HAPPY BIRTHDAY!...KEITH JARRETT...70!!!!!

[bluenote65]

Keith Jarrett : May 8, 1945 , Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA

Happy Birthday!!!!! :D

[Justin V]

Happy Birthday, Mr. Jarrett!

[Scott Dolan]

It's bizarre, all at the same time I can't believe he's 70 but I'm not the least bit surprised that he is.

Hope it's a good one for you, KJ. You grouchy ol' fuck!

[mjzee]

Happy birthday, Keith!

[GA Russell]

I received this press release from ECM this morning.

Keith Jarrett at iTunes

To coincide with the celebration of his 70th birthday today (May 8^th), a destination has been created on iTunes featuring Keith Jarrett's mighty discography which incorporates two new ECM releases,

a collection of Mastered for iTunes titles and two digital bundles

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/keith-jarrett/id72348

In addition to the two new Keith Jarrett recordings ECM is releasing, Creation (music selected and sequenced by the artist from improvised solo concerts in 2014) and piano concertos by Samuel Barber and Béla Bartók with Jarrett as soloist (see below for further details), the destination features Jarrett’s extensive ECM catalog of over 70 titles.

Ten of the earliest titles from the analog era are also being made available digitally, Mastered for iTunes. These are: the solo piano albums Facing You and The Köln Concert (recorded 40 years ago in 1975); Arbour Zena, Jarrett’s music for strings and piano with guest soloists Jan Garbarek and Charlie Haden; The Survivors’ Suite and Eyes of the Heart with the American Quartet with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian; Belonging and My Song with the European Quartet with Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen; Standards Vol. 1, Changes and Standards Vol. 2 with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette. The Mastered for iTunes titles are available either individually or as a digital bundle headlined Keith Jarrett: A Jazz Collection. There is also a Jarrett Classical Collection download bundle with Bach’s French Suites and (with Kim Kashkashian) the Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, Handel’s Suites for Keyboard, Mozart’s Piano Concertos and Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues.

Several Keith Jarrett tracks can be heard on ECM’s dedicated iTunes Radio channel which was launched in March with a curated program of tracks from the label’s recently released and up and coming jazz and improvising artists.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/station/idra.972238008 Classical tracks will be added to the mix in the Autumn.

Further Information:

Creation signals a departure from the ‘traditions’ of Keith Jarrett’s many ECM recordings of solo improvised piano. Earlier concert recordings have reflected the flow of musical ideas and inspirations as developed in the course of an evening (as on The Köln Concert, Paris Concert, Vienna Concert, Rio etc.) or several evenings (Bremen-Lausanne, Sun Bear Concerts, Testament etc.) Creation - drawn from concert recordings made in Japan, Canada and Europe in 2014 - is different: After reviewing all the music from his 2014 performances, Keith Jarrett honed in on the most revelatory episodes from six concerts in Toronto, Tokyo, Paris and Rome and sequenced them, effectively creating a new concert, a new suite of pieces with its own inner logic and momentum. The concept opens up fresh possibilities, extending the improviser’s art to include an intuitive reassembling of material. The resultant album is perhaps the most strongly lyrical of Jarrett’s recent solo releases, the choice of music emphasizing pieces in which there is a sense of song being born, voices striving to be heard. Creation also offers the most up-to-the minute account of Jarrett’s uncanny capacity to construct compelling music in real-time: his melodic-harmonic imagination as an improviser and his ability to consistently find and shape new forms remain, after all these years of solo concerts, remarkable.

Barber/Bartók/Jarrett

Keith Jarrett plays Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto op. 38 and Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto no. 3. These recordings, made in 1984 and 1985 in Saarbrücken and Tokyo, make a significant addition to the pianist’s discography as an interpreter of notated music. Jarrett’s recordings of classical repertoire for ECM have focused primarily on Bach and Mozart, though there are also exemplary albums of Handel’s keyboard music, and Shostakovich’s Bach-inspired Preludes and Fugues as well as a crucially important contribution to Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa. Playing Fratres alongside Gidon Kremer, Jarrett’s participation would help to bring a then little-known Estonian composer to world attention. It was a richly creative period. Jarrett had just launched the jazz group with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette that would become known as the Standards Trio and in parallel was giving classical recitals, and continuing with his solo piano improvisations. Splitting his time between jazz standards, the vast literature of classical music and free playing, Jarrett was juggling three different musical disciplines.

