Keith Jarrett Gruntophone Index

[Guy Berger]

I've had this half-joke, half-serious idea for a while and a suggestion on RMB pushed me to get the ball rolling. A lot of people bitch about Keith Jarrett's noisemaking on various albums, something that puts off a lot of Keith Jarrett newbies but clearly varies a lot from recording to recording. So my challenge to the other board members is: go through the Keith Jarrett recordings in your collection (incl. sideman appearances) and rate his grunting on a scale from 1 (not obnoxious at all) to 5 (extremely obnoxious). I guess 3 would be "mildly irritating". If you don't have the patience to rate everything, rate as much as you can be bothered with. I think a lot of prospective listeners might actually find it useful.

What won't be especially useful to Jarrett neophytes is a debate on Jarrett's grunting. We've had those a million times before, search the archives. Some people can't stand it at all, others aren't bothered a lot by it, and some people actually like it! If you find it extremely obnoxious everywhere, then rate all his recordings "5".

Also, this isn't a thread about the guy's music. Some of his albums might have great music but level-5 grunting, others might have little noise but bad music. We care only about the grunting. Some criteria: frequency, volume, and general obnoxiousness.

Looking forward to peoples' responses!

Guy

[rostasi]

Actually, Guy, I thought you were gonna make us count them!

[sidewinder]

'Hymns Spheres' = <1 (0)

'Standards Vol 2' = 5++

[Guy Berger]

  rostasi said:

Actually, Guy, I thought you were gonna make us count them!

Rating his albums for grunts is hard enough work without having to figure out how many there are!

I see Sidewinder has already contributed. Keep 'em coming!

Guy

[sidewinder]

'At The Deerhead Inn' is I think either a 3 or 4 on the scale. Probably one of my very favourite albums by him, by the way.

[tonym]

I don't mind his gutteral punctuations but Inside Out has a fair few 4 or 5 moments. Actually there are times when it sounds like all 3 are climaxing.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Why is it necessary to drag inane topics from rmb to pollute things here?

Besides, this topic has long been included in the FAQ for rmb -

http://users.bestweb.net/~msnyder/rmbfaq.htm

and a search on groups.google.com will turn up enough discussion for a lifetime. Must we endure redundant reruns?

Mike

[couw]

that FAQ doesn't even say where Keith got the hamster

[Guy Berger]

Mike,

I disagree... this isn't a thread about why Jarrett makes noise or whatever, it will hopefully be a useful guide to prospective, not unlike rating live recordings for "sound quality".

Guy

[Michael Fitzgerald]

My point is that the discussion (such as it is) was on rmb - no need to drag it here.

Mike

[rostasi]

  Michael Fitzgerald said:

My point is that the discussion (such as it is) was on rmb - no need to drag it here.

Mike

Wouldn't that eliminate 92.2% of this board?

[couw]

  Michael Fitzgerald said:

My point is that the discussion (such as it is) was on rmb - no need to drag it here.

Mike

I never read rmb, how did they rate the albums on the grunt-scale?

[Michael Fitzgerald]

I don't see how that follows. rmb is another jazz discussion forum. In the long-standing tradition of netiquette (if a decade or so can be long-standing) cross-posting is to be discouraged. You pick the most appropriate forum for your discussion and you conduct it there. That's where this particular thread started. If I want to read this, I go to rmb. It should have remained there.

Mike

[sal]

I'd say the Blue Note box set is one of his better ones in that dept. I'd give it a 2 on the gruntophone index.

[couw]

  Michael Fitzgerald said:

I don't see how that follows. rmb is another jazz discussion forum. In the long-standing tradition of netiquette (if a decade or so can be long-standing) cross-posting is to be discouraged. You pick the most appropriate forum for your discussion and you conduct it there. That's where this particular thread started. If I want to read this, I go to rmb. It should have remained there.

Mike

This is a real silly post. Please go to rmb and ignore this thread here at "O" instead of stinking it up.

