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.