Keith Jarrett
Encyclopedia
Keith Jarrett is an American
pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.
Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey
, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis
. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisations draw not only from the traditions of jazz
, but from other genres as well, especially Western classical music, gospel
, blues
, and ethnic folk music
.
In 2003, Jarrett received the Polar Music Prize
, the first (and to this day only) recipient not to share the prize with a co-recipient, and in 2004 he received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize
.
In 2008, he was inducted into the Down Beat
Hall of Fame in the magazine's 73rd Annual Readers' Poll.
ancestry, grew up in suburban Allentown, Pennsylvania
, with significant early exposure to music. He possessed absolute pitch
, and he displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He began piano lessons just before his third birthday, and at age five he appeared on a TV talent program hosted by the swing bandleader Paul Whiteman. The young Jarrett gave his first formal piano recital at the age of seven, playing works by composers including Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Saint-Saëns, and ending with two of his own compositions. Encouraged especially by his mother, Jarrett took intensive classical piano lessons with a series of teachers, including Eleanor Sokoloff
of the Curtis Institute.
In his teens, as a student at Emmaus High School
in Emmaus, Pennsylvania
, Jarrett learned jazz and quickly became proficient in it. In his early teens, he developed a strong interest in the contemporary jazz scene; a Dave Brubeck
performance was an early inspiration. At one point, he had an offer to study classical composition in Paris
with the famed teacher Nadia Boulanger
—an opportunity that pleased Jarrett's mother but that Jarrett, already leaning toward jazz, decided to turn down.
Following his graduation from Emmaus High School in 1963, Jarrett moved from Allentown to Boston, Massachusetts, where he attended the Berklee College of Music
and played cocktail piano in local clubs. After a year he moved to New York City
, where he played at the Village Vanguard
.
In New York, Art Blakey
hired Jarrett to play with the Jazz Messengers. During a show with that group he was noticed by Jack DeJohnette
who (as he recalled years later) immediately realized the talent and the unstoppable flow of ideas of the unknown pianist. DeJohnette talked to Jarrett and soon recommended him to his own band leader, Charles Lloyd. The Charles Lloyd Quartet had formed not long before and were exploring open, improvised forms while building supple grooves; without quite realizing it at first, 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. Their 1966 album Forest Flower
was one of the most successful jazz recordings of the mid-1960s and when they were invited to play the Fillmore in San Francisco, they won over the local hippie audience. Although the band would become plagued by internal instability and (according to Jarrett) siphoning-off of show revenue by Lloyd, its tours across America and Europe, even to Moscow, made Jarrett a widely noticed musician in rock and jazz underground circles. It also laid the foundations of a lasting musical bond with drummer Jack DeJohnette (who also plays the piano). The two would cooperate in many contexts during their later careers.
In those years, Jarrett also began to record his own tracks as a leader of small informal groups, at first in a trio with Charlie Haden
and Paul Motian
. Jarrett's first album as a leader, Life Between the Exit Signs
(1967), was released on the Vortex label, to be followed by Restoration Ruin
(1968), which is arguably the most bizarre entry in the Jarrett catalog. Not only does Jarrett barely touch the piano, but he plays all the other instruments on what is essentially a folk-rock album, and even sings. Another trio album with Haden and Motian, titled Somewhere Before
, followed later in 1968, this one recorded live for Atlantic Records.
and Jack DeJohnette
came to an end in 1968, after the recording of Soundtrack
because of disputes over money as well as artistic differences. Jarrett was asked to join the Miles Davis
group after Miles heard him in a New York City club (according to another version Jarrett tells, Miles had brought his entire band to see a tour date of Jarrett's own trio in Paris; the Davis band being practically the only audience, an attention that made Jarrett feel embarrassed). During his tenure with Davis, he played both Fender Contempo electronic organ
and Fender Rhodes electric piano
, alternating with Chick Corea
; they can be heard side by side on some 1970 recordings, for instance the August, 1970 Isle of Wight Festival performance preserved in the film Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue and now on Bitches Brew Live 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, he continued with the group out of respect for Davis and because of his desire to work with Jack DeJohnette. He has often cited Davis as a vital influence, both musical and personal, on his own thinking about music and improvisation.
Jarrett is heard on several Davis albums: Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East
, The Cellar Door Sessions
(recorded December 16–19, 1970, at the Cellar Door
club in Washington, DC), and Live-Evil, which is largely composed of heavily edited Cellar Door
recordings. The extended sessions from these recordings can be heard on The Complete Cellar Door Sessions. Jarrett also plays electric organ on Get Up With It
; the song he is featured on, "Honky Tonk", is an abridged version of a track available in its entirety on The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions
. In addition, part of a track called "Konda" (recorded May 21, 1970) was released during Davis's late-1970s retirement on a compilation album called Directions (1980). The track, which features an extended Fender-Rhodes piano introduction by Jarrett, was released in full on 2003's The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions.
to the existing trio with Haden and Motian (who would produce one more album as a threesome called The Mourning of A Star
for Atlantic Records in 1971). The so-called American quartet was often supplemented by an extra percussionist, such as Danny Johnson, Guilherme Franco
, or Airto Moreira
, and occasionally by guitarist Sam Brown
. The quartet members played various instruments, with Jarrett often being heard on soprano saxophone and percussion as well as piano; Redman on musette, a Chinese double-reed instrument; and Motian and Haden on a variety of percussion. Haden also produced a variety of unusual plucked and percussive sounds with his acoustic bass, even running it through a wah-wah pedal for one track ("Mortgage on My Soul," on the album Birth). The group recorded two albums for Atlantic Records
in 1971, El Juicio (The Judgement)
and Birth
; one on Columbia Records
, Expectations
that included rock-influenced guitar by Sam Brown
as well as string and brass arrangements, and for which his contract with Columbia was immediately terminated; eight albums on Impulse! Records
; and two on the ECM
label.
The last two albums, both recorded for Impulse!, feature mainly the compositions of the other band members, as opposed to Jarrett's own, which dominated the previous albums.
Jarrett's compositions and the strong musical identities of the group members gave this ensemble a very distinctive sound. The quartet's music is an amalgam of free jazz, straight-ahead post-bop, gospel music, and exotic, Middle-Eastern-sounding improvisations.
