Keith Jarrett will Ring in Chez Hanny New Year

Keith Jarrett at the piano for a soundcheck prior to a performance on July 17, 2003 at the Jazz à Juan festival in Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, France (photograph by Olivier Bruchez, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)

Once again Jazz Chez Hanny will present a program to celebrate the New Year. The title of the program will be Mandala – The Music of Keith Jarrett. The repertoire will be taken from works that pianist Jarrett composed for the two quartets he led in the Seventies. The first of these was the “American” quartet with saxophonist Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden on bass, and percussionist Paul Motian. The other was the quartet formed in Europe with Jan Garbarek on saxophone, bassist Palle Danielsson, and Jon Christensen on drum kit. Mandala is the name of the quartet that will visit Chez Hanny for the celebratory occasion.

Instrumentation departs somewhat from Jarrett’s. Saxophonist Sheldon Brown will lead, possibly commanding a diversity of wind instruments. Matt Clark will accompany at the piano with Michael Wilcox playing a six-string electric bass and Bryan Bowman on drums.

As many readers probably know by now, Chez Hanny is located at 1300 Silver Avenue; and the performance takes place in the downstairs rumpus room. It will begin at 4 p.m. on Thursday, January 1. Admission will be $25, payable by Zelle sent to jazz@chezhanny.com, check to Jazz Chez Hanny, or cash. Because Jazz Chez Hanny is now a 501(c)(3) public charity, donations, which are tax deductible, will also be welcomed. It is also worth noting that Frank Hanny, who provides the venue and for whom the event is named, has been presenting these jazz performances for 25 years in San Francisco.

There will be two sets separated by a potluck break. As a result, all who plan to attend should bring food and/or drink to share. Seating is first come, first served, meaning that reservations are strongly recommended. They may be placed through an electronic mail address: jazz@chezhanny.com. Mail messages received after noon on the day of a performance are unlikely to be seen until after the show is over, and cancellations should be given at least 24 hours advance notice. Finally, volunteer efforts for cleaning up after the show and moving furniture to accommodate both players and listeners are always appreciated.

ECM: Jarrett’s 2016 Tour Advances to Vienna

courtesy of Crossover Media

Those following this site for some time probably know by now that my knowledge of performances by pianist Keith Jarrett is due entirely to albums released by ECM. Since 2019 that label has been chronicling documents of the music performed during his final European solo tour in 2016. (In 2018 he endured two strokes, after which he could play piano only with his right hand.) That journey began with the release of Munich 2016 in November of 2019, followed by Budapest Concert and Bordeaux Concert. This month the pendulum swung back to the east with the release of New Vienna, recorded in the Golden Hall of that city’s Musikverein.

As readers might guess, this is not the Vienna of the Strauss family! Indeed, the Musikverein was a major venue for the Second Viennese School, where compositions by Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, were given premiere performances. Those familiar with Jarrett’s style probably know that it is a far cry from the achievements of those three composers. Rather than meticulous calculation, his performances explore the wide diversity of approaches to spontaneity. The results of those approaches are so abstract the Jarrett identifies his tracks simply as “Part” followed by a Roman numeral; but each of those tracks discloses its own approach to expressive disposition.

When I wrote about the Bordeaux album, I made the observation that I had “listened to enough Jarrett tracks to know that the last thing I want to do is try to analyze any of them to death.” The alternative that I proposed was one of “spontaneous listening.” That proposal is as valid for New Vienna as it is for its three predecessors. When I wrote about Bordeaux Concert, I invoked T. S. Eliot for a final bit of advice. At the end of the day, however, the only real advice that counts for any of these live Jarrett albums is: “Shut up and listen!”

ECM Luminessence Series Releases Namesake

Cover of the original release of the album being discussed (from its Wikipedia Web page)

Readers may recall this past Friday’s article about the new ECM Luminessence series of past CD albums reissued on vinyl. That series was named after one of those albums, whose full title is Luminessence: Music for String Orchestra and Saxophone. For those of us that are sticklers for classification, this is a true anomaly. The music was through-composed by Keith Jarrett for string orchestra. However, it was composed for saxophonist Jan Garbarek, who was allowed to improvise his part. The strings on the album were members of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (which was known, at that time as Südfunk-Sinfonieorchester). The entire three-movement work has the structure of a concerto; but the structural properties of a classical concerto are barely evident, if they are evident at all.

