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Keith Jarrett (born May 8 , 1945 in Allentown, Pennsylvania ) is an American Pianist and Composer . He is considered one of the most important Jazz pianists. His career started with Art Blakey , Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis . Since the early 1970s, he has enjoyed a great deal of success in both classical and jazz music, as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisation technique combines not only jazz, but also other forms of music, especially Classical , Gospel , Blues , and various ethnic-folk musics. EARLY YEARS Born on " Victory In Europe Day " (the day the Allies celebrated victory in Europe following World War II ), Jarrett grew up in Allentown with significant exposure to music. In his teens, he learned jazz, quickly becoming proficient. (His younger brother, Chris Jarrett , is also a pianist.) Following his graduation from high school, he moved from Allentown to Boston , where he attended the Berklee School Of Music and played cocktail piano. After about a year in Boston, Jarrett moved to New York City , where he played at the renowned Village Vanguard club. While in New York, Art Blakey hired him to play with his Jazz Messengers band, and he subsequently became a member of the Charles Lloyd Quartet (a group which included Jack DeJohnette , a frequent musical partner throughout Jarrett's career). The Lloyd quartet's 1966 album ''Forest Flower'' was one of the most successful jazz recordings of the late 1960s. Jarrett also started to record as a leader at this time, in a trio with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian . Jarrett's first album as a leader, ''Life Between The Exit Signs'' (1967), appeared around this time on the Vortex label, to be followed by ''Restoration Ruin'' (1968), which is easily the most bizarre entry in the Jarrett catalog. Not only does Jarrett barely touch the piano, he plays all the other instruments on what is essentially a folk-rock album, and even does all the singing. Jarrett soon recorded another trio album with Haden and Motian followed later in 1968, this one recorded live for the Atlantic label and called ''Somewhere Before''. When the Charles Lloyd quartet came to an end, Jarrett was asked to join the Miles Davis group after Miles heard Jarrett in a New York City club. First, Jarrett played Electric Organ and, after Chick Corea left the group, he also played the Electric Piano . Despite Jarrett's dislike of amplified music and electric instruments, he stayed on out of his respect for Davis and his wish to work again with DeJohnette. Jarrett can be heard on four of Davis's albums, ''At Fillmore'', ''The Cellar Door Sessions - 1970'' (recorded December 16 – December 19 1970 at a club in Washington, DC ) and '' Live-Evil '', which was largely composed of heavily-edited Cellar Door recordings. The extended sessions from these recordings can be heard on ''The Complete Cellar Door Sessions''. He also plays electric organ on '' Get Up With It ''; the song he features on, "Honky Tonk", is an edit of a track available in full on ''The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions''. 1970S QUARTETS From 1971 to 1976 , Jarrett added saxophonist Dewey Redman to the existing trio with Haden and Motian. The "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 members would also play a variety of 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 produces 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 for Atlantic Records , Columbia Records , Impulse! Records and ECM . The group's recordings include the following:
Jarrett's compositions and the strong musical identities of the group members gave this group a very distinctive sound. The group's music was an interesting and exciting amalgam of free jazz, straight-ahead post-bop, gospel music, and exotic Middle-Eastern-sounding improvisations. A little later in the decade (but with some overlap), Jarrett also led the "European Quartet", consisting of saxophonist Jan Garbarek , bassist Palle Danielsson, and drummer Jon Christensen. Albums recorded by this group include ''Belonging'' (1974), ''Personal Mountains'' (1979, released a decade later), ''My Song'' (1978), and ''Nude Ants'' (1979, live at the Village Vanguard in New York). This ensemble played music in a similar style to that of the American Quartet, but with many of the avant-garde and "Americana" elements replaced by the European folk influences that characterized ECM artists of the time. SOLO PIANO Jarrett's first album for ECM, called ''Facing You'' (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 voluminous recordings of these concerts that have made him one of the best-selling jazz artists in history. Albums recorded at these concerts include:
Jarrett has commented that his best performances were during the times where he had the least amount of preconception of what he was going to play at the next moment. A possibly 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 at speed. Another of his solo concerts, ''Dark Intervals'' (1987, Tokyo), is not so much a freeform improvisation but more a set of recited compositions, making it a very separate entity to the concerts listed above. In addition to the different form, it lacks the jazzy verve associated with the above concerts, preferring to go down a gloomier, more moody path. In the late 1990s , Jarrett was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and was confined to his home for long periods of time. It was during this period that he recorded ''The Melody at Night, With You'', a solo piano record consisting of jazz standards presented with very little of the reinterpretation in which he usually engages. The album had originally been a Christmas gift to his wife. By 2000, he had returned to touring, both solo and with the Standards Trio. In May 2005, ECM released ''Radiance'' (recorded 2002), a recording of Jarrett's first solo piano concerts following the CFS diagnosis which had threatened his performing career. In contrast with previous concerts (which were generally a pair of 30-40 minute continuous improvisations), the 2002 concerts consist of a linked series of shorter improvisations (as short as a minute and a half, none over a quarter of an hour). In September 2005 at Carnegie Hall , Jarrett performed his first solo concert in North America in more than ten years. THE STANDARDS TRIO In 1983, 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 entitled ''Standards, Volume 1''. ''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 perform live over more than twenty years. The trio has recorded numerous live and studio albums consisting primarily of jazz repertory material. They are:
The trio has also released videos of performances in Japan, which are available on DVD, including:
The Jarrett/Peacock/DeJohnette trio has 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 between these three men had become all but 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 acoustic sound, will play these days) and is one of the few truly lucrative 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 Jarrett's hometown where he had his first employment 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, and also reunited the drummer and bassist who had backed Bill Evans on his album ''Trio 64'' (1963). 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. 1973's ''In The Light'' album consists of short pieces for solo piano, strings, and various chamber ensembles, including a string quartet, 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. However, although the composition is substantially more mature than the earlier piano works on ''In The Light'', Jarrett's own jazz-influenced touch on the piano is sorely missed here. ''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 addition to his classical work as a composer, Jarrett has also performed and recorded classical music for ECM's ''New Series'' since the late 1980s, including the following:
In 2004 , Jarrett was awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Award. 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 . OTHER WORKS Jarrett also plays Harpsichord , 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 other instruments. In the last twenty years, the majority of his recordings have been on the acoustic piano only. He has spoken with some regret of his decision to give up playing the saxophone, in particular. Some of Jarrett's other albums, many of which contain examples of his instrumental diversity are:
There are several compilations and collections covering various aspects of Jarrett's career:
After leaving Miles Davis, Jarrett did not often work as a sideman, but he did appear on a few other people's albums, including the following:
On April 15 , 1978 , Jarrett was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live . IDIOSYNCRASIES One of Jarrett's trademarks is his frequent, highly audible vocalization (grunting, groaning, and tuneless singing), similar to that of Glenn Gould , Thelonious Monk , and Oscar Peterson . Some listeners find this to be extremely distracting. 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 absent whenever he plays classical repertory. 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. 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." Jarrett's liner notes for the 1973 album ''Solo Concerts: Bremen / Lausanne'' state: ''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. Jarrett's public speeches and writings have been perceived as negative or obnoxious by some. This attitude and his vocalizations while playing are the reasons most commonly cited by his detractors for disliking him and dismissing his music. Jarrett, for many years, has been a follower of the teachings of metaphysicist and mystic G. I. Gurdjieff . LITERATURE Jarrett's biography, authored by Ian Carr, is titled ''Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music'' (ISBN 1084970653). EXTERNAL LINKS
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