Jarrett Euro Quartet - Sleeper: Tokyo 4/16/79

[colinmce]

http://www.amazon.com/Sleeper-Tokyo-April-16-1979/dp/B0085G0DH6/ref=pd_sim_m_6

Standard Jarrett/ECM-not-everyone's-cup advisory but I'm excited for this. Looks like they spread waaaay out on these tracks, and seeing how they can ride a groove like no one's business I'm interested to hear the results. This is from the same tour as Personal Mountains.

[jlhoots]

Definitely interested in this.

[7/4]

I'm in.

[CJ Shearn]

How could that be two discs if each tune is that long? ahh...... here we go. Interested in this also.

CD 1

Personal Mountains (21:12)

Innocence (10:48)

So Tender (13:27)

CD 2

Oasis (28:14)

Chant Of The Soil (14:53)

Prism (11:15)

New Dance (7:07)

Edited July 26, 2012 by CJ Shearn

[colinmce]

Thanks. Didn't occur to me that the times listed on Amazon exceeded 80 min.

[sambrasa]

Nice album. I still prefer Nude Ants which got much rawer feel to it, being a club recording and all. One really nice and unexpected surprise on Sleeper is the version of So Tender. 1st Quartet version of this lovely composition. The other two versions are of course from Standards vol.2 and Airto's Free album.

Personal Mountains album is a composite of Sleeper concert and the one(s) next day. From song lenghts I recon only one tune overlaps, unless they did some editing.

[mjzee]

I just finished listening to this, and really enjoyed it. Garbarek has a great sound, and the band really jells. It's nice to hear the tunes from Nude Ants in a different context - here, Oasis flows seamlessly into Chant Of The Soil.

[tranemonk]

I don't have Nude Ants but I concur with the other points. Finished listening to it about an hour ago.

I just finished listening to this, and really enjoyed it. Garbarek has a great sound, and the band really jells. It's nice to hear the tunes from Nude Ants in a different context - here, Oasis flows seamlessly into Chant Of The Soil.

[CJ Shearn]

Listening now, on the second track of the first disc. From the little Garbarek I've heard ("Dresden" and a few things like "12 Moons") I wish he played more often like this album. It's easy to hear where he may have influenced Michael Brecker though.

[king ubu]

So, will this save the Euro?

[mjazzg]

How I hear this album is it really highlights the contributions of Christensen and Danielsson throughout. Jarrett and garbarek are often the focus but without this rhythm section so much of this would diminish. Great release overall

So, will this save the Euro?

as likely as any other current proposal

[etherbored]

Listening now, on the second track of the first disc. From the little Garbarek I've heard ("Dresden" and a few things like "12 Moons") I wish he played more often like this album. It's easy to hear where he may have influenced Michael Brecker though.

CJ - you need to explore the catalog of Jan Garbarek.....

[CJ Shearn]

where to start?

[colinmce]

This new box set of his prime early material is good:

http://www.jazzloft.com/p-55639-dansere-3-cd-box.aspx

[A Lark Ascending]

One of my favourite discs with Garbarek is this one. It's under Ralph Towner's name but Garbarek is on fiery form:

I'm particularly fond of his very folk influenced records, including Sami Joik music:

A long way from the American jazz tradition so sample with caution - it isn't to everyone's taste.

Not so keen on his music with beats from the early noughties or the Hilliard ensemble stuff.

[Head Man]

My all time favourite of his is this:

Worth it for the one track - "'Long As You Know You're Living Yours".

PS the "Ralph Towner - Solstice" mentioned above is a good 'un too!

Edited August 12, 2012 by Head Man

[7/4]

I love the Solstice album, one of my first ECM purchases.

Back to our Sleeper, these quotes are from the ECM page.

Update: More international reactions to Keith Jarrett’s "Sleeper"

Vibrantly mixed and mastered, it’s an archival recording that still sounds scarily relevant, as if preceded by its own influence. Mr. Jarrett plays with imperious precision even when he’s reaching for the ecstatic, and Jan Garbarek exudes iridescent poise on tenor saxophone. As for the rhythm team of Palle Danielsson on bass and Jon Christensen on drums, their turbulent flow would be worth the price of admission alone, if it weren’t so inseparable from the whole.

Nate Chinen, The New York Times

[...] Jarrett’s Scandinavian quartet of saxophonist Jan Garbarek, drummer Jon Christensen (both Norwegian), abd bassist Palle Danielsson (Swedish) was something else again. Each player’s technical mastery, combined with their collectively perfect attunedness to one other, an apparently effortless intimacy of interplay that sounds telepathic, made them special even in a career as briliant as Jarrett’s – he wrotes his best tunes for this band. [...] This was clearly a high-energy night for the group, Jarrett so full of ideas he seems barely able to cram them in fast enough – but the music is never cluttered, and he never steps on his bandmates’s toes. His deftness and grace are remarkable. Ditto the rest of this band. Ditto the rest of ‘Sleeper’.

Richard Lehnert, Stereophile

Question: When is a previously unissued 33-year-old jazz masterpiece, one of the great jazz recordings of 2012?