In the mid- and late 1970s Jarrett led a "European quartet" concurrently with the American quartet, which was recorded by ECM
. This combo consisted of saxophonist Jan Garbarek
, bassist Palle Danielsson
, and drummer Jon Christensen
.
This ensemble 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 influences that characterized the work of ECM artists at the time.
Jarrett became involved in a legal wrangle following the release of the album Gaucho
in 1980 by the U.S. rock
band Steely Dan
. The album's title track, credited to Donald Fagen
and Walter Becker
, bore an undeniable resemblance to Jarrett's "Long As You Know You're Living Yours," from the Belonging
album. When a Musician magazine interviewer pointed out the similarity, Becker admitted that he loved the Jarrett composition and Fagen said they had been influenced by it. After their comments were published, Jarrett sued, and Becker and Fagen were forced to add his name to the credits and to include him in the royalties.
(1971), was a solo piano date recorded in the studio. He has continued to record solo piano albums in the studio intermittently throughout his career, including Staircase
(1976), The Moth and the Flame (1981), and The Melody at Night, With You
(1999). Book of Ways
(1986) is a studio recording of clavichord solos.
The studio albums are modestly successful entries in the Jarrett catalog, but in 1973, Jarrett also began playing totally improvised
solo concerts, and it is the popularity of these voluminous concert recordings that has made him one of the best-selling jazz artists in history, not to mention one of the most ambitious and innovative. Albums released from these concerts include The Köln Concert
(1975) which became the best selling piano recording in history; and Sun Bear Concerts
(1976) - a 10-LP (and later 6-CD) Box Set.
Another of Jarrett's solo concerts, Dark Intervals
(1987, Tokyo), had less of a free-form improvisation feel to it because of the brevity of the pieces. Sounding more like a set of short compositions, these pieces are nonetheless entirely improvised.
After a hiatus, Jarrett returned to the extended solo improvised concert format with Paris Concert (1990), Vienna Concert
(1991), and La Scala
(1995), before his career was interrupted by chronic fatigue syndrome
. These later concerts tend to be more influenced by classical music than the earlier ones, reflecting his interest in composers such as Bach
and Shostakovich, and are mostly less indebted to popular genres such as blues and gospel. The Vienna Concert in particular has been widely hailed as a masterpiece of improvisation, with its huge, arch-like opening movement, with a stunningly dissonant, virtuosic middle section, framed by more lyrical sections; Jarrett himself, in the liner notes to the album, named it his greatest achievement and the fulfillment of everything he was aiming to accomplish.
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. An apocryphal account of one such performance had Jarrett staring at the piano for several minutes without playing; as the audience grew increasingly uncomfortable, one member shouted to Jarrett, "D sharp!", to which the pianist responded, "Thank you!", and launched into an improvisation.
Jarrett's 100th solo performance in Japan was captured on video at Suntory Hall Tokyo on April 14, 1987, and released the same year. The recording was titled Solo Tribute. This is a set of almost all standard songs.
Another video recording, titled Last Solo, was released in 1987 from a live solo concert at Kan-i Hoken hall, Tokyo, Japan, recorded January 25, 1984.
Both Solo Tribute and Last Solo were reissued on Image Entertainment
DVD
in 2002.
In the late 1990s, Jarrett was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and was unable to leave his home for long periods of time. It was during this period that he recorded The Melody at Night, With You
, a solo piano effort consisting of jazz standards presented with very little of the reinterpretation he usually employs. 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
(a complete concert in Osaka, 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, a few of fifteen or twenty minutes).
In September 2005 at Carnegie Hall
, 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
).
On November 26, 2008, he performed solo in the Salle Pleyel
in Paris
, and a few days later, on December 1, at London's Royal Festival Hall
, marking the first time Jarrett had played solo in London
in seventeen years. These concerts were released in October 2009 on the album Paris / London: Testament
.
, Jarrett asked bassist Gary Peacock
and drummer Jack DeJohnette
, with whom he had worked on Peacock's 1977 album Tales of Another, to record an album of jazz standards, simply titled Standards, Volume 1
. Two more albums, Standards, Volume 2
and Changes
, 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
s in jazz, and certainly one of the most enduring, continuing to record and tour for more than twenty-five years.
The trio has recorded numerous live and studio albums consisting primarily of jazz repertory material. The trio members each cite Ahmad Jamal
as a major influence in their musical development for his use of both melodic and multi-tonal lines..
The Jarrett-Peacock-DeJohnette trio also produced recordings that consist largely of challenging original material, most notably 1987's Changeless. (These recordings are noted above.) Several of the standards albums contain an original track or two, some attributed to Jarrett but mostly group improvisations. The live recordings Inside Out
and Always Let Me Go
(both released in 2001) marked a renewed interest by the trio in wholly improvised free jazz
. 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 undertakes frequent world tours of recital halls (the only venues in which Jarrett, a notorious stickler for acoustics, will play these days) and is one of the few truly successful jazz groups to play both straight-ahead (as opposed to smooth
) and free jazz.
A related recording, At the Deer Head Inn
(1992), is a live album of standards recorded with Paul Motian
replacing DeJohnette, at the venue in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania
, 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.
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, with varying degrees of success.
Luminessence
(1974) and Arbour Zena
(1975) both combine composed pieces for strings with improvising jazz musicians, including Jan Garbarek
and Charlie Haden
. 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
(1977) is a composed solo piano piece recorded by Dennis Russell Davies
that is somewhat reminiscent of Jarrett's own solo piano recordings.
The Celestial Hawk
(1980) is a piece for orchestra, percussion, and piano that Jarrett performed and recorded with the Syracuse Symphony under Christopher Keene
. This piece is the largest and longest of Jarrett's efforts as a classical composer.
Bridge of Light (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
. Robert Hughes conducted the Suite for Violin, Piano, and Small Orchestra. In 1992 came the release of Jarrett's performance of Peggy Glanville-Hicks
's Etruscan Concerto, with Dennis Russell Davies
conducting the Brooklyn Philharmonic
. This was released on Music Masters Classics, with pieces by Lou Harrison
and Terry Riley
. In 1995 the record label Music Masters Jazz released a CD on which one track featured Jarrett performing the exquisite solo piano part in Lousadzak, a 17-minute piano concerto by American composer Alan Hovhaness
. The conductor again was Dennis Russell Davies. Most of Jarrett's classical recordings are of older repertoire, but Jarrett may have been introduced to this modern work by his one-time manager George Avakian
, who was a friend of the composer. Jarrett has also recorded classical works for ECM by composers such as Bach
, Handel
, Shostakovich, and Arvo Pärt
.
