Breadcrumbs To Follow: Keith Jarrett

Days after the announcement that his public performance career is likely over, here are some starting points for appreciating one of the most inventive musicians of our time.

That gasp you heard the other day might have been music lovers reacting to the announcement from Keith Jarrett, the mercurial pianist and composer, that he doesn’t expect to make music in public ever again.

Jarrett, who is 75, told the New York Times that he suffered two strokes in 2018, and is on a slow path to recovery. He spoke candidly about recent attempts to play, mused on his legacy, and spoke about his long struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome in the 1990s. (I interviewed him several times at home in rural New Jersey, and each encounter was notable for vibrant, wide-ranging discussions about inspiration. Once, during his long CFS recovery, he shared a calendar in which he’d written meticulous notes about his treatment, energy and exertion levels, and activity.)

After that episode, Jarrett regained his strength and resumed his active worldwide touring; next week, ECM will release the intricate Bela Bartok-influenced Budapest Concert, which was recorded on his 2016 solo tour.

Jarrett has been at the front edge of creative music for so long that the prospect of him being sidelined registers as a shock. Partly that’s because he’s been so prolific, releasing new studio music and live performances at a superhumanly steady rate.

More significantly, Jarrett offered several generations of musicians a strong example about maintaining vitality and curiousity through the marathon of an artistic life: He followed a winding creative path and documented most of its steps, alternating between solo tours, projects with several different ongoing bands and odd, unusual detours. Having studied classical music growing up, Jarrett investigated works by the great composers in the 1980s, on a series of idiosyncratic, beautifully captured recordings of Bach, Mozart and Shostakovich. He wrote and recorded trance music for clavichord (Book of Ways, 1987) and can be heard playing soprano saxophone and other instruments on the 1986 Spirits. With European collaborators, he made lyrical, questioning music that transcended jazz; one tune from the 1974 album Belonging, “Long as You Know You’re Living Yours,” inspired Steely Dan’s “Gaucho.” (After a lawsuit, Jarrett was credited as a co-composer.) With Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette, Jarrett transformed tunes from the Great American Songbook into stretchy, elastic marvels. And on and on.

It’s impossible to convey the range or the impact of an artist like Keith Jarrett through a career highlights playlist. So I’m not doing that. Instead, here are several “lanes” of inquiry that represent roles or phases of his career. Each offers a distinct perspective on his contribution to music.

THE HITS

The Koln Concert (1975).

“Long As You Know You’re Living Yours” from Belonging (1974).

“Lucky Southern” from Airto: Free (1972).

AS A SIDEMAN

Charles Lloyd: Forest Flower (1966).

Airto: Free (1972).

Miles Davis: Live/Evil (1970).

Miles Davis: At Newport: The Bootleg Series Volume IV. (Disc 4, rec. 1971).

Kenny Wheeler: Gnu High (1975).

COMPOSITION FOCUS

Expectations (“American” quartet with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian plus Airto and Sam Brown. 1972).

Byablue (American quartet; see especially Jarrett solo on “Rainbow.” 1976).

Belonging (w/ “European” quartet, Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson, Jon Christenson. 1974).

My Song (see title track; European quartet. 1977).

Nude Ants (Live, European quartet, 1979).

Book Of Ways (solo, 1986).

SOLO PIANO

Bremen/Lausanne (1973).

The Koln Concert (1975).

G.I. Gurdjieff: Sacred Hymns (1980).

Vienna Concert (1992).

The Carnegie Hall Concert (esp. the encores. 2006).

Rio (2011).

Budapest Concert (2020).

STANDARDS

Standards Vol. 2 (1985).

Bye Bye Blackbird (esp. the title track, 1993).

Whisper Not (2000).

Somewhere (2013).

CLASSICAL

Luminessence (w/ Jan Garbarek, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, 1975).

J.S. Bach: The French Suites (1991).

Dmitri Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues op.87 (1992).

W.A. Mozart: Piano Concertos, Masonic Funeral Music, Symphony In G Minor (1994).

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