Keith Jarrett celebrates 70 with two new albums among ECM spring releases

The first is a live solo piano album, entitled Creation, which will be released on 11 May, and features highlights from 2014 concert performances in Japan, Canada and Europe. Rather than focusing on a single-evening’s improvisational process, Creation instead comprises of the musical highpoints of concerts in Tokyo, Toronto, Paris and Rome.

This album will be accompanied by the simultaneous release of a newly issued archival classical piano recording, Samuel Barber/Béla Bartók, from 1984 featuring Jarrett, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies and the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kazuyoshi Akiyama. The latter concert saw Jarrett return alone to the stage of the Kan-I Hoken Hall to play an improvised encore that is also featured on the album, which additionally includes liner notes by Keith Jarrett and Paul Griffiths.

Another ECM artist marking a significant personal milestone is Jarrett’s longstanding bassist Gary Peacock as he turns 80 on 12 May and also releases a trio album, Now This, the day before. Featuring pianist Marc Copland and drummer Joey Baron, the album was recorded last summer in Oslo and features new versions of Peacock compositions such as ‘Moor’, ‘Vignette’, ‘Requiem’ and ‘Gaya’ alongside new material, plus pieces by Copland and Baron and a version of Scott LaFaro’s ‘Gloria’s Step’.

Heading up this strong tranche of releases is a new album from influential New York saxophonist Tim Berne and his acclaimed ‘chamber jazz’ band Snakeoil, with You’ve Been Watching Me, released on 27 April. The core line-up of clarinettist Oscar Noriega, pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Ches Smith are joined by new member, electric/acoustic guitarist Ray Ferreira, who adds atmospheric sounds and spiky interjections.

– Mike Flynn

For more info www.ecmrecords.com