhíev, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪd͡ʑ ɡʊrd͡ʐˈʐɨ(j)ɪf; hy, Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև; c. 1 ...
(1866–1949) for many years,
and in 1980 recorded an album of Gurdjieff's compositions, called ''Sacred Hymns'', for ECM. He is now a
Christian Scientist
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally known ...
.
In 1964, Jarrett married Margot Erney, his girlfriend from
Emmaus High School
Emmaus High School is a large public high school located in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. The school serves grades nine through 12 in Pennsylvania's East Penn School District in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania.
Emmaus High School is loc ...
with whom Jarrett reconnected in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. The couple had two sons, Gabriel and Noah, and divorced in 1979. He and his second wife Rose Anne (née Colavito) divorced in 2010 after a 30-year marriage. Jarrett has four younger brothers, two of whom are involved in music. Chris Jarrett is also a pianist and Scott Jarrett is a producer and songwriter. Of the two sons from his first marriage, Noah Jarrett, is a
bassist
A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a Bass (instrument), bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboar ...
and composer and Gabriel is a
drummer
A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one mem ...
based in
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
.
Jarrett's race has been a source of commentary by media and activists throughout his career, as he has reported being recurrently mistaken as a
Black person
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in s ...
. In a 2000 interview with
Terry Gross
Terry Gross (born February 14, 1951) is an American journalist who is the host and co-executive producer of '' Fresh Air'', an interview-based radio show produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and distributed nationally by NPR. Since joining N ...
, Jarrett relates an incident at the Heidelberg Jazz Festival in the
Rhine-Neckar
The Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region (german: Metropolregion Rhein-Neckar, ), often referred to as Rhein-Neckar-Triangle, is a polycentric metropolitan region located in south western Germany, between the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region to the North ...
region of
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
when he was protested by Black musicians for something akin to
cultural appropriation
Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from ...
. He also tells of a separate moment in his career when black jazz musician
Ornette Coleman
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Colle ...
approached him backstage, and "said something like 'Man, you've got to be black. You just have to be black.'" Jarrett replied "I know. I know. I'm working on it."
In a September 11, 2000 interview with
Terry Gross
Terry Gross (born February 14, 1951) is an American journalist who is the host and co-executive producer of '' Fresh Air'', an interview-based radio show produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and distributed nationally by NPR. Since joining N ...
, Jarrett revealed that
chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or ME/CFS, is a complex, debilitating, long-term medical condition. The causes and mechanisms of the disease are not fully understood. Distinguishing core symptoms are ...
required him to radically overhaul his piano to have less breakaway keypress resistance in order for him to keep playing.
Interviewed by
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
's
Rachel Martin for his 70th birthday in 2015, Jarrett explained the notable involuntary vocalizations made during his performances. "It's potential limitlessness that I'm feeling at that moment. If you think about it, it's often in a space between phrases,
hen I'm thinking,"How did I get to this point where I feel so full?" And if you felt full of some sort of emotion you would have to make a sound. So that's actually what it is — with the trio, without the trio, solo. Luckily for me, I don't do it with classical music," he said.
Jarrett suffered two major strokes in February and May 2018. After the second, he was paralyzed and spent nearly two years in a rehabilitation facility. Although he has regained a limited ability to walk with a cane and can play piano with his right hand, he remains partly paralyzed on his left side and is not expected to perform again. "I don't know what my future is supposed to be. I don't feel right now like I'm a pianist", Jarrett told ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' in October 2020.
Discography
References
Sources
*
Carr, Ian
Ian Carr (21 April 1933 – 25 February 2009) was a Scottish jazz musician, composer, writer, and educator. Carr performed and recorded with the Rendell-Carr quintet and jazz-fusion band Nucleus, and was an associate professor at the Guildhall ...
. ''Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music''. 1992
*
Carr, Ian
Ian Carr (21 April 1933 – 25 February 2009) was a Scottish jazz musician, composer, writer, and educator. Carr performed and recorded with the Rendell-Carr quintet and jazz-fusion band Nucleus, and was an associate professor at the Guildhall ...
;
Fairweather, Digby;
Priestley, Brian. ''The Rough Guide to Jazz''. 2003
External links
*
Art of the States: Keith Jarrettperforming ''Lousadzak, op. 48'' (1944) by
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness (; March 8, 1911 – June 21, 2000) was an American- Armenian composer. He was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers, with his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies (surviving manuscripts indicate over 70) a ...
Keith Jarrett on ECM Records"Keith Jarrett Standards Trio Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary"by Ted Gioi
Jazz.comKeith Jarrett on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz (NPR)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jarrett, Keith
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