In 2004, Jarrett was awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Prize
. The prestigious award usually associated with classical musicians and composers has only previously been given to one other jazz musician—Miles Davis. The first person to receive the award was Igor Stravinsky
, in 1959.
, clavichord
, organ
, soprano saxophone
, drums
, and many other instruments. 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 twenty 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
. His music has also been used on many television shows, including The Sopranos
on HBO. The 2001 German film Bella Martha (English title: Mostly Martha), whose music consultant was ECM founder and head Manfred Eicher, features Jarrett's "Country," from the European quartet album My Song.
, Erroll Garner
, Oscar Peterson
, Ralph Sutton
, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Paul Asaro, and Cecil Taylor
. Jarrett is also physically active while playing, writhing, gyrating, and almost dancing on the piano bench. These behaviors occur in his jazz and improvised solo performances, but are for the most part absent whenever he plays classical repertory. Jarrett has noted his vocalizations are based on involvement, not content, and are more of an interaction than a reaction, ultimately enhancing the quality of the music.
However, Jarrett is notoriously intolerant of audience noise, including coughing and other involuntary sounds, especially during solo improvised performances. He feels that extraneous noise affects his musical inspiration, and distracts from the purity of the sound. As a result, cough drops are routinely supplied to Jarrett's audiences in cold weather, and he has even been known to stop playing and lead the crowd in a group cough. This intolerance was made clear during a concert on October 31, 2006, at the restored Salle Pleyel
in Paris
. After making an impassioned plea to the audience to stop coughing, Jarrett walked out of the concert during the first half, refusing at first to continue, although he did subsequently return to the stage to finish the first half, and also the second. A further solo concert three days later went undisturbed, following an official announcement beforehand urging the audience to minimize extraneous noise. In 2008, during the first half of another Paris concert, Jarrett complained to the audience about the quality of the piano that he had been given, walking off between solos and remonstrating with staff at the venue. Following an extended interval, the piano was replaced. In 2007, in concert in Perugia
during the Umbria Jazz Festival
, angered by photographers Jarrett implored the audience: "I do not speak Italian, so someone who speaks English can tell all these assholes with cameras to turn them fucking off right now. Right now! No more photographs, including that red light right there. If we see any more lights, I reserve the right (and I think the privilege is yours to hear us), but I reserve the right and Jack and Gary reserve the right to stop playing and leave the goddamn city!" This caused the organizers of the Festival to declare that they will never invite him again. In a performance at Carnegie Hall on 16 January 2011, he stopped in the middle of a quiet improvisation in an apparent reaction to an audience member's persistent coughing. After a moment's silence, he remarked, "Where's the coughing now?" and continued playing. He subsequently said, "Since I'm the only person in this hall who can't leave, I have just one solution to deal with this coughing--play loud! Is that what you want?". Before he went back to playing another quiet tune, he said, "Maybe I should draw a circle with a line through it and issue a warning--Soft Song."
Jarrett is also extremely protective of the quality of recordings of his concerts. In 1992, a trio concert at the Royal Festival Hall
in London
was temporarily stopped as he thought he had identified someone in the audience with a recording device. It turned out to be a light on the mixing desk and the concert resumed after an apology. Similarly, a 2010 concert in Lyon
was interrupted after he confused the electric devices on an audience member's wheelchair with recording equipment. The concert resumed, although without apology.
Jarrett has been known for many years to be strongly opposed to electronic instruments and equipment. 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.
For many years he has been a follower of the teachings of metaphysician and mystic G. I. Gurdjieff
. In 1980 he recorded an album of Gurdjieff's compositions, called Sacred Hymns, for ECM.
, New Jersey
, in rural Warren County
. He uses a converted barn on his property as a recording studio and practice facility.
Jarrett's first marriage, to Margot Erney, ended in divorce. He and his second wife Rose Anne (née Colavito) divorced in 2010 after a thirty-year marriage. Jarrett has four brothers, all younger, two of whom are involved in music. Chris Jarrett
is also a pianist, and Scott Jarrett is a producer and songwriter. Noah Jarrett, one of two sons from Jarrett's first marriage, is a bassist
and composer
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.
Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisations draw not only from the traditions of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, but from other genres as well, especially Western classical music, gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, and ethnic folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
.
In 2003, Jarrett received the Polar Music Prize
Polar Music Prize
The Polar Music Prize is a Swedish international music award founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, possibly best known to be the manager of the Swedish pop group ABBA, with a donation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music....
, the first (and to this day only) recipient not to share the prize with a co-recipient, and in 2004 he received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize
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...
.
In 2008, he was inducted into the Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...
Hall of Fame in the magazine's 73rd Annual Readers' Poll.
Early years
Jarrett, who is of Hungarian and ScottishScottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
ancestry, grew up in suburban Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the 215th largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is currently...
, with significant early exposure to music. He possessed absolute pitch
Absolute pitch
Absolute pitch , widely referred to as perfect pitch, is the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of an external reference.-Definition:...
, and he displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He began piano lessons just before his third birthday, and at age five he appeared on a TV talent program hosted by the swing bandleader Paul Whiteman. The young Jarrett gave his first formal piano recital at the age of seven, playing works by composers including Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Saint-Saëns, and ending with two of his own compositions. Encouraged especially by his mother, Jarrett took intensive classical piano lessons with a series of teachers, including Eleanor Sokoloff
Eleanor Sokoloff
Eleanor Sokoloff is an American pianist and famous pedagogue of piano. She is now in her eighth decade of teaching on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music....
of the Curtis Institute.
In his teens, as a student at Emmaus High School
Emmaus High School
Emmaus High School is a public high school located in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The school serves grades 9 through 12 in Pennsylvania's East Penn School District in the Lehigh Valley region of the state....
in Emmaus, Pennsylvania
Emmaus, Pennsylvania
Emmaus is a borough in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is located five miles southwest of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state.The population of Emmaus was 11,313 at the 2000 census...
, Jarrett learned jazz and quickly became proficient in it. In his early teens, he developed a strong interest in the contemporary jazz scene; a Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
performance was an early inspiration. At one point, he had an offer to study classical composition in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
with the famed teacher Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...