This provided me with an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that I have saved one of the last published set of Schwann Catalogs, which defined a set of categories among which all available recordings could be classified. I began by consulting the Classical category, which had five entries for Jarrett, none of which were on the Luminessence album. The Jazz category, on the other hand, classified the album under both “Garbarek, Jan & Keith Jarrett” and “Jarrett, Keith & Jan Garbarek.” (Fortunately, I do not have to worry about this ambiguity when I listen to this music on my Music app! However, since I burn CDs for “hard copy backup,” I plan to keep this one in my Jarrett collection, if, for no other reason, this is the larger of the two! Furthermore, the Wikipedia page for this album classifies it as “Studio album by Keith Jarrett!”)

The music itself serves up many of the moody lyrical qualities that will be familiar to those that have encountered Jarrett’s solo performances and recordings. Nevertheless, there is an abundance of varying dispositions that arise over the course of the album, suggesting that the composer was deliberately creating an abundance of settings in which the soloist could explore distinctively different improvisations. I also think that it was wise for Jarrett to steer clear to any particularly sharp edges for the string players, leaving all of those to the saxophonist!

Taken as a whole, the album fits comfortably into my journey-of-discovery epithet; and, for my own part, I can say that new discoveries arise with each return listening experience.

Revisiting Two Jarrett Solo Piano Concerts

At the end of last month, ECM released a vinyl triple album of two solo piano concerts that Keith Jarrett performed in Europe in 1973. The first of these took place in Bremen in March, followed by the second in Lausanne in July. These mark the beginning of Jarrett’s extended solo performances, which have been of primary importance in writing about his work on this site. For those that are not passionate about the virtues of vinyl, the Amazon.com Web page also has a hyperlink for the CD version with one disc for each of the two venues.

I am not sure how long I have been following these introspective solos. Unless I am mistaken, I jumped into the repertoire feet-first with the three-CD Paris/London—Testament album. Now, to be fair, it took me some time to get beyond dismissing these sessions as “meanderings.” One needs to put more than a fair amount of effort into listening to the lengthy endeavors; but, as the Zen proverb says, “Hard work succeeds … naturally.” Having adjusted my skills for “long duration focus,” listening to those early 1973 efforts comes across like a walk in the park.

What strikes me most is how long ago 1973 is! This was not Jarrett’s first solo album, but it definitely marked a shift in style. Mind you, he would continue to perform in combos after these two solo performances; but his solo gigs would begin to surface with some semblance of preference even before the turn of the century.

Is he still at it? ECM released his 2016 Bordeaux Concert in 2022; but that may be “the end of the line,” since Jarrett sustained two major strokes in February and May of 2018, the second followed by about two years of paralysis. There may not be any new albums released, but there is still more than enough to sustain my attention among the albums I already have.

ECM Reissues Keith Jarrett on Clavichord

Anyone that has been following my accounts of recordings of performances by Keith Jarrett released on ECM Records probably knows by now that he is not afraid of adventurous undertakings. In the spirit of George Orwell, however, one can probably say that all of Jarrett’s recording sessions are adventurous; but some are more adventurous than others. Where my own tastes are concerned, however, I would say that his most adventurous undertaking was the two-CD album entitled Book of Ways. A little over a week ago, ECM reissued this album with new packaging. While Amazon.com does not seem to appreciate any difference between the two releases, Discogs has created a new Web page that is specific for the reissue.

The album consists of nineteen tracks, each of which involves what I would take to be a spontaneous improvisation. The shortest track is a little under three minutes in duration, and the longest is slightly over nine minutes. (Unless I am mistaken, any Jarrett improvisation session begins with the longest piece; this recording suggests that this remains the case even when all of the tracks are relatively short when compared with other Jarrett albums.)

What makes Book of Ways unique, however, is that all of the improvisations are performed on a clavichord. For those unfamiliar with it, the clavichord is one of the earliest keyboard instruments in which the strings are struck, rather than plucked (as they are on a harpsichord). However, it is also the softest instrument in the keyboard family; so soft that it would not stand out in performance with other instruments. Indeed, I have a friend that had a clavichord in his bedroom, knowing full well that he would not awaken anyone while playing it!

