Keith Jarrett is a monumental figure in 20th century music, particularly within, though not limited to, the
jazz genre. While his primary instrument has always been
piano, he has performed or recorded with a variety of instruments including
recorders,
Pakistani wooden
flute,
tabla,
drums, various
percussion instruments,
guitar,
saxophone, and
chant.
Stan Getz once offered him a job after hearing him play a
gig when he was
sitting in on
guitar.
Keith started playing piano when he was 3, studying classical music and composition through his childhood and teens. His first professional gig was at the Deer Head Inn when he was 16. In his late teens he was going to study composition in Paris but decided instead to move to New York in 1964 (age 19) and play jazz. There he met Art Blakey and joined that man's famous Jazz Messengers group. His career was assured from there and he went on to play with Charles Lloyd (1966-1968), Charlie Haden and Paul Motian (the American Quartet, '68 to early 70s), the European Quartet, and Miles Davis' great electric fusion group ('70-'71). That was his last stint as a sideman, afterwhich he decided to only play acoustic music. Keith toured for many years as a solo artist, being the first ever to perform improvisational music in many prestigious (traditionally classical-only) venues like the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1978), the Musikverein in Vienna ('90 & '95), the Vienna State Opera in Staatsoper (1991), and La Scala in Milan (1995).
Since 1977, Keith has worked with Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock as the famous Standards Trio, so named because they play mostly old American jazz and show tunes from the 30s, 40s and 50s. No one was playing those tunes much anymore when the trio formed so it was a big deal at the time. Keith has recorded many albums from all the eras described above including classical records (e.g. Bach, Shostakovich) and many esoteric solo and group recordings (e.g. Spirits, Changes). His Koln Concert is the best-selling solo piano album ever.
Now that we've heard the historical record, let us enter into the music and mythology of this legendary musician. Personally, I've mostly heard Keith's recordings with the Standards Trio and of his live solo concerts. I've seen the trio perform three times in recent years and own one video of a concert of theirs in Tokyo and another of Keith solo in Tokya circa 1983. The solo shows are amazing to me in that he arrives at the piano with not a single note pre-composed. I think it's safe to say that no other musician in the world is as renowned who is able to put on entire concerts of pure improvisation. I've seen hundreds of jazz musicans perform but Keith has by far the most extraordinary performance style of any musician I have ever seen, in any genre of music. I suspect you would have to travel to a tribal, shamanic culture in order to see something similar. To put it simply, the man goes into an ecstatic trance (as in Webster 1913's def. of ecstasy). He literally dances in front of the piano, bowing, swaying, undulating, thrusting, at times looking as if he is making love to it. These creative convulsions are often accompanied by exclamatory verbalizations that shift from sounding like chanting, to pain cries, to grunts, to orgasmic shouts. It is truly amazing to watch and vastly entertaining. I've found that others sometimes find it distracting when they hear his cries over the music on his recordings. I think this behavior is a lot more pronounced during his solo performances and he seems to have toned it down a little in recent years. But I intuit that this is Keith's spiritual technique for ego dissolution through which he achieves an unrestricted flow from his Self, Muse, God, Logos, what have you. Thus are we privileged to hear Keith Jarrett's soulful blues, his tender, aching ballads, rocking jams, mystical Eastern modes, and abstract genius.