—an opportunity that pleased Jarrett's mother but that Jarrett, already leaning toward jazz, decided to turn down.
Following his graduation from Emmaus High School in 1963, Jarrett moved from Allentown to Boston, Massachusetts, where he attended the Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
and played cocktail piano in local clubs. After a year he moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he played at the Village Vanguard
Village Vanguard
The Village Vanguard is a jazz club located at in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. At first, it also featured other forms of music such as folk music and beat poetry, but it switched to an all-jazz format in 1957.-History:Over 100 jazz...
.
In New York, Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
hired Jarrett to play with the Jazz Messengers. During a show with that group he was noticed by Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. He is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and Sonny...
who (as he recalled years later) immediately realized the talent and the unstoppable flow of ideas of the unknown pianist. DeJohnette talked to Jarrett and soon recommended him to his own band leader, Charles Lloyd. The Charles Lloyd Quartet had formed not long before and were exploring open, improvised forms while building supple grooves; without quite realizing it at first, 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. Their 1966 album Forest Flower
Forest Flower
-Track listing:# "Forest Flower: Sunrise" - 7:17# "Forest Flower: Sunset" - 10:19# "Sorcery" - 5:11# "Song of Her" - 5:16# "East of the Sun" - 10:20*Recorded on September 8, 1966 in Monterey, CA-Personnel:...
was one of the most successful jazz recordings of the mid-1960s and when they were invited to play the Fillmore in San Francisco, they won over the local hippie audience. Although the band would become plagued by internal instability and (according to Jarrett) siphoning-off of show revenue by Lloyd, its tours across America and Europe, even to Moscow, made Jarrett a widely noticed musician in rock and jazz underground circles. It also laid the foundations of a lasting musical bond with drummer Jack DeJohnette (who also plays the piano). The two would cooperate in many contexts during their later careers.
In those years, Jarrett also began to record his own tracks as a leader of small informal groups, at first in a trio with Charlie Haden
Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman...
and Paul Motian
Paul Motian
Stephen Paul Motian was an American jazz drummer, percussionist and composer of Armenian extraction.He first came to prominence in the late 1950s in the piano trio of Bill Evans, and later led several groups...
. Jarrett's first album as a leader, Life Between the Exit Signs
Life between the Exit Signs
Life Between the Exit Signs is a jazz album by pianist Keith Jarrett. It was recorded on May 4, 1967 at Atlantic Recording Studios, in New York City. It was released April 1, 1968, under the record label Vortex, a subsidiary label of Atlantic Records...
(1967), was released on the Vortex label, to be followed by Restoration Ruin
Restoration Ruin
Restoration Ruin is an album by Keith Jarrett on which he performs vocals, guitar, harmonica, soprano saxophone, recorder, piano, organ, electric bass, drums, tambourine and sistra, recorded and released on the Vortex label in 1968..-Reception:...
(1968), which is arguably the most bizarre entry in the Jarrett catalog. Not only does Jarrett barely touch the piano, but he plays all the other instruments on what is essentially a folk-rock album, and even sings. Another trio album with Haden and Motian, titled Somewhere Before
Somewhere Before
Somewhere Before is a live album by pianist Keith Jarrett recorded on August 30 & 31, 1968 at Shelly's Manne-Hole in Hollywood, California. It features a live performance by Keith Jarrett, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.-Reception:...
, followed later in 1968, this one recorded live for Atlantic Records.
Miles Davis
The Charles Lloyd Quartet with Jarrett, Ron McClureRon McClure
Ron McClure , a bassist, has played in hard bop, jazz-rock, and free and bebop sessions and bands.He started on piano at age five, and later played accordion and bass...
and Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. He is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and Sonny...
came to an end in 1968, after the recording of Soundtrack
Soundtrack (Charles Lloyd album)
-Track listing:# "Sombrero Sam" - 10:26 # "Voice in the Night - 9:06# "Pre-Dawn" - 2:34 # "Forest Flower '69" - 16:51*Recorded on November 15, 1968 at the Town Hall, NYC-Personnel:*Charles Lloyd - tenor saxophone, flute*Keith Jarrett - piano...
because of disputes over money as well as artistic differences. Jarrett was asked to join the Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
group after Miles heard him in a New York City club (according to another version Jarrett tells, Miles had brought his entire band to see a tour date of Jarrett's own trio in Paris; the Davis band being practically the only audience, an attention that made Jarrett feel embarrassed). During his tenure with Davis, he played both Fender Contempo electronic organ
Electronic organ
An electronic organ is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally, it was designed to imitate the sound of pipe organs, theatre organs, band sounds, or orchestral sounds....
and Fender Rhodes electric piano
Electric piano
An electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...
, alternating with Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
; they can be heard side by side on some 1970 recordings, for instance the August, 1970 Isle of Wight Festival performance preserved in the film Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue and now on Bitches Brew Live 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, he continued with the group out of respect for Davis and because of his desire to work with Jack DeJohnette. He has often cited Davis as a vital influence, both musical and personal, on his own thinking about music and improvisation.
Jarrett is heard on several Davis albums: Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East
Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East
At Fillmore is a 1970 live album by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and band, recorded at the Fillmore East, New York City on four consecutive days, June 17 through June 20, 1970, originally released as a double vinyl LP.The live performances were heavily edited by...
, The Cellar Door Sessions
The Cellar Door Sessions
The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 is a boxed live album released in 2005. It was recorded on several 1970 concerts at the Washington-based nightclub The Cellar Door....
(recorded December 16–19, 1970, at the Cellar Door
The Cellar Door
The Cellar Door was a music club at 34th and M Street NW in Washington, D.C. from 1965 through 1981. It emerged from The Shadows, Georgetown, Washington, D.C. It was one of the premier music spots in Washington and was the genesis as well as a tryout for larger markets...
club in Washington, DC), and Live-Evil, which is largely composed of heavily edited Cellar Door
Cellar door
The English compound noun cellar door is commonly used as an example of a word or phrase which is beautiful in terms of phonaesthetics with no regard for semantics...
recordings. The extended sessions from these recordings can be heard on The Complete Cellar Door Sessions. Jarrett also plays electric organ on Get Up With It
Get Up with It
Get Up with It is an album collecting tracks recorded between 1970 and 1974 by Miles Davis. Released on November 22, 1974 as a double LP, it was Davis' last studio album before five years of retirement from music....