When Jarrett recorded Book of Ways, he had three of these instruments brought into the studio. At this point I feel it would be better for me to allow Jarrett to speak for himself:

We had three clavichords in the studio, two of which were angled together so that I could play them both simultaneously, and the third off to the side. Also we miked the instruments very closely so that the full range of dynamics could be used (clavichords are very quiet and cannot be heard more than a few feet away). The two CDs were made on an off day between concerts with my Trio, and no material was organized beforehand. Everything was spontaneous. The recording was done in four hours.

It goes without saying that the contents of this album is a far cry from any of Jarrett’s other recordings. However, what is important is how his improvisations are closely linked to the sonorities that distinguish the clavichord from any other keyboard instrument. This is not just a matter of a narrow dynamic range, which can be compensated with judicious approaches to volume control of the microphones. Equally important is how the decay of any note tends to be much shorter, requiring Jarrett to be more attentive to note-by-note sequencing than he might be when he is behind the keyboard of a modern grand piano.

Cover design for Book of Ways (courtesy of DL Media)

My personal reaction is that I find the whole listening experience fascinating (with absolutely no reference to Spock’s eyebrow intended)! One might almost compare any one of the tracks to a Zen koan. For that matter, as I get to know this album better, I suspect that I shall want to interject pauses of my own between the tracks. As a result, I may well adopt this album for providing an excellent training ground for the practice of attentive listening. Indeed, even the vast amount of empty space on the album cover (shown above) contributes to that training ground.

Book of Ways is a far cry from what one usually expects of Jarrett. However, the uniqueness of the setting and his innovative approaches to that setting make for an unforgettable listening experience. For that matter, it almost seems to invite the listener to return, allowing each listening experience to build on a foundation laid by the previous one.

Noah Haidu’s Response to Jarrett’s Repertoire

Cover of the album being discussed

This coming Saturday, May 8, will be Keith Jarrett’s 76th birthday. Those familiar with Jarrett’s biography probably know that he sustained two major strokes in 2018, the second of which left him paralyzed. After two years of rehabilitation, he was able to walk with a cane and could play the piano only with his right hand. This past October Jarrett told The New York Times that he does not see any further performances in his future.

In a gesture of homage to Jarrett, jazz pianist Noah Haidu recorded his latest album at the end of last year. Entitled SLOWLY: Song for Keith Jarrett, the album will be released by Sunnyside Communications this coming Friday as a “birthday celebration.” Haidu recruited two jazz masters from the latter half of the twentieth century to provide rhythm for this trio album. His bass player is Buster Williams, and the drummer is Billy Hart. Both of them are given more than ample time to explore their own riffs in response to Haidu’s keyboard work. As usual, Amazon.com is currently processing pre-orders for this recording.

Ironically, of the eight tracks on this album, the only one that credits Jarrett as a composer appears to be mistaken. According to the credits on the ECM Hamburg ’72 live recording of Jarrett’s trio performance with Charlie Haden on bass and percussionist Paul Motian, made (in 1972) at the NDR Jazz Workshop, “Rainbow” was composed by Jarrett’s first wife, Margot. On his SLOWLY album, Haidu uses that tune as a point of departure for his own personal reflection on Jarrett; and the smooth transition is an engaging one.

The only other track composed by Haidu is the one bearing the album title, “Slowly.” However, Williams is credited with the opening track, “Air Dancing;” and Hart is responsible for “Duchess” and “Lorca.” The remaining three tracks are standards from different periods in the twentieth century: “What a Diff'rence a Day Makes!,” “Georgia on My Mind,” and “But Beautiful.” I was not able to find recordings of Jarrett playing any of these three pieces, but my Jarrett resources are more limited than I would like them to be!

Taken as a whole, this is a satisfying album of the sort of straight-ahead jazz than I find myself missing in my encounters with recent recordings. Haidu’s improvisations are consistently engaging. They may not be as intricately convoluted as many of Jarrett’s memorable efforts. However, I am willing to take them as representative of Haidu’s own distinctive “voice;” and that is more than enough to engage my focused attention.

Keith Jarrett in Budapest in 2016

Keith Jarrett at the keyboard (photograph by Daniela Yohannes, courtesy of ECM Records)

At the end of this past October, ECM released its latest album of a solo concert performance by pianist Keith Jarrett. Like the album that was released almost exactly a year earlier, the performance took place during a European tour in 2016. The title of that earlier album was simply Munich 2016, and the new release has been entitled with similar brevity as Budapest Concert. Jarrett visited Budapest about two weeks before his Munich performance.

