Keith Jarrett - Life Without the Piano

[Serial_Apologist]

The first time I came across Jarrett was on buying Charles Lloyd's Dream Weaver - the new line-up that also included Cecil McBee and Jack DeJohnette - back in 1966. Here was somebody of phenomenal imagination, daring and technique, part of that generation who were pushing boundaries in ways I could understand and appreciate. Jarrett had not yet found his identity, being still very much under Jaki Byard's influence, but there were signs of where he might go which seemed to promise much. That personality seemed to come about by wedding Paul Bley's waywardness with time to a love of Gospel and Soul, and also to the Country music side of Americana he shared with a stylist such as Gary Burton. But as a jazz pianist friend once pointed out to me, everything "innovative" about Jarrett's timing had been done by Paul Bley ten years earlier.

Like Ian's, my preferences are towards the 1970s output, including the 1971 Facing You on ECM - the first solo album, which by not indulging referentially in styles for my liking too denotive of cleverness for its own sake, still sounds fresh; Belonging; The Köln Concert - which, for a time seemed to serve as background music alongside Satie's Gymnopédies and Cage's Sonatas & Interludes in every art gallery front shop and chi-chi restaurant until its capacity to distract from conversation made one one realise one just had to have it. And I would add the 1976 Shades, with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian and Guilhermo Franco's hand percussion - first heard in a local record shop, but not picked up until quite recently, second-hand. This was still the KJ who would suddenly whizz off in an explosion of let-it-all-hang-out, which, apart from Cecil Taylor, I'd only previously heard Denny Zeitlin do. By the advent of the Standards Trio it seemed too often that a creative complacency had crept in: the tendency for the solo performances, where Jarrett was at his most finicky with critics and audiences, to become uninspired meanders through already over-mined territory. While Jarrett seemed now to be at his best in company with his handpicked associates, what from the pov of contributing to The Legacy was really in Jarrett's mind? Even here one often felt he was only coasting; but this may in part reflect my view that in the wake of how Miles Davis's mid-60s quintet dealt with standards anything that did not acknowledge that particular achievement while claiming to be adding to the canon, let alone build on it. was inevitably backward-looking. There was a brief time when, in the wake of his falling prey to chronic fatigue syndrome, one wished him well, and the re-boosting seemed to propel him into more interesting explorations once more, but the failure from that point on is, admittedly, mine, for not having followed up.

[Ian Thumwood]

The strangest thing I find about Jarrett is the lack of collaboration with other artists. He has effectively only worked with three groups with appearances on Kenny Wheeler's "Deer Wan" being the exception to the rule. Even then, Jarrett famously left the studio as soon as the music had been recorded and never really interacted with the other members of the quartet. Given the fact that jazz is so often a music of interaction, this aspect is largely absent from his canon. Has he actually worked with any horn players since about 1980? I am of the impression that this is unlikely to be the case.

[Serial_Apologist]

The strangest thing I find about Jarrett is the lack of collaboration with other artists. He has effectively only worked with three groups with appearances on Kenny Wheeler's "Deer Wan" being the exception to the rule. Even then, Jarrett famously left the studio as soon as the music had been recorded and never really interacted with the other members of the quartet. Given the fact that jazz is so often a music of interaction, this aspect is largely absent from his canon. Has he actually worked with any horn players since about 1980? I am of the impression that this is unlikely to be the case.

Well he had done, of course, up to Kenny's Gnu High (actually). I sometimes watch Mike Dibb's and Ian Carr's revealing TV documentary, Keith Jarrett: The Art of Improvisation (2004). I ask myself how sincere were Jarrett's exclusive advocacy of acoustic pianos when quite clearly in those footages of him with Miles in 70s he was getting off on more than just notes, and from wanting to "please Miles". There was something disingenuous in his pose - the renegade from mere jazz who has put his marker on (Bach). I think John Litweiler had the measure of Jarrett in what he wrote in his book The Freedom Principle - Jazz after 1958 (Blandford, 1984) - much though I disagree with a great deal of what Litweiler had to say when it came to Fusion in general and Bill Evans in particular.

[Richard Barrett]

I think it’s already been mentioned, but Survivors Suite is a fantastic album. The combination of Jarret, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian is very special, and the album is at once mysterious, exciting and majestic. I bought the LP when it first came out and played it constantly for years. If you haven’t heard it, I would recommend it strongly.

Agreed. I listened to that yesterday actually. I tend to concentrate so much on his solo work, I really don't know many of his group albums very well, but that one is quite special.

[Joseph K]

I think John Litweiler had the measure of Jarrett in what he wrote in his book The Freedom Principle - Jazz after 1958 (Blandford, 1984) -

... which was?