; the song he is featured on, "Honky Tonk", is an abridged version of a track available in its entirety on The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions
The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions
The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions were recorded in April 1970 by Miles Davis, and released in September 2003. These sessions formed the basis for the 1970 album A Tribute to Jack Johnson....
. In addition, part of a track called "Konda" (recorded May 21, 1970) was released during Davis's late-1970s retirement on a compilation album called Directions (1980). The track, which features an extended Fender-Rhodes piano introduction by Jarrett, was released in full on 2003's The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions.
1970s quartets
From 1971 to 1976, Jarrett added saxophonist Dewey RedmanDewey Redman
Dewey Redman was an American jazz saxophonist, known for performing free jazz as a bandleader, and with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett....
to the existing trio with Haden and Motian (who would produce one more album as a threesome called The Mourning of A Star
The Mourning of a Star
The Mourning of a Star is an album by pianist Keith Jarrett featuring performances by Keith Jarrett, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.-Reception:...
for Atlantic Records in 1971). The so-called American quartet was often supplemented by an extra percussionist, such as Danny Johnson, Guilherme Franco
Guilherme Franco
Guilherme Franco was born November 25 1946 in São Paulo, Brazil. He is a percussionist in the jazz and World fusion music genres.Guilherme Franco has recorded on the albums of many jazz performers such as McCoy Tyner, Lonnie Liston Smith and Woody Shaw...
, or Airto Moreira
Airto Moreira
Airto Moreira is a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. Airto is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. He currently resides in Los Angeles.-Biography:...
, and occasionally by guitarist Sam Brown
Sam Brown (guitarist)
-History:Sam T. Brown's playing style was unusual in that he performed in a generally jazz-rock format, while performing in Keith Jarrett's ensembles that sometimes veered close to a free jazz style...
. The quartet members played various instruments, with Jarrett often being heard on soprano saxophone and percussion as well as piano; Redman on musette, a Chinese double-reed instrument; and Motian and Haden on a variety of percussion. Haden also produced a variety of unusual plucked and percussive sounds with his acoustic bass, even running it through a wah-wah pedal for one track ("Mortgage on My Soul," on the album Birth). The group recorded two albums for Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
in 1971, El Juicio (The Judgement)
El Juicio (The Judgement)
El Juicio is an album by pianist Keith Jarrett featuring performances by Jarrett, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.-Reception:The Allmusic review awarded the album 3 stars.-Track listing:# "Gypsy Moth" - 8:18...
and Birth
Birth (Keith Jarrett album)
Birth is an album by pianist Keith Jarrett featuring performances by Jarret, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 3 stars stating "Not everything works, and there are some wandering moments, but the music always holds one's...
; one on Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, Expectations
Expectations (Keith Jarrett album)
Expectations is a 1971 recording by pianist, saxophonist and composer Keith Jarrett, released on Columbia Records. The recording features, in addition to Jarrett, tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden, drummer Paul Motian, guitarist Sam Brown, percussionist Airto Moreira, and a...
that included rock-influenced guitar by Sam Brown
Sam Brown (guitarist)
-History:Sam T. Brown's playing style was unusual in that he performed in a generally jazz-rock format, while performing in Keith Jarrett's ensembles that sometimes veered close to a free jazz style...
as well as string and brass arrangements, and for which his contract with Columbia was immediately terminated; eight albums on Impulse! Records
Impulse! Records
Impulse! Records was an American jazz record label, originally established in 1960 by producer Creed Taylor as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount Records, based in New York City...
; and two on the ECM
ECM (record label)
ECM is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a wide variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres...
label.
The last two albums, both recorded for Impulse!, feature mainly the compositions of the other band members, as opposed to Jarrett's own, which dominated the previous albums.
Jarrett's compositions and the strong musical identities of the group members gave this ensemble a very distinctive sound. The quartet's music is an amalgam of free jazz, straight-ahead post-bop, gospel music, and exotic, Middle-Eastern-sounding improvisations.
In the mid- and late 1970s Jarrett led a "European quartet" concurrently with the American quartet, which was recorded by ECM
ECM (record label)
ECM is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a wide variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres...
. This combo consisted of saxophonist Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was born in Mysen, Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czesław Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer's daughter...
, bassist Palle Danielsson
Palle Danielsson
Palle Danielsson is a Swedish jazz double bassist born in Stockholm, Sweden, perhaps most notable for his work done with Keith Jarrett from 1974 to 1979, becoming a member of his European quartet for that period.-Career:...
, and drummer Jon Christensen
Jon Christensen
Jon Christensen is a Norwegian jazz percussionist.In the late 1960s he played alongside Jan Garbarek on several recordings by the composer George Russell....
.
This ensemble 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 influences that characterized the work of ECM artists at the time.
Jarrett became involved in a legal wrangle following the release of the album Gaucho
Gaucho (album)
Gaucho is the seventh studio album by the American Jazz rock band Steely Dan, released in 1980. The sessions for Gaucho represented the peak of Steely Dan's recording studio perfectionism and obsessive recording techniques...
in 1980 by the U.S. rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band Steely Dan
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...
. The album's title track, credited to Donald Fagen
Donald Fagen
Donald Jay Fagen is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and the principal songwriter of the rock band Steely Dan ....
and Walter Becker
Walter Becker
Walter Carl Becker is an American musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the co-founder, guitarist, bassist and a co-writer of Steely Dan.-Career:...
, bore an undeniable resemblance to Jarrett's "Long As You Know You're Living Yours," from the Belonging
Belonging (album)
Belonging is an album by American pianist Keith Jarrett which was released on the ECM label in 1974. It is the first album by Jarrett's 'European Quartet' featuring Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen...
album. When a Musician magazine interviewer pointed out the similarity, Becker admitted that he loved the Jarrett composition and Fagen said they had been influenced by it. After their comments were published, Jarrett sued, and Becker and Fagen were forced to add his name to the credits and to include him in the royalties.
Solo piano
Jarrett's first album for ECM, Facing YouFacing You
Facing You is the first album released on ECM by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. It features Jarrett performing eight solo piano pieces recorded in the studio.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Michael G...
(1971), was a solo piano date recorded in the studio. He has continued to record solo piano albums in the studio intermittently throughout his career, including Staircase
Staircase (album)
Staircase is the fourth solo album released on ECM by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. It features Jarrett performing four solo piano pieces recorded in the studio.-Reception:...