Answer: When it’s the magnificent disc “Sleeper” which Keith Jarrett’s “European Quartet” recorded in Tokyo on April 16, 1979. This is not only the finest disc I’ve ever heard from Jarrett with Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen, it’s as great as any saxophone quartet disc in Jarrett’s entire recording career.

Jeff Simon, Buffalo News

The pianist's European quartet is often recalled for the reflective beauty of 'My Song'or'Belonging'. But this 1979 set recorded in Tokyo is a reminder of the visceral energy that this quartet with Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen could stoke up.

John Bungey, The Times

Vibrierende instrumentale Beschwörungsgesänge an den Gott des Groove wechseln sich mit pastoralen Passagen ab, die in ihrer harmonischen Tektonik den Skandinavienjazz der Jahrtausendwende vorwegnehmen.

Josef Engels, Die Welt

A superbly recorded 100+ minutes of free-flowing, rhythmically potent and melodically arresting music, all written by Jarrett and interpreted by one of the most lucid and characterful bands of its time. [...] the packaing has some rare and excellent black and white shots of the quartet in action. For me, it all adds up to a record of the year.

Michael Tucker, Jazz Journal

Every Keith Jarrett release is an event, but this one, a previously unheard gem from a 1979 Tokyo concert by his European Quartet, is big news for the hyperactive prince of jazz piano.

Jack Massarik, Evening Standard

Even now, with more than 50 other ECM recordings to his name, among them some of the most celebrated jazz albums of the post-Coltrane era, Jarrett stands out for his playing with the European quartet - joyous, exuberant flights of pure melodic invention, imbued with a bright-eyed romanticism that is rare in modern jazz. [...] Mixed earlier this year by Kongshaug and Eicher, the sound is pristine and the intervening decades have not dimmed the music's brilliance. Indeed, it sounds so fresh it might have been recorded yesterday, which is surely the mark of truly great music.

Cormac Larkin, Irish Times

[CJ Shearn]

Thanks everyone. I've been looking at "Afric Pepperbird" for a while, tried to buy back "Dresden" where I sold it at a local shop but it wasn't there. They do have "I Took up The Runes" used, which like Bev said I would need to sample with caution.

[GA Russell]

I've been listening to Disc One of Sleeper, planing to save Disc Two for a bit.

I like it. It's much louder than any of the other Jarrett albums I have. Most of it swings. It's unique in my collection.

I lived in Pittsburgh in 1979, and the jazz situation there was grim at that time. It was rare to find jazz in the record stores. I'm having difficulty remembering what I was listening to when this was recorded.

[Free For All]

One of my favourite discs with Garbarek is this one. It's under Ralph Towner's name but Garbarek is on fiery form:

+1. Maybe my favorite ECM title.

[CJ Shearn]

I've been listening to Disc One of Sleeper, planing to save Disc Two for a bit.

I like it. It's much louder than any of the other Jarrett albums I have. Most of it swings. It's unique in my collection.

I lived in Pittsburgh in 1979, and the jazz situation there was grim at that time. It was rare to find jazz in the record stores. I'm having difficulty remembering what I was listening to when this was recorded.

ECM has maximized their CD's a bit but theres still dynamic range on it. I like "Sleeper" also and will play disc 1 again before moving onto disc 2.

[Guy Berger]

Thanks everyone. I've been looking at "Afric Pepperbird" for a while, tried to buy back "Dresden" where I sold it at a local shop but it wasn't there. They do have "I Took up The Runes" used, which like Bev said I would need to sample with caution.

I like Sart better than Afric Pepperbird. Both are worth hearing for sure.

[Valeria Victrix]

where to start?

I would second all the recommendations for the incomparable 'Solstice'. Solstice was also the name of this group and they recorded a very strong follow up 'Sound and Shadows'.

I'd also include the two beautiful releases with Charlie Haden and Egberto Gismonti - Folk Songs and Magico. Incidentally, I believe there will be some archival live material from that group being released soon.

Btw, I think Sleeper is a wonderful album. Great to have more material by this group. I'd rate it ahead of Personal Mountains and Nude Ants even, but that's just on first blush - after a few years I may reevaluate!

Edited August 14, 2012 by Valeria Victrix

[clifford_thornton]

This new box set of his prime early material is good:

http://www.jazzloft.com/p-55639-dansere-3-cd-box.aspx

Yeah, all three of those are excellent records.

[skeith]

I am surprised there is not more discussion of Sleeper even on this thread which seems to be more about other albums.

Anyway, I finally picked this up. I should premise my comments on Sleeper by saying that I was a fan of the so called Jarrett European Quartet back in the day and purchased and enjoyed both the Belonging and My Song albums.

Having listened to Sleeper my initial reaction was not so positive. While the musicianship is top notch and so is the soloing, the melody of Personal Mountains I found uninvolving. I also found the melodies on the ballads a bit too lush and some of the other tunes exhibiting borderline pop sensibilities - all of the things that the critics of this band said in the 70s but I did not agree with. I wondered upon listening to Sleeper if the moment had passed for me and this band.

However, after listening a bit more, it is beginning to pull me in and I am not decided yet about it.