Keith Jarrett / IS / Somewhere

[burning dog]

I love the Koln Concert a real Desert Island Disc .......perhaps we should go in for some heavy verbal abuse.....

Nah... Unless you want the entire album played on JRR!

[antongould]

Nah... Unless you want the entire album played on JRR!

I promise......

[Old Grumpy]

I love the Koln Concert a real Desert Island Disc

Agreed - I came late to this, but wouldn't be without it on my desert island! There was an interesting feature a while ago (on Radio 4) about the background to the Koln concert. Anyone else hear it? The programme is still available on the i-player link, starting at approx 1:15.

OG

[antongould]

Agreed - I came late to this, but wouldn't be without it on my desert island! There was an interesting feature a while ago (on Radio 4) about the background to the Koln concert. Anyone else hear it? The programme is still available on the i-player link, starting at approx 1:15.

OG

Cheers OG .....on it as they say......

[Richard Barrett]

I much prefer KJ's solo work to the trio with Peacock and DeJohnette, which always seems to me much too easy-playing, easy-listening. I do think his solo work relies too much on harmonically fairly ordinary vamps, but (taking up Shipp's comparison) Cecil Taylor has his comfort zones too, I just happen usually to find them more engaging than Jarrett's but even so there's room in the musical world for both of them and I really don't see what "pretense" is involved in Jarrett's work, whether one likes it or not.

[antongould]

What are people's views of CJ as a classical player?

[Ian Thumwood]

I think Matthew Shipp sometimes like to court controversy but I am not unsympathetic to some of his observations. Keith Jarrett is a musician I can find to be extremely inspiring as well as tedious. Picking up the reference to the Deer Head Inn album, this is a good record but something like "You don't know what love is" can hit a creative brick wall and settle into the kind of vamp mentioned by MS which is so tedious. I think this is perhaps the appeal of Jarrett. When he is in the zone, I feel that it probably is the most compelling pianist in jazz today. A better album than Deer Head , in my estimation, is the "Out of towners" where the title track is really inspired.

I am intrigued by Richard's preference fo his solo work to the efforts by the trio. Whilst "Koln" is a terrific record, I feel that many of his solo efforts are indulgent . Something like "Dark Intervals" is lacking in spark and inspiration whereas at his worse Jarrett can sound uncomfortably close to Elton John - for my money probably the most corny pianists since the likes of Billy Mayerl.

What Shipp alludes to but doesn't quite nail is the fact that Jarrett's approach seems to be all about capturing the moment. It's like someone rubbing two sticks together as this will not always guarantee making any sparks. What Jarrett does is very conservative and Shipp is correct that his approach harks back to Bill Evans and that generation of players, yet I think the magic that he is capable of producing justifies the approach. I suppose Jarrett is like an impressionist painter insofar that you might not be able to appreciate what is being produced and perhaps it might besubject to risk of failure whilst those efforts which are successful just seem to have a degree of magic that is missing from other pianist's output.

I also agree with Richard's comments about Cecil Taylor who is like an atonal version of Jarrett. Wherea Jarrett may sometimes offer us an "all white" solution to long distance improvisation, Taylor's approach can often be too dark. Perhaps both players are better when they edit their playing?

Finally, I think Matthew Shipp does have a tendency to comment about race and I feel he has hit the nail sqaurely on the head with this. There are plenty of really great black pianists out there who fall outside the critic's love affair with romantic , white pianists like Jarrett, Mehldau or Evans. White pianists are often perceived as being more "classical" and therefore their Euro-centric approach to the instrument probably garners them more kudos than Afro-American musicians. I'm intrigued that Shipp mentioned Joe Sample yet perhaps he is not untypical of the kind of talent that goes un -appreciated as critics and fans would rather soak up the likes of Jarrett or Mehldau as if they offer the ultimate in jazz piano playing because of the classical influence. For example, I don't think Jarrett or Mehldau are any superior to someone like Danilo Perez - one of the great jazz improvisors of our time.

I suppose I can see both sides of the coin with this one. I love Jarrett's better playing whilst being frustrated by some of his self-undulgence. That said, I always feel that reputations in jazz piano are upside down and many of the better / interesting players get over-looked. How else could you explain the near-neglect of a genius like Paul Bley?

[Richard Barrett]

at his worse Jarrett can sound uncomfortably close to Elton John

Ouch!

I agree about Paul Bley though I don't know that much of his work. There are a few KJ recordings I would rate above Köln - Bremen/Lausanne, for example, some parts of Sun Bear Concerts (don't ask me which parts because I haven't listened to any of it for some while!) but most of all Staircase. While as I said I'm not that keen on the KJ/Peacock/DeJohnette trio, I remember (when I used to listen to him far more often than I do now) the quartet with Redman, Haden and Motian being much more to my liking. In fact I took Survivors' Suite off the shelf the other day but it hasn't yet made it as far as the CD player.