(1976), The Moth and the Flame (1981), and The Melody at Night, With You
The Melody at Night, With You
The Melody at Night, With You is a solo album by American pianist Keith Jarrett recorded at his home studio in 1998 and released on the ECM label in 1999....
(1999). Book of Ways
Book of Ways
Book of Ways is a double album of improvised music written by and performed by Keith Jarrett on clavichord which was released on the ECM label in 1987.-Reception:...
(1986) is a studio recording of clavichord solos.
The studio albums are modestly successful entries in the Jarrett catalog, but in 1973, Jarrett also began playing totally improvised
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
solo concerts, and it is the popularity of these voluminous concert recordings that has made him one of the best-selling jazz artists in history, not to mention one of the most ambitious and innovative. Albums released from these concerts include The Köln Concert
The Köln Concert
The Köln Concert is a recording by the pianist Keith Jarrett of solo piano improvisations performed at the Cologne Opera House in Cologne on January 24, 1975 before a live audience...
(1975) which became the best selling piano recording in history; and Sun Bear Concerts
Sun Bear Concerts
Sun Bear Concerts is a recording released through ECM by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett performing solo improvisations recorded in Japan in 1976. It was originally released as a ten-LP set and later as a six-CD box set.-Reception:...
(1976) - a 10-LP (and later 6-CD) Box Set.
Another of Jarrett's solo concerts, Dark Intervals
Dark Intervals
-Track listing:# "Opening" - 12:53# "Hymn" - 4:58# "Americana" - 7:12# "Entrance" - 2:55# "Parallels" - 4:58# "Fire Dance" - 6:51# "Ritual Prayer" - 7:12# "Recitative" - 11:17*Recorded in concert on April 11, 1987 in Tokyo's Suntory Hall.-Production:...
(1987, Tokyo), had less of a free-form improvisation feel to it because of the brevity of the pieces. Sounding more like a set of short compositions, these pieces are nonetheless entirely improvised.
After a hiatus, Jarrett returned to the extended solo improvised concert format with Paris Concert (1990), Vienna Concert
Vienna Concert
Vienna Concert is a live solo piano album by American pianist Keith Jarrett, released on the ECM label in 1991. It was recorded in concert on July 13, 1991 at the Vienna Staatsoper in Vienna, Austria. Many listeners regard this album as Jarrett's masterpiece...
(1991), and La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
(1995), before his career was interrupted by chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome is the most common name used to designate a significantly debilitating medical disorder or group of disorders generally defined by persistent fatigue accompanied by other specific symptoms for a minimum of six months, not due to ongoing exertion, not substantially...
. These later concerts tend to be more influenced by classical music than the earlier ones, reflecting his interest in composers such as Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
and Shostakovich, and are mostly less indebted to popular genres such as blues and gospel. The Vienna Concert in particular has been widely hailed as a masterpiece of improvisation, with its huge, arch-like opening movement, with a stunningly dissonant, virtuosic middle section, framed by more lyrical sections; Jarrett himself, in the liner notes to the album, named it his greatest achievement and the fulfillment of everything he was aiming to accomplish.
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. An apocryphal account of one such performance had Jarrett staring at the piano for several minutes without playing; as the audience grew increasingly uncomfortable, one member shouted to Jarrett, "D sharp!", to which the pianist responded, "Thank you!", and launched into an improvisation.
Jarrett's 100th solo performance in Japan was captured on video at Suntory Hall Tokyo on April 14, 1987, and released the same year. The recording was titled Solo Tribute. This is a set of almost all standard songs.
Another video recording, titled Last Solo, was released in 1987 from a live solo concert at Kan-i Hoken hall, Tokyo, Japan, recorded January 25, 1984.
Both Solo Tribute and Last Solo were reissued on Image Entertainment
Image Entertainment
Image Entertainment, Inc. is an independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming and film & television productions in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 250 exclusive CD titles in domestic release, and approximately 450...
DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in 2002.
In the late 1990s, Jarrett was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and was unable to leave his home for long periods of time. It was during this period that he recorded The Melody at Night, With You
The Melody at Night, With You
The Melody at Night, With You is a solo album by American pianist Keith Jarrett recorded at his home studio in 1998 and released on the ECM label in 1999....
, a solo piano effort consisting of jazz standards presented with very little of the reinterpretation he usually employs. 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
Radiance (album)
Radiance is a live solo piano album by American pianist Keith Jarrett which was released on the ECM label in 2006. It was recorded in concert in 2002 on October 27 in Osaka and October 30, in Tokyo.-Reception:...
(a complete concert in Osaka, 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, a few of fifteen or twenty minutes).
In September 2005 at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, 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
The Carnegie Hall Concert
The Carnegie Hall Concert is a live solo piano album by American pianist Keith Jarrett which was released on the ECM label in 2006. It was recorded in concert on September 26, 2005 at the Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City.-Reception:...
).
On November 26, 2008, he performed solo in the Salle Pleyel
Salle Pleyel
The Salle Pleyel is a concert hall in Paris, France. The resident ensembles are the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.-History and Design:...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and a few days later, on December 1, at London's Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-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. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
, marking the first time Jarrett had played solo in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in seventeen years. These concerts were released in October 2009 on the album Paris / London: Testament
Paris / London: Testament
Paris / London: Testament is a live solo piano album by American pianist Keith Jarrett, recorded at the Salle Pleyel, Paris and the Royal Festival Hall, London in 2008...
.
The Standards Trio
In 1983, at the suggestion of ECM head Manfred EicherManfred Eicher
Manfred Eicher is a German record producer and the founder of ECM Records and its subsidiaries.Eicher studied music at the Academy of Music in Berlin. He is a record producer and a double-bass player. In 1969 he founded a record label in Munich called ECM - Edition of Contemporary Music...
, Jarrett asked bassist Gary Peacock
Gary Peacock
Gary Peacock is an American jazz double-bassist.-Biography:After military service in Germany, in the early sixties he worked on the west coast with Barney Kessel, Bud Shank, Paul Bley and Art Pepper, then moved to New York. He worked there with Bley, the Bill Evans trio , and Albert Ayler's trio...
and drummer Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. He is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and Sonny...