After the Bartók performance in Tokyo, Jarrett returned to the stage to play an improvised solo piece, now titled “Tokyo Encore – Nothing But A Dream” and included as the album closer.

These two albums mark the first time Keith’s work in two genres has been released simultaneously since 1992 when both Vienna Concert and the Shostakovich 24 Preludes and Fugues came out.

In addition, ECM has developed a microsite http://www.keithjarrettecm.com/ which focuses exclusively on Keith Jarrett’s ECM discography.

And I too wish Keith Jarrett a happy birthday!

[mjzee]

Thanks, GA. Great photos on the microsite.

[ghost of miles]

I'm devoting Night Lights this week to his early recordings, as a sideman with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd, and Miles Davis, and some of his early recordings as a leader as well. Should have a link to it up early next week.

[CJ Shearn]

http://blueceej.tumblr.comI have written reviews of both albums. Very nice. And the microsite is nice!

[StarThrower]

I heard the Bartok concerto on the radio yesterday. The sound is not good. Piano sounds kinda murky.

[Dan Gould]

"I see one more flash bulb go off, I am NOT blowing out these candles and I'm going to walk out of here."

[A Lark Ascending]

There's an article in the new BBC Music Magazine, including fragments from a tight-lipped interview with Jarrett. He says the Trio has now disbanded (I didn't know that) but he's unsure if just solo on its own can satisfy him so he has no live performance planned. He's pondering what to do next.

Also very self-critical about his recordings - says he'd like to burn 'Koln' as there's too much fiddling about!!!!

[mjzee]

I'd like to hear him be a sideman in a group. I think he would provide something interesting in that role.

[A Lark Ascending]

I'd like to hear him be a sideman in a group. I think he would provide something interesting in that role.

Don't forget:

I've always wished he'd varied the last 30 years more - the two quartets of the 70s were thrilling. Be great to hear him again in a quartet or quintet, preferably with some newer musicians rather than one of those all-star juggernauts.

[mjzee]

I'd like to hear him be a sideman in a group. I think he would provide something interesting in that role.

Don't forget:

I've always wished he'd varied the last 30 years more - the two quartets of the 70s were thrilling. Be great to hear him again in a quartet or quintet, preferably with some newer musicians rather than one of those all-star juggernauts.

Yes, he needs to challenge himself again.

[JSngry]

Yes, he needs to challenge himself again.

I would like to hear him start collaborating with singers (not just pianisitically, but also as an arranger). If Helen Merrill was still actively recording, I'd start there. As it is, let's go with...well, fuck it, the time for that has come and gone, all the ones who could go there all died or went out for a permanent break while Keith was having his various artistic isolation fits. Joni Mitchell (under a pseudonym, of course) would have been spectacular, though. Imagine "Paprika Plains" meets Arbour Zena only exponentially older, wiser, and skill-ier on all sides. More of the feeling, less of the emotion, and tricks all the way up everybody's sleeves that just need to be hinted at to be effective.

See, that's why its important to do your best work while you're alive, everybody.

[A Lark Ascending]

It's worth remembering he's 70. I'm ten years younger and will cease challenging myself professionally in a few months.

Of course there are lots of people who keep going much longer (Elliott Carter springs to mind as someone who didn't just keep going but kept challenging himself).

I'd love to hear Jarrett doing some new things. But equally I'd be happy to see him enjoy a well deserved retirement.

[bluenote65]

For italian fans as well for everybody here are some events related to Keith's 70 birthday...

http://www.keithjarrett.org/

http://jazz.fabrizio.me/

http://www.keithjarrett.it/

Roberto Masotti is an italian photographer, born 1947 in Ravenna, living and working in Milan.

He has photographed more than 200 musicians recording for ECM label, and since 1973 he has worked for the label as a publicist,

making its music known to italian audiciences.