[Serial_Apologist]

... which was?

I did quite a long transcript a short while ago, pressed the post button, and the whole thing vanished! I'll have to get back on that one when I have a mo.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Do the Math (immediately after Paul Bley's death)

"In 2000 Keith and ECM released Inside Out, an album of free improvisations with Peacock and DeJohnette. It was kind of a political statement: In the liner notes Keith complains about Wynton Marsalis and Ken Burns not understanding free jazz.

One of the few times I met Paul Bley, he fixed me with his eyes. “Did you hear Keith Jarrett’s latest, Inside Out? In it, he proves that he can, at last, play exactly the way I did in 1965.”

Paul could say that about Keith. Paul had the right to say that about Keith."

[Joseph K]

I did quite a long transcript a short while ago, pressed the post button, and the whole thing vanished! I'll have to get back on that one when I have a mo.

Thanks.

Incidentally, the other day I discovered I have the KJ Trio's album Changeless, though since I had forgotten about it until now, I'm not sure I should get my hopes up about it...

[Ian Thumwood]

I don't honestly recognise Jarrett as either being "backwards looking" or even "coasting." For me, the underlying quality in his music has been looking "for the moment" and this has probably been his great strength and maybe even his Achilles heel. As I said previously, I think that there a few jazz musicians who have worn their heart of their sleeve as much as Keith Jarrett. I do not see him as some "Messiah" of piano improvisation but when he is good, he takes some beating. The "Personal Mountains" live concert was a mind-blowing listening experience when first acquired this. I think it is a track called "Oasis" where the empathy between the pianist and Jan Garbarek is incredible. One of the saddest things in the ECM canon is Garbarek's focus away from jazz towards New Age music and this record demonstrates just how good he was when at the top of his game when playing the former. The Scandinavian quartet remains one of the great forces in jazz from the 1970s and hugely influential.

The criticism of coasting is really missing the point. I think Keith Jarrett has always been a player who has a questing spirit regarding his improvisation and sometimes the music takes a while to find the zone. Surely the sense of unpredictability is one of the attractions of jazz ? With regard to the "Standards trio" not really adding to the canon or offering new to the tradition, I think, with hindsight, this trio marks the end of a tradition that started at the end of the 1950s. It is interesting how the piano trio has grabbled with the success of this trio and ultimately evolved in to something else. There are few piano trios who have got anywhere near the greatest of Jarrett's trio since the 2000s . Brad Mehldau has perhaps come the closet to having a similarly empathetic trio but I personally feel that those groups who have followed in BM's wake have none of the swing nor swagger of Jarrett's trio. As opposed to seeing the KJ as offering a glimpse of future possibilities, it seems like a culmination to me. Jarrett's interpretation of Broadway and Jazz standards has been defining and, together with the more radical approach to the same material offered by Paul Motian's trio with Lovano and Frisell, I think the main issue is that there is perhaps very little left to say with this repertoire. On top of that, I think that KJ's trio cast it's net with concerning repertoire far wider than say the similarly highly regarded Bill Evans. In the hands of others, standards don't quite have the same lustre as demonstrated by KJ. Don't look at Jarrett as a no hold bars radical in the trio format but as very much the last word in a venerable tradition.

[Joseph K]

I think the main issue is that there is perhaps very little left to say with this repertoire. On top of that, I think that KJ's trio cast it's net with concerning repertoire far wider than say the similarly highly regarded Bill Evans. In the hands of others, standards don't quite have the same lustre as demonstrated by KJ. Don't look at Jarrett as a no hold bars radical in the trio format but as very much the last word in a venerable tradition.

So that's it is it? The end of standards, no more left to say with it, KJ's words the last. Where did you get this weird notion from? I was going to see Kurt Rosenwinkel's standards trio in May - rescheduled for March next year. It's news to him that the well when it comes to improvising on standards has officially run dry.

[Ian Thumwood]

So that's it is it? The end of standards, no more left to say with it, KJ's words the last. Where did you get this weird notion from? I was going to see Kurt Rosenwinkel's standards trio in May - rescheduled for March next year. It's news to him that the well when it comes to improvising on standards has officially run dry.

"Changeless" is an album of free improvisations, i think. i.e. "No changes." I heard it ages ago. Not their best.

Well, I think you can still play standards but a whole album of standards seems pretty unimaginative these days. Most piano trios seem to now be playing original material or even pop covers. You will find more "contemporary" songs being recorded nowadays than back in the 1980s when started to listen to jazz. The whole Broadway thing is nothing like as prevalent as it was in the 1980s when this concept was extremely popular. When i was discovering jazz, everyone seemed to have issued an album of standards. Nowadays, it seems a bit unimaginative to have a whole album of the stuff. Back then, everyone felt they had to put their stamp on this material. I remain to be convinced that Broadway material is quite so potent these days although I purposely avoid records with those standards that I feel have been done to death. Some like "All the things you are" or "My funny valentine" have outstayed their welcome, I think.