, with whom he had worked on Peacock's 1977 album Tales of Another, to record an album of jazz standards, simply titled Standards, Volume 1
Standards (Jarrett album)
Standards is a two-volume set of jazz albums released by the Keith Jarrett trio in 1983. Originally released by ECM, they have been multiply re-issued, including by Universal/Polygram. The two volumes present performances of pianist Keith Jarrett with Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on...
. Two more albums, Standards, Volume 2
Standards (Jarrett album)
Standards is a two-volume set of jazz albums released by the Keith Jarrett trio in 1983. Originally released by ECM, they have been multiply re-issued, including by Universal/Polygram. The two volumes present performances of pianist Keith Jarrett with Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on...
and Changes
Changes (Jarrett album)
Changes is a jazz album released by Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock in 1983. This group subsequently became known as the "Standards Trio". The album features improvised compositions recorded at the same sessions as the two volumes released as Standards...
, 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
Working group
A working group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers working on new research activities that would be difficult to develop under traditional funding mechanisms . The lifespan of the WG can last anywhere between a few months and several years...
s in jazz, and certainly one of the most enduring, continuing to record and tour for more than twenty-five years.
The trio has recorded numerous live and studio albums consisting primarily of jazz repertory material. The trio members each cite Ahmad Jamal
Ahmad Jamal
Ahmad Jamal is an innovative and influential American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. According to Stanley Crouch, Jamal is second in importance in the development of jazz after 1945 only to Charlie Parker...
as a major influence in their musical development for his use of both melodic and multi-tonal lines..
The Jarrett-Peacock-DeJohnette trio also produced recordings that consist largely of challenging original material, most notably 1987's Changeless. (These recordings are noted above.) Several of the standards albums contain an original track or two, some attributed to Jarrett but mostly group improvisations. The live recordings Inside Out
Inside Out (Keith Jarrett album)
Inside Out is a live album by American pianist Keith Jarrett's "Standards Trio" featuring Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette recorded in concert in July 2000 at the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre in London, England and released on the ECM label in 2001...
and Always Let Me Go
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 on the ECM label in 2002....
(both released in 2001) marked a renewed interest by the trio in wholly improvised free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
. 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 undertakes frequent world tours of recital halls (the only venues in which Jarrett, a notorious stickler for acoustics, will play these days) and is one of the few truly successful jazz groups to play both straight-ahead (as opposed to smooth
Smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles ....
) and free jazz.
A related recording, At the Deer Head Inn
At the Deer Head Inn
At the Deer Head Inn is a live album by American pianist Keith Jarrett's with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian recorded in concert in September 1992 in Delaware Water Gap, Pa. and released on the ECM label...
(1992), is a live album of standards recorded with Paul Motian
Paul Motian
Stephen Paul Motian was an American jazz drummer, percussionist and composer of Armenian extraction.He first came to prominence in the late 1950s in the piano trio of Bill Evans, and later led several groups...
replacing DeJohnette, at the venue in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania
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 along the Delaware River.The population of Delaware Water...
, 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.
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
In the Light (Keith Jarrett album)
In the Light is a double album of contemporary classical music by Keith Jarrett which was recorded and released on the ECM label in 1973.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Richard S...
, 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, with varying degrees of success.
Luminessence
Luminessence (album)
Luminessence is an album composed by American pianist Keith Jarrett featuring saxophonist Jan Garbarek and the Südfunk-Sinfonieorchester conducted by Mladen Gutesha which was released on the ECM label in 1975.. Jarrett does not perform on this album....
(1974) and Arbour Zena
Arbour Zena
Arbour Zena is an album composed by American pianist Keith Jarrett featuring saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Charlie Haden and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mladen Gutesha which was released on the ECM label in 1975..-Reception:...
(1975) both combine composed pieces for strings with improvising jazz musicians, including Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was born in Mysen, Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czesław Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer's daughter...
and Charlie Haden
Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman...
. 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
Ritual (Keith Jarrett album)
Ritual is an album of contemporary classical music written by Keith Jarrett and performed by on solo piano by Dennis Russell Davies which was recorded and released on the ECM label in 1977.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Richard S...
(1977) is a composed solo piano piece recorded by Dennis Russell Davies
Dennis Russell Davies
Dennis Russell Davies is an American conductor and pianist. He studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard School where he received his doctorate...
that is somewhat reminiscent of Jarrett's own solo piano recordings.
The Celestial Hawk
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 which was released on the ECM label in 1981.-Reception:...
(1980) is a piece for orchestra, percussion, and piano that Jarrett performed and recorded with the Syracuse Symphony under Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene was an American conductor.Born in Berkeley, California, Keene studied at the University of California, Berkeley. Associated with the Spoleto Festival from 1968 , he was co-founder of the Spoleto Festival USA, where he was Music Director from 1977 to 1980...
. This piece is the largest and longest of Jarrett's efforts as a classical composer.
Bridge of Light (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
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver 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
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. Since 2003, its music director is Christian Arming....
. 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 Glanville-Hicks
Peggy Glanville-Hicks was an Australian composer.- Biography :Peggy Glanville-Hicks was born Melbourne in 1912. At age 15 she began studying composition with Fritz Hart in Melbourne...
's Etruscan Concerto, with Dennis Russell Davies
Dennis Russell Davies
Dennis Russell Davies is an American conductor and pianist. He studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard School where he received his doctorate...
conducting the Brooklyn Philharmonic
Brooklyn Philharmonic
The Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, commonly known as the Brooklyn Philharmonic, is an American orchestra based in the borough of Brooklyn, in New York City...
. This was released on Music Masters Classics, with pieces by Lou Harrison
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison...
and Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
. In 1995 the record label Music Masters Jazz released a CD on which one track featured Jarrett performing the exquisite solo piano part in Lousadzak, a 17-minute piano concerto by American composer Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
. The conductor again was Dennis Russell Davies. Most of Jarrett's classical recordings are of older repertoire, but Jarrett may have been introduced to this modern work by his one-time manager George Avakian
George Avakian
George Avakian is an American record producer and executive known particularly for his work with Columbia Records, and his production of albums by Miles Davis and other notable jazz musicians....
, who was a friend of the composer. Jarrett has also recorded classical works for ECM by composers such as Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
, Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
, Shostakovich, and Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
.
In 2004, Jarrett was awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Prize
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...
. The prestigious award usually associated with classical musicians and composers has only previously been given to one other jazz musician—Miles Davis. The first person to receive the award was Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, in 1959.