Jarrett had a more personal attachment to Budapest. His ancestry could be traced back to Hungary, and the composer Béla Bartók has been a significant influence throughout both his life and his career. Indeed, the venue for the Budapest performance was the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall; and, every now and then, the attentive listener might detect of motif or two that Jarrett may have previously encountered in Bartók’s music.

That said, there are clear parallels across these two concert albums. In both cases the performance consisted of a sequence of free improvisations, each identified simply as “Part” followed by a Roman numeral. At both concerts “Part I” was the longest improvisation, lasting more than thirteen minutes in both cases. Also both concerts consisted of twelve parts, the remaining eleven of which tended to involve more modest individual reflections and styles. The most evident of those styles was that of blues, which was clearly recognizable (and identified in the track listing) in Part XII of the Budapest performance.

Finally, both concerts ended with “songbook improvisations.” Both Charles Kisco’s “It’s a Lonesome Old Town” and “Answer Me, My Love,” whose tune by Gerhard Winkler began as the German song “Mütterlein” and later received English lyrics (and title) by Carl Sigman, were played in both Budapest and Munich. The Munich album then concluded with Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow,” which was not performed in Budapest.

I suspect that it would be fair to say that both of these concert performances reflected similar moods. Nevertheless, given Jarrett’s prodigious capacity for invention, those moods lead him in different directions on different occasions. The author of his Wikipedia page, apparently inspired by an article from People magazine, wrote the following about Jarrett’s capacity for spontaneity:

Jarrett has commented that his best performances have been when he has had only the slightest notion of what he was going to play at the next moment. He also said that most people don't know "what he does", which relates to what Miles Davis said to him expressing bewilderment – as to how Jarrett could "play from nothing".

Every now and then there are anecdotes about composers struggling with “brain freeze” at the beginning of an undertaking. The usual argument goes that, when the page is blank, so many alternatives are possible that making a choice is almost impossible! In that context the capacity for spontaneity may be Jarrett’s greatest gift. Zen teaches us that the thousand-mile journey begins with a single step. Jarrett always seems to know how to take that first step and then see where the journey can lead. On the other hand, it may just be that each single step points him in the direction of the next one!

In Memoriam: Gary Peacock

Yesterday The New York Times published the obituary for jazz bassist Gary Peacock, who died at his home in Upstate New York this past Friday, written by Giovanni Russonello. As one can see from his Wikipedia page, Peacock accumulated an impressively large and extensive discography, not only as a leader for a dozen ECM albums but also providing rhythm for an impressive diversity of leaders, including Bill Evans, Tony Williams, and Albert Ayler. However, in the plays-well-with-others category, his primary contribution was to Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio, joining forces with drummer Jack DeJohnette to support Jarrett’s elaborate keyboard work.

I decided to mark this sober occasion by visiting a YouTube video of the Standards Trio in concert. The performance took place in Tokyo on February 15, 1985; and those interested in the details of Jarrett’s “book” will be pleased to see that the titles of all ten selections have been listed in the accompanying description. (Sadly, nothing more than the titles are provided; but it is not difficult to “flesh out” the content by consulting other resources.) The duration of the video is one hour and 50 minutes.

Video capture of Gary Peacock’s bass fingering (screen shot from the YouTube video being discussed)

Each of those selections is given a relatively lengthy account, and the viewer will have more than ample opportunities to listen to the improvised riffs that Peacock invents when it is his turn to take a solo. Furthermore, from the video point of view, the camera is particularly good at homing in on the fingers of Peacock’s left hand, meaning that one can follow the movements behind his melodic lines, just as one can when viewing the piano keyboard. Sadly, the camera work is not as kind to DeJohnette.

There is one particularly good angle from which one can view how he deploys both drums and cymbals to develop a prodigious variety of counter-rhythms, but the camera never remains in place long enough for the viewer to appreciate that technique. There are too many quick cuts to looking over DeJohnette’s shoulder or looking at areas of the kit which are not been utilized. Accounting for inventive jazz drumming on video is no easy matter.