[rostasi]

[RDK]

  rostasi said:

  Michael Fitzgerald said:

My point is that the discussion (such as it is) was on rmb - no need to drag it here.

Mike

Wouldn't that eliminate 92.2% of this board?

Exactly! So what, any subject broached on another board - AAJ, JC, etc. - is off-limits here?

I've never read rmb.

[GregK]

I don't know what rmb is. Actually, I don't care. I come here to discuss music, jazz especially. What's the problem? I didn't know there had to be ONE place for each discussion. Silly indeed. Anyway, I rate all of Jarrett's grunts as 1 (lowest on the scale) because I barely notice them. I'm listening to the piano interacting with the bass and drums, so I never notice the grunts, honestly. It's only when someone else points it out that I notice it, so they don't bother me.

[AfricaBrass]

  GregK said:

I don't know what rmb is. Actually, I don't care. I come here to discuss music, jazz especially. What's the problem? I didn't know there had to be ONE place for each discussion. Silly indeed. Anyway, I rate all of Jarrett's grunts as 1 (lowest on the scale) because I barely notice them. I'm listening to the piano interacting with the bass and drums, so I never notice the grunts, honestly. It's only when someone else points it out that I notice it, so they don't bother me.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to live my life following some netiquette developed in 1995. I understand that there was a need for this when people where on 28k modems, but I think times have changed and we can converse any way we feel like conversing. I promise not to go to the rmb board and junk it up with my stupidity, ignorance, and poor spelling.

[joeface]

Not being a lurker on any other jazz boards, the idea proposed in this thread is exactly what I need!

I've really had a hard time finding an entry point to KJ. It bugs me how I've been turned off from digging into this astonishingly beautiful piano work because it's interwoven with (what conjures up in my mind) the sound of a leprous duck in heat.

Yeah I've heard grunting and vocals from other jazz kats while they play but nothing so frontal and nullifying (in my mind) the overall beauty of the music. It really works against impacting me with the music. My only guess is that KJ is in a near pure form of right-brain mode when he plays and the vocals are the sound of left-brain suppression or right-brain expression (however that's supposed to work). Of course that assumes a speculative neurological theory.

Sorry to delve into the 'grunt' opinions, but in short, i welcome the gruntophone index ratings!

Edited April 6, 2005 by joeface

[rostasi]

  joeface said:

because it's interwoven with (what conjures up in my mind) the sound of a leprous duck in heat.

yeah, my mom used to think (almost) the same way sometimes about Erroll Garner.

[Michael Weiss]

Having seen them both recently, I'd love to splice together two scenes (and repeat them endlessly in a loop):

1. the parrot in the movie, The Ladykillers, bobbing up and down

2. Keith Jarrett in the Miles Davis Isle of Wight DVD bobbing up and down.

Highly recommended!

Edited April 20, 2005 by Michael Weiss

[Jazzmoose]

How about those weird noises Lionel Hampton makes; are those already taken by another board?

[rostasi]

  Jazzmoose said:

How about those weird noises Lionel Hampton makes; are those already taken by another board?

Man, Dave Pike is the worst!

I'll go check to see if anyone elsewhere in the world has brought this subject up...

later....

Edited April 7, 2005 by rostasi

[Man with the Golden Arm]

  clementine said:

who the hell is rmb? i'm tight with r&b... anyway, i've always felt the Jarrett "noise" factor is a red herring, as it is w/Glenn Gould. i mostly do not like Jarrett as an improviser (or classical pianist... tho' i once got asked out to an opera & ____ed afterwards by an Austin gal who really loved KJ's Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues) & i mostly diggeth Glenn a lot. i wonder if the people who gripe about grunts, undulations just don't wanna admit they don't care for the artist? i have no qualms: i live (& ____) happily w/o Jarrett, w/o any Metheny... i even forsake a few Dewey Redman sides in the process-- big ____in' deal.

___ silent ___k deep clementine

... at least we know that the neighbors won't have any apres gig probs w/ clem either!