''Spirits'' is a double album by

Keith Jarrett Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945) is an American jazz and classical music pianist and composer. Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey and later moved on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s, he has also been a ...

on which he does not perform solo piano, jazz standards or the kind of music he is usually known for. Instead he performs vocals, guitar,

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

, soprano saxophone,

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

, piano,

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, flutes and percussion on multiple tracks that were recorded at his home studio (aka Cavelight Studios) in New Jersey. It was released by

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 ...

in 1986 and Jarrett dedicated it to his wife Rose Ann Colavito.

Background and inception

According to Edward Strickland in his book "American Composers: Dialogues on Contemporary Music"

Original liner notes

On the double CD release (ECM 1333/34, 829 ) Keith Jarrett himself writes extensive liner notes where he states that:

Reception

Among mixed enthusiasm after such a different output in Jarrett's previous production, the Rough Guide to Jazz states : According to Tom Moon at

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 ...

the album is "an experimental (and unfairly disregarded) transfixing two-disc vision quest recorded between May and July 1985 by Jarrett alone in a studio in New Jersey". While

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 ...

review by non-jazz or "ethno" music specialist, ''The Tina Turner Story'' author

Ron Wynn Ron Wynn is a music critic, author, and AllMusic editor. Wynn was the editor of the first edition of '' The All Music Guide to Jazz'' (1994), and from 1993 to 1994 served as the jazz and rap editor of the ''All Music Guide''. Wynn is the former e ...

awarded the album 3 stars, calling it, "More a technical showcase than a musically worthy enterprise", other views have contested those claims as "incompetent".Wynn, R
Allmusic Review
accessed August 12, 2011 In 2002, on occasion of the double CD "''Rarum: Selected Recordings of Keith Jarrett''" release (which contains Spirits #2, #13, #16, #20 and #25) a "Various

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 ...

staff members" review states that the tracks belonging to "Spirits, a totally flat overdubbed solo record from '85, stand as a terrible exception to Jarrett's usual freshness and verve."AAJ Staf
, Rarum: Selected Recordings of Keith Jarrett
accessed May 14, 2020

Track listing

:''All compositions by Keith Jarrett'' ''Spirits Vol. 1:'' # "Spirits 1" - 5:07 # "Spirits 2" - 1:37 # "Spirits 3" - 8:04 # "Spirits 4" - 5:56 # "Spirits 5" - 4:10 # "Spirits 6" - 1:58 # "Spirits 7" - 7:09 # "Spirits 8" - 4:52 # "Spirits 9" - 5:12 # "Spirits 10" - 3:27 # "Spirits 11" - 2:36 # "Spirits 12" - 4:47 ''Spirits Vol. 2:'' # "Spirits 13" - 5:09 # "Spirits 14" - 3:06 # "Spirits 15" - 2:26 # "Spirits 16" - 2:10 # "Spirits 17" - 2:57 # "Spirits 18" - 6:20 # "Spirits 19" - 4:50 # "Spirits 20" - 5:13 # "Spirits 21" - 4:21 # "Spirits 22" - 3:08 # "Spirits 23" - 4:04 # "Spirits 24" - 3:02 # "Spirits 25" - 2:18 # "Spirits 26" - 6:12

Personnel

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References

{{Authority control ECM Records albums Keith Jarrett albums 1985 albums Albums produced by Manfred Eicher