On the other hand the camera work tends to provide any number of insights into Jarrett “at work.” Many readers are probably aware that, particularly in his younger years, Jarrett had a tendency to sing along with his keyboard work. Indeed, his Wikipedia page even has a section labeled “Idiosyncrasies,” which calls out “frequent, loud vocalizations” as examples of “Jarrett’s trademarks.” The Wikipedia author notes that Jarrett is in good company, citing “Glenn Gould, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Ralph Sutton, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Paul Asaro, and Cecil Taylor” as sharing that habit. Given my current activities, I tried to figure out if Gould was ever aware of Jarrett; but this does not seem to be the case.

Still, it is worth pointing out that Jarrett shared Gould’s interest in performing and recording the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Indeed, in November of 2010 Jarrett partnered with violinist Michelle Makarski to record the BWV 1014–1019 violin sonatas for ECM. In light of my recent article, I have to say that I was far more satisfied with this account of those sonatas than I had been with the recordings Gould made with Jaime Laredo. If vocalization was part of Jarrett’s approach to jazz, he never allowed it to intrude upon his duo performance with Makarski.

Nevertheless, vocalization was but one of Jarrett’s “idiosyncrasies.” On this video from Japan the viewer will see him frequently rise from the bench while playing and work in a dance step or two from time to time. To be fair, this never came across as disruptive. Both Peacock and DeJohnette had no trouble accepting how “physical” Jarrett could get in his piano work. Indeed, my own humble opinion is that Jarrett is simply “getting into the spirit” of the music he plays, whether it is a familiar standard or Bach chamber music. What he chooses to do physically never intrudes on listening to either his keyboard technique or his capacity for invention.

This brings us back to Peacock, whose own capacity for invention was equally prodigious. In that context I have to say that I was particularly impressed by his partnership with Ayler, which I experienced in a quartet recording made in Copenhagen in 1964. That happened to be the same year in which he contributed to three of the tracks on Tony Williams’ Life Time album for Blue Note. Peacock was not stranger to the avant-garde and was instrumental (pun intended) in turning rehearsal sessions into performances worthy of capture on recordings.

ECM Releases Jarrett’s Latest Solo Concert Album

courtesy of Universal Music Group

At the beginning of this month, ECM released its latest album of a solo concert performance by pianist Keith Jarrett. The title of the album is simply Munich 2016, and it was recorded on the last night of a 2016 European tour at the Philharmonie in Gasteig. I have now listened to enough of these concert recordings to have some sense of a pattern.

Jarrett tends to present a sequence of free improvisations, each of which is called simply “Part” followed by a Roman numeral. “Part I” is almost always lengthy but is not necessarily the longest offering of the evening. However, he uses many of the shorter Parts to reflect on genres that reflect on past jazz traditions, while the longer ones take bold steps in unexpected directions and then “survey the ground” while trying to figure out how to eventually (sooner or later) tie things up with a sense of an ending. Towards the end of the evening, Jarrett is likely to extend his improvisations into familiar tunes; but those improvisations tend to be shorter than any of their predecessors.

I should note, as an aside, that I have attended a recital of only one other pianist that tends to work from a similar framework; that pianist was Cecil Taylor.

Because I have never followed Jarrett on one of his tours, I have no idea how many commonalities there are from one night’s program to the next. However, it would not surprise me if all of Jarrett’s performances get recorded. Jarrett himself then probably decides which are the full-evening accounts he would like to see “preserved” on released albums.

Nevertheless, I have to wonder if, in my hypothesized role as a “camp follower,” I would recognize any of those commonalities. Presumably, Jarrett spends a lot of his time on his own, proposing certain paths down which improvisation would be feasible and then deciding which to accept as points of departure during one of his concerts. However, I doubt if I could say anything meaningful about his decision process on the basis of what is available to me through recordings.

Thus, as a listener, I tend to “take it as it comes” when approaching any of these recordings, which would be the same attitude I would bring to attending an actual concert performance. However, there is so much diversity across any given recording that I doubt that, even after listening to an album multiple times in short succession, I would be able to hypothesize anything resembling a “method” behind Jarrett’s capacities for improvisation. Put another way in terms of past history, I suspect that it is easier for me to get my head around Elliot Carter’s second string quartet while following the score as part of my listening activity than it is for me to claim “familiarity” with any of Jarrett’s improvisations.

In my book that speaks well of Jarrett’s concert recordings, and I look forward to fresh discoveries any time I return to any of them!