There is so much standard material the KJ trio covered that it seems to be almost definitive. By contrast, I think Motian's trio offered a more radical approach. Between these two extremes, I am am not sure there is much left to say. Even if you turn to singers, musicians like Betty Carter were testing standards to destruction in the 80s and 90s. Even someone like Arthur Blythe seemed to have pulled the last vestiges of standard material apart on a disc like "In the tradition." As a concept, it doesn't have the cache it once had. As far as the piano trio is concerned, where is there to go with Broadway standards after the likes of Jarrett, Chick Corea and Bill Evans have laid their hands on them?

For me, the biggest change in jazz since the 1980s has been the rise in quality of jazz compositions. Playing standards was a crowded field in the 1980s / 90s and I think musicians now have the confidence to tackle their own compositions. The possibilities could be argued to be more interesting . What passes for "standards" these days probably means playing Wayne Shorter tunes or pulling a chestnut out from the history of jazz. It would be interesting to hear SA's take on 32-bar AABA song structure as far as improvisation is concerned. The most radical approach I have heard is Herbie playing "Stella by starlight"" with Hargrove and Brecker where the interest was in the fact they threw away the form.

I wasn't aware of the Rosenwinkel disc although he is not a musician I have paid much attention to. I hope you enjoy the gig and let us know your thoughts afterwards.

[Serial_Apologist]

I am more-or-less of Ian's opinion with regards to standards in this day and age. They're fine for pedagogical purposes - learning, as I still am at my age, to find one's way around chord changes, using that to springboard away from tunes or into expanded harmonic territory. The respect in which standards are held by many jazz musicians is that they, like the 12-bar blues, offer a useful meeting point or common vernacular for the guest soloist with house band, anywhere in the world; and for that I am happy to trundle along to my nearest jazz-featuring local and hear the host suggest calling up a familiar title. What is creative about Herbie Hancock's band with Hargrove and Brecker was that it was re-visiting standard materials in the spirit of Miles's mid-sixties band, showing that for all the Fusion and new tech in the interim there was still mileage to be had; and in a way I would extend that appreciation to more recent Herbie Hancock line-ups which treated his own materials, eg from the 1970s Headhunters era, with humour and risk-taking.

Incidentally I remember hearing or seeing Paul Bley making similar comments to those he made to Bluesnik, on Keith Jarrett taking up his own approaches from the 1960s, somewhere.

[Ian Thumwood]

Paul Bley was supposedly Keith Jarrett's favourite pianist although they are very different in how they tackle improvisation. As much as I like Jarrett, I have to state that Bley is probably my favourite jazz musician. I just think that is was one of the truly great improvisors in jazz albeit one who had a more succinct approach to music. As I commented previously, Bley had an uncanny ability to play immediately in the zone. There is no element of "coasting" and his improvisations always sound hard won to my ears. That said, his improvising never really takes a long form like Jarrett and , even in the freer pieces, if you listen carefully there are sometimes( although not always) the structure of standards such as "My Old flame" underneath too. As a solo pianist, I think Jarrett's lengthy improvisations belong in a very small category along with the likes of Cecil Taylor and Keith Tippett. It is extremely risky and you can appreciate just why so few people can do it.

I am not sure that i would class blues quite the same as standards if only because it is such an important ingredient of jazz. Having no blues in jazz is a bit like cooking without salt.

The 2009 album of standards by someone like Kurt Rosenwinkel is available on amazon and has 3 Broadway songs amongst the 8 tracks. Apart from one original, the rest of the material is work by the likes of Mingus, Monk and Shorter which goes towards proving my point, I suppose. The 2020 album with a different line up is all jazz material. It seems interesting but it is a very different proposal to the material Jarrett's trio tackled.

[Joseph K]

Some like "All the things you are" or "My funny valentine" have outstayed their welcome, I think.

I don't think so. Check out this, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTbpvlSJOO8

I think you're probably suffering from 'jazz fatigue' caused from too much jazz - branch out for a bit, I'd suggest.

[Richard Barrett]

I've never heard any of Jarrett's standards recordings. This is mainly because standards aren't really an interest of mine (I think the only such album I have is the one by Derek Bailey!), although I'm surprised to hear that the practice might be regarded as out of steam, given that the range of approaches that could be taken doesn't seem to me by any means exhaustively explored, and the repertoire can be regarded as still growing.