Regarding his "classical" recordings I have to admit I haven't heard any of them...

[burning dog]

Can't here much of Bill Evans at all in Jarrett (except that they offer an alternative the Bud Powell school) like comparing Rachmaninov with Debussy. If MS is so keen on Joe Sample why does his playing also sound Classical to me, more angular and modernist but not that Jazzy? Shipp was fine with David Ware but as Mr I pointed out they made the same album about 30 times.

Prefer MS to KJ usually, but the former does talk Bollocks at times, like Wynton M's smarter brother

Anyway, Jarrett was best with Miles!!

Deer Head Inn.

I agree about that track Ian, but Motian mostly keeps him on his toes, much crisper playing than usual.

Out of Towners IS excellent


Just noticed RBs post re the American Quartet
Found this on You tube - liked the album at the time - still got the LP somewhere
Jarretts playing is very linear on the first track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wEfVijTt5E

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

put a link to the Bley Quartet album up recently, KJ accused [unfairly] of basing his quartets on it .... ... KJ is a serious artist imho especially when his span of work as a whole is considered; Shipp seems to me to always make that point [race/music/boring/envy/money] but i do enjoy his own works too ...

a favourite trio album

[Ian Thumwood]

Calum

I agree with you that Jarrett is a serious artist but I think there is also an underlying element of conservatism in his playing even if you listen to the "Riot" track you posted. Burning Dog raises the point about the Bill Evans influence and I would disagree to some extent as Jarrett seems to stem from what Evans was suggesting in the late 1950's. However, I think that Jarrett jettisoned Evans' introspective approach and embraced a more expansive style that took his music in another direction. If you listen to Jarrett playing ballads, I feel that you can still hear the influence of Evans even if Jarrett himself has cited Paul Bley as a particular favourite. At his finest, I think Jarrett takes some beating and bands such as the Scandinavian quartet strike me as demonstrating how exceptional a label like ECM could be when it wanted to be.

Bley is very distinctive and I feel gets to the nub of things when he plays probably with greater effect than any other pianist.
For me, Bley is extremely lyrical but it is laced with a kind of bittersweet irony that is entirely absent in Jarrett's playing. No note is wasted whenever Bley plays and seems to always select the right notes whilst always sounding spontaneous. I've got a lot of the records he made in the late 80's / early 90's as I used to listen to nothing else when I was revising for my exams. There is the sense with Paul Bley that what he is seeking is perfection whereas Jarrett seems to be on a quest to find "the moment" even if it takes him a degree of rumination to find it. I think Paul Bley is the most under-rated pianist in jazz and someone I would rate as one f the truly great improvisors. His records are remarkably consistent.

Listen to this track. About as good as jazz gets and a test book example of how to support a soloist and the deliver a killer solo:-

[charles t]

Ian: I have been having a very positive vibe to your postings, re: Keith Jarrett.

Never expected to find an active devotee of Paul Bley herein, in this day-and-age.

Two indispensable books, re: Bley in my collection.[IMG][/IMG]

[charles t]

Ian: Getting back to KJ, an excerpt from another Charles T. collectible (quoting ECM):

"This exquisite publication was assembled to commemorate the many years of touring in Japan by the world's most celebrated piano trio. We felt that any linguistic barriers were bridged by the beauty and uniqueness of this homage to Jarrett."

{measures 10" X 14")




[IMG][/IMG]

[burning dog]

I dont think it's Evans introspection that was key to his influence. Surely it's the raising of the roles of bass and drums, especially in paino trios, and being part of the move away from be-bop to modal jazz which he shared with Gil Evans, George Russell and Miles Davis. JArrett must have been influenced by him in his small group work, most were, but directly? The influence of Bley on Jarrett's playing in his American Quartet is much more obvious IMO.


BTW
Long solo improvisation from Bill Evans would have sounded very different to Jarrett. Evans could have worried away at a couple of motifs for an hour!

Isn't Bley's critical reputation extremey high? He probably is one of the most under promoted or underplayed masters of the jazz piano, but not critically underrated. "Deserving of wider attention" would be the cliched response.

[Alyn_Shipton]

Chance to hear both Jarrett and Evans on JRR on 17 Aug. And the late Bengt Hallberg as well. The thing about Bley is, he's not hungry to play in the same way as KJ. I have had long chats to him (remember the Ornette series I did for Jazz File in 2000?) and PB is loquacious and interesting about the Hillcrest et al. But he also intimated he is sparing about where and how often he plays. (I'd just heard him in duo with Charlie Haden at the Kaplan Penthouse in the Juilliard School in NYC). KJ on the other hand (remember my 4 part Jazz File with him? And recent interview in Jazzwise) has that old desire to play as often as possible - very different aesthetic. IMHO the new KJ trio album has some brilliant moments. How Deep is the Ocean and Stars Fell on Alabama are both classics...