Keith Jarrett in Venice at La Fenice

Exactly one week from today ECM will release its latest recording of a solo concert piano performance by Keith Jarrett. The album is entitled simply La Fenice. It consists of two CDs documenting a live concert performance that Jarrett gave at La Fenice (whose name means “the phoenix”), which is the major opera house in Venice, Italy. Since 1792 this has been one of Europe’s major venues for opera performances, playing a significant role in providing opportunities for bringing the bel canto style to large audiences. Note that last adjective. The space itself is mind-bogglingly large; and, given Jarrett’s popularity, particularly in Europe, it is likely that there was not an empty seat in the house when his concert was recorded there on July 19, 2006. As usual, Amazon.com is currently taking pre-orders for the resulting album.

Photograph of the interior of La Fenice taken at the end of 2015 (uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by photographer Youflavio, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)

By way of disclaimer, I should begin by stating that I have not personally attended one of Jarrett’s recitals, solo or otherwise. For better or worse, I have come to know his work only through recordings. This raises some interesting issues where a concert like the one given at La Fenice is concerned. For the most part the content consisted of a suite of eight spontaneously created pieces, each identified on the track listing as “Part” followed by a Roman numeral. (I say “for the most part” because Jarrett inserts his take on “The sun whose rays are all ablaze” from the operetta The Mikado with music by Arthur Sullivan setting the words of W. S. Gilbert. This takes place between the sixth and seventh improvised “Parts.”

The album also includes the three encores taken after Jarrett’s extended improvisation, which, presumably, was played without any interruption other than occasional brief interjections of applause between the parts. The first encore was the traditional tune “My Wild Irish Rose” (leading me to wonder how many times Jarrett had to deal with a drunk coming up to him and asking him to play “Melancholy Baby”). This was followed by Victor Young’s “Stella by Starlight,” given a hard-driving bebop account in which the tune is far less recognizable than is ever encountered in one of Miles Davis’ takes. Jarrett them wrapped up the evening with a “documented” (as opposed to spontaneous) tune of his own, “Blossom.”

While I have not experienced Jarrett in concert, I have had the good fortune to enjoy a performance that was basically a full evening of spontaneous improvisation. That performance was given by another pianist, Cecil Taylor. I note this because, while the styles of these two players differ markedly, they agree on one strategic approach to performing.

In both cases the initial improvisation is longest, tending to be a suite unto itself that perambulates in and out of different thematic terrains and different stylistic approaches. Furthermore, Jarrett’s “Part I” is not only the longest track but the one that is very leisurely about homing in on a tonal center. Taylor was more likely to go the entire night without ever establishing such a tonal center. In Jarrett’s case, one quickly becomes accustomed to the lack of anything even remotely suggesting a traditional cadence; yet, by the time that “Part I” has run its course, the attentive listener realizes that there is a “focal harmony” (if not, strictly speaking, a “tonality”) hovering over his final measures.

Having exercised his adventurous chops in “Part I,” Jarrett frequently turns to more familiar genres or styles to provide orienting landmarks in the subsequent parts. Perhaps that gradual intrusion of familiarity is his way of preparing the audience for a take on a “real tune” taken from The Mikado. Ultimately, the sense of timing that Jarrett brings to both what he plays and how he plays it is so well crafted that it readily absorbs any serious listener. (You never hear any sound from the audience except when Jarrett provides a break for applause.)

Mind you, all this may well have been an instance of a recording crew being in the right place at the right time. (A friend of mine happened to be at a Jarrett solo performance in Davies Symphony Hall that definitely was not at the right time!) Nevertheless, whatever circumstances may have led to this document that will soon be released by ECM, that document will definitely reward those willing to listen to it attentively.

Old Folks Play “Old Folks” Affectionately

Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett, and Gary Peacock (photograph by Patrick Hinely, courtesy of ECM Records)

This past Friday ECM released the latest album of performances by what has come to be called “the Standards trio.” This is a group led from the piano by Keith Jarrett, playing with Gary Peacock on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Among the standards included on this “document” of a session presented in Newark, New Jersey in November of 1998 is a particularly affectionate account of Willard Robison’s “Old Folks,” which I first remember having heard sung by a vocal combo (probably with a big band), whom I have not yet managed to identify. For those who might think of my headline as “agist,” I should note that I passed the milestone of my 70th birthday in 2016; and I am younger than all three members of this trio! (For the record, “Old Folks” was written in 1938, making it younger than Peacock and older than both Jarrett and DeJohnette.)