Other works
Jarrett also plays harpsichordHarpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
, clavichord
Clavichord
The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was widely used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces...
, organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, soprano saxophone
Soprano saxophone
The soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...
, drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, and many other instruments. 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 twenty 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
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
. His music has also been used on many television shows, including The Sopranos
The Sopranos
The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
on HBO. The 2001 German film Bella Martha (English title: Mostly Martha), whose music consultant was ECM founder and head Manfred Eicher, features Jarrett's "Country," from the European quartet album My Song.
Idiosyncrasies
One of Jarrett's trademarks is his frequent, loud vocalizations (grunting, squealing, and tuneless singing), similar to that of Glenn Gould, Thelonious MonkThelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, Erroll Garner
Erroll Garner
Erroll Louis Garner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad "Misty", has become a jazz standard...
, Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
, Ralph Sutton
Ralph Sutton
Ralph Earl Sutton was an American jazz pianist born in Hamburg, Missouri. He was a stride pianist in the tradition of James P. Johnson and Fats Waller....
, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Paul Asaro, and Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
. Jarrett is also physically active while playing, writhing, gyrating, and almost dancing on the piano bench. These behaviors occur in his jazz and improvised solo performances, but are for the most part absent whenever he plays classical repertory. Jarrett has noted his vocalizations are based on involvement, not content, and are more of an interaction than a reaction, ultimately enhancing the quality of the music.
However, Jarrett is notoriously intolerant of audience noise, including coughing and other involuntary sounds, especially during solo improvised performances. He feels that extraneous noise affects his musical inspiration, and distracts from the purity of the sound. As a result, cough drops are routinely supplied to Jarrett's audiences in cold weather, and he has even been known to stop playing and lead the crowd in a group cough. This intolerance was made clear during a concert on October 31, 2006, at the restored Salle Pleyel
Salle Pleyel
The Salle Pleyel is a concert hall in Paris, France. The resident ensembles are the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.-History and Design:...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. After making an impassioned plea to the audience to stop coughing, Jarrett walked out of the concert during the first half, refusing at first to continue, although he did subsequently return to the stage to finish the first half, and also the second. A further solo concert three days later went undisturbed, following an official announcement beforehand urging the audience to minimize extraneous noise. In 2008, during the first half of another Paris concert, Jarrett complained to the audience about the quality of the piano that he had been given, walking off between solos and remonstrating with staff at the venue. Following an extended interval, the piano was replaced. In 2007, in concert in Perugia
Perugia
Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....
during the Umbria Jazz Festival
Umbria Jazz Festival
The Umbria Jazz Festival is one of the most important jazz festivals in the world and has been held annually since 1973, usually in the month of July, in Perugia, Italy...
, angered by photographers Jarrett implored the audience: "I do not speak Italian, so someone who speaks English can tell all these assholes with cameras to turn them fucking off right now. Right now! No more photographs, including that red light right there. If we see any more lights, I reserve the right (and I think the privilege is yours to hear us), but I reserve the right and Jack and Gary reserve the right to stop playing and leave the goddamn city!" This caused the organizers of the Festival to declare that they will never invite him again. In a performance at Carnegie Hall on 16 January 2011, he stopped in the middle of a quiet improvisation in an apparent reaction to an audience member's persistent coughing. After a moment's silence, he remarked, "Where's the coughing now?" and continued playing. He subsequently said, "Since I'm the only person in this hall who can't leave, I have just one solution to deal with this coughing--play loud! Is that what you want?". Before he went back to playing another quiet tune, he said, "Maybe I should draw a circle with a line through it and issue a warning--Soft Song."
Jarrett is also extremely protective of the quality of recordings of his concerts. In 1992, a trio concert at the Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-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. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
was temporarily stopped as he thought he had identified someone in the audience with a recording device. It turned out to be a light on the mixing desk and the concert resumed after an apology. Similarly, a 2010 concert in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
was interrupted after he confused the electric devices on an audience member's wheelchair with recording equipment. The concert resumed, although without apology.
Jarrett has been known for many years to be strongly opposed to electronic instruments and equipment. 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.
For many years he has been a follower of the teachings of metaphysician and mystic G. I. Gurdjieff
G. I. Gurdjieff
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff according to Gurdjieff's principles and instructions, or the "Fourth Way."At one point he described his teaching as "esoteric Christianity."...
. In 1980 he recorded an album of Gurdjieff's compositions, called Sacred Hymns, for ECM.
Personal
Jarrett lives in an 18th-century farmhouse in Oxford TownshipOxford Township, New Jersey
Oxford Township is a Township in Warren County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2010 Census, the township population was 2,514...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, in rural Warren County
Warren County, New Jersey
Warren County is a county located in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 108,692. Its county seat is Belvidere...
. He uses a converted barn on his property as a recording studio and practice facility.
Jarrett's first marriage, to Margot Erney, ended in divorce. He and his second wife Rose Anne (née Colavito) divorced in 2010 after a thirty-year marriage. Jarrett has four brothers, all younger, two of whom are involved in music. Chris Jarrett
Chris Jarrett
Chris Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who has lived in Germany since 1985. Chris Jarrett is mainly performing as a solo pianist, being influenced from classical music as well as from jazz improvisation...
is also a pianist, and Scott Jarrett is a producer and songwriter. Noah Jarrett, one of two sons from Jarrett's first marriage, is a bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Sources
- Carr, Ian. Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music. 1992 ISBN 0586092196
- Ian Carr, Digby Fairweather, Brian Priestley. 'The Rough Guide to Jazz'. 2003 ISBN 1-84353-256-5
External links
- KeithJarrett.it The most complete fan site dedicated to Keith Jarrett
- Keith Jarrett fansite.
- Interview with Ethan Iverson for BBC (2009)
- Art of the States: Keith Jarrett performing Lousadzak, op. 48 (1944) by Alan HovhanessAlan HovhanessAlan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
- Keith Jarrett at Yahoo!Groups.
- Keith Jarrett on ECM Records.
- Keith Jarrett by Otacílio Melgaço
- Keith Jarrett: a short biography (fan site).
- "Keith Jarrett Standards Trio Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary" by Ted Gioia Jazz.com.
- Keith Jarrett on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz (NPR).
- Recent Interview (2007)
- 1997 New York Times profile of Jarrett
- Keith Jarrett Transcriptions Project – Transcriptions
- Keith Jarrett on ECM Records