Some of the photographs from the Amazing new Masotti's book "KEITH JARRETT - UN RITRATTO" covering the period from 1969 to 2011

(published by italian Arcana Jazz on May 6, 2015) can be previewed here:

http://www.repubblica.it/spettacoli/musica/2015/04/28/foto/keith_jarrett_un_ritratto-113004821/#1

http://www.amazon.it/Keith-Jarrett-ritratto-Roberto-Masotti/dp/8862318006/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1431260084&sr=1-1&keywords=KEITH+JARRETT+MASOTTI

[7/4]

I'd like to hear him be a sideman in a group. I think he would provide something interesting in that role.

Maybe Wynton could cash in on that.

[7/4]

There's an article in the new BBC Music Magazine, including fragments from a tight-lipped interview with Jarrett. He says the Trio has now disbanded (I didn't know that) but he's unsure if just solo on its own can satisfy him so he has no live performance planned. He's pondering what to do next.

Also very self-critical about his recordings - says he'd like to burn 'Koln' as there's too much fiddling about!!!!

I didn't know the Trio is kaput, but Gary Peacock turns 80 today. Those guys are getting old.

[duaneiac]

Yes, he needs to challenge himself again.

I would like to hear him start collaborating with singers (not just pianisitically, but also as an arranger).

Ah yes, he could record one of those popular "duets" album that every one has been doing for the past couple of decades and include all the usual suspects -- Tony Bennett, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga, Sir Paul McCartney, Diana Krall, Jimmy Buffett, Patti LaBelle, Bette Midler, Queen Latifah, Elton John, Smokey Robinson, Dolly Parton, Elvis Costello and for the requisite re-engineered track with a deceased singer, let's think outside the box and pick Edith Piaf (or Michael Jackson, whatever!). It would be ECM's biggest selling album ever!

Mr Jarrett was interviewed for a segment on NPR last weekend:

http://www.npr.org/2015/05/10/404975326/at-70-keith-jarrett-is-learning-how-to-bottle-inspiration

[JSngry]

I'd have loved to have heard him arrange a latter-day Helen Merrill date. The reunion was Gil Evans was sweet enough, the last Verve run even sweeter, but...there's a "preciousness" as well as a wounded-ness, that's a part of both of their voices,, that might have really worked. Hell, seal the deal, have them do an all Alec Wilder program.

[Scott Dolan]

There's an article in the new BBC Music Magazine, including fragments from a tight-lipped interview with Jarrett. He says the Trio has now disbanded (I didn't know that) but he's unsure if just solo on its own can satisfy him so he has no live performance planned. He's pondering what to do next.

Also very self-critical about his recordings - says he'd like to burn 'Koln' as there's too much fiddling about!!!!

I didn't know the Trio is kaput, but Gary Peacock turns 80 today. Those guys are getting old.

Were they ever officially "together"? I was always under the impression that they just got together for tours whenever their individual schedules permitted.

[CJ Shearn]

Happy birthday Mr. Jarrett. There is so much Standards trio out there, I am well satisfied with what I have, and there are probably years worth of archival releases. I got heavily into their thing 15 years ago. I have begun a deeper investigation of the solo albums. Glad there is the Italian Impulse reissue of the Impulse albums too, although the two sets from the late 90's are still around.

[Justin V]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the ICP Orchestra's farewell tour, and the disbanding of the Standards Trio is another huge loss. If the unofficial Keith Jarrett site, keithjarrett.org, is correct (and it does seem to jibe with my regular checks of Jack DeJohnette's site), it appears that I caught the second-to-last Standards Trio performance in October in Chicago. It was my first time seeing the group live and it was a memorable concert; I was looking forward to hearing them again someday. Fortunately, the group has been extensively documented and will likely release more live albums, but I'm saddened by the news that they've disbanded.

Edited May 15, 2015 by Justin V

[xybert]

I've kind of got the impression that the last 25 years of Jarrett's career have been the equivalent of a sports team holding the ball in their own half, running out the clock. Don't want to attack, don't want to do anything embarrassing or foolish, you've already won, just play it safe and run out the clock.