I have to say that age has provided a certain satisfaction in what now counts for “standards.” When I am told that a group is going to play standards, I tend not to expect to hear compositions by Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sonny Rollins, Paul Desmond, and John Coltrane. However, collectively they account for five of the tracks on a two-CD album encompassing twelve tracks. I call that a statistically significant presence of music described as “far out” during my student days!

Mind you, the session at which these tracks were recorded took place almost twenty years ago. Perhaps that may be the key to why this new album is entitled After The Fall. At the time of that Newark date, the members of the trio could probably say that they were in, as W. S. Gilbert put it, “the autumn of our life.” Twenty years on autumn has passed into winter (for them as well as for myself). One way to approach the album title would be by putting Gilbert’s phrase (taken from The Yeomen of the Guard) into its full context:

In the autumn of our life,

Here at rest in ample clover,

We rejoice in telling over

Our impetuous May and June.

When viewed retrospectively from 1998, jazzmen such as Parker, Powell, and Coltrane could easily stand for those “impetuous” younger days as they were enjoyed by the likes of Jarrett, Peacock, and DeJohnette. For the record, my own first encounter with DeJohnette took place somewhere in the mid-Sixties at the Village Vanguard. That date was shared by Mose Allison and Thelonious Monk (impetuous, indeed!); and I cannot retrieve from memory with whom DeJohnette was playing that night.

With all that as context for the basis of this recording, Jarrett, Peacock, and DeJohnette were all still pretty damned impetuous in 1998. Perhaps that is why they could effect the transition of their impetuous predecessors into “standards status.” Now that the calendar has advanced another twenty years, it is hard to think of any of them resting “in ample clover.” Instead, we should wonder what they would now classify as “standards” should they decide to gather for another gig some time during the course of this year.

Two Albums from Guitarist Yuri Liberzon

Back when I was writing for Examiner.com, I was particularly impressed that the acoustics at the Old First Presbyterian Church were so conducive to solo guitar recitals, meaning that the soloist would not have to rely on electronic amplification. One of the guitarists that worked very well in this environment was Yuri Liberzon, and I was a bit disappointed to have lost touch with him after his second Old First Concerts recital in August of 2011. Recently, however, I was able to resume contact thanks to a colleague, who had just finished producing Liberzon’s second album, leading me to put both of his albums on my queue for serious listening. Both of these albums can be found on Amazon.com; but, as far as I can tell with the uninformative qualities of Amazon’s search engine, these albums are available for only download or streaming.

Yuri Liberzon’s first album (courtesy of the guitarist)

The earlier of the two albums, entitled Ascension, was released in 2015 and allowed me to revisit several of the compositions Liberzon had presented at his two Old First Concerts recitals. These included Sergei Rudnev’s folk arrangement “The Old Lime-Tree” (lipa vekovaia), Ernesto Lecuona’s “Danza Lucumi,” Toru Takemitsu’s arrangements of two Beatle’s songs, “Michelle” and “Yesterday,” and Liberzon’s own arrangement of Domenico Scarlatti’s K. 1 keyboard sonata in D minor. The album includes another of Liberzon’s Scarlatti arrangements, K. 27 in B minor; but most impressive is that he took on the entirety of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1004 solo violin partita in D minor. Guitar performances of the concluding Chaconne movement of this partita have been around at least since the days of Andrés Segovia, but I must confess to a personal interest in how much the “spirit of the dance” is evoked by those who choose to perform the four preceding movements. That spirit was most evident in Liberzon’s approach to the Courante, which was pleasantly surprising given how many performers only “find their feet” when they get to the Gigue movement.

However, the most unexpected track on the Ascension album was Manuel Barrueco’s transcription of the music from Keith Jarrett’s 1975 solo concert at the Opera House in Cologne. Presumably, Barrueco prepared this transcription by listening to the ECM album of this concert and limited his attention to the final track, “Part IIc.” This was the recital’s encore and was the only portion of the performance to draw upon a precomposed tune, making it the one track from the album that would lend itself to transcription. What is most interesting is how Barrueco managed to capture many of Jarrett’s embellishments, which are very much a matter of deft keyboard technique; but the transcription makes a convincing case that the music is susceptible to another genre of deft finger-work.

Yuri Liberzon’s latest album (courtesy of the guitarist)

The title of the newer album, which was released this past July, is ¡Acentuado! It consists of two compositions by Astor Piazzolla. The first of these is another Barrueco transcription, this time of the six pieces called “Tango-Études,” which were originally composed for solo flute. What is most interesting in these pieces is not only the extent to which the music is as much a technical study for guitar as it had originally been for flute but also Barrueco’s skill in adding notes that allow the guitarist to get beyond the monodic constraints of the flute line. One could almost believe that this music had originally been written for guitar, from which the flute version was subsequently “distilled.”

The remaining four tracks of the album are devoted to Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango suite, which was composed as a duet for flute and guitar. Liberzon had performed this in his second Old First Concerts program, playing the piece with local flutist Meerenai Shim. The flutist on the recording is Josué Casillas. The duo does an excellent job of playing up the stylistic characteristics that distinguish the four movements, each corresponding to a different period in the twentieth century, even if the “Piazzolla sound” is unmistakable over the course of all four of the movements.

ECM Releases a Four-CD Box of Keith Jarrett in Italy in October of 1996

This past Friday ECM released a four-CD box set entitled A Multitude of Angels. Each disc documents one of four nights of improvised solo piano performances given by Keith Jarrett in Modena, Ferrara, Turin, and Genoa, respectively. Each concert consisted of two uninterrupted improvised sets whose durations ran between about 30 minutes and about 45 minutes. Both the Ferrara and Genoa concerts also have brief improvised encores. The Modena concert concludes with a brief account of the “Londonderry Air,” specified in the track listing (on the Amazon.com Web page but not in the accompanying booklet) as Frederic Weatherly’s “Danny Boy.” Genoa, on the other hand, concludes with Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow.”

ECM has been documenting these extended solo improvisations since the release of Jarrett’s 1973 concerts in Bremen and Lausanne, originally packaged as three LPs and now available as a two-CD set. The Multitude of Angels sessions take place almost a quarter of a century later, in October of 1996. Capture was made with Jarrett’s own Digital Audio Tape recording equipment. As is the case with all Jarrett recordings, the source content was prepared for production by Manfred Eicher.

Jarrett is far from the only pianist to work on solo improvisation at such an extended scale of duration. In my own listening experience the most memorable pianist to have done so was Cecil Taylor (which is my way of confessing that my encounters with Jarrett’s efforts have only been through recordings). It would be absurd to try to compare these two pianists. Taylor has always be way out there in the domain of innovative approaches to organizing sound (to take on a phrase that John Cage used to like to use when he would be accused of not “making music”). Jarrett’s improvisations, on the other hand, seem to be reflections on his own past encounters with the piano keyboard, perhaps going all the way back to his first piano lessons (which predated his third birthday).

At the risk of sounding overly reductive, one might say that Taylor has always been seeking out new paths in theory, while Jarrett’s preference has always been for practice. Nevertheless, as performers, both of them are, and always have been, solid practitioners. Perhaps a better distinction would be Taylor’s preference for the objective, while Jarrett has been more inclined to the unabashedly subjective. Ironically, both of them have been known for vocalizing while playing (more aggressively than Glenn Gould, who was frequently called out for doing the same); but Jarrett’s interjections often give the impression of personalized reflection. He, himself, has claimed that vocalizing is a form of interacting with the keyboard work that enhances what he is trying to achieve through improvisation. (It is important to note that, unlike Gould, Jarrett never vocalizes when playing from classical scores.)

Nevertheless, such subjectivity raises a question. If most of those listening to Jarrett, either in concert or through recording, know little, if anything, about his personal life, how significant is subjectivity to the listening experience itself? To invoke Cage again, a Jarrett improvisation is a little bit like wandering through the woods in search of mushrooms. Jarrett clearly knows those woods well, knows the best places to find the mushrooms, and is then happy to show them off to anyone interested. Concert listeners, on the other hand, probably have no idea where those woods are, let alone why Jarrett has chosen to go there. Nevertheless, I remember hunting for mushrooms with Cage on a particularly dry day, when he remarked that sometimes one walks in the woods just for the sake of walking in the woods. (We ended up looking at lichen patterns through a magnifying glass.) Any listener willing to accept this premise should have no trouble making any number of fascinating encounters on his/her own walk in Jarrett’s woods, regardless of any motivations Jarrett may have had for being there. Is this approach to listening any different from how we might approach a symphony by Anton Bruckner?