Albums Of The Year – Number 3: Jasmine by Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden

For three years he kept his own counsel and that of Charlie Haden’s, about Jasmine which they recorded in Jarrett’s home studio Cavelight.

Coming out to coincide with Jarrett’s 65th birthday earlier this year the reunion after 31 years follows the extraordinary success Jarrett achieved solo with the sublime solo double album Testament – Paris / London, last year’s Jazzwise Album of the Year.

Jasmine, by contrast, is ostensibly an album of eight love songs opening with a stately ‘For All We Know’ with Haden’s tempo a marvel. It’s also, if you like, a shyer more approachable Jarrett who plays along democratically with the bass seemingly without a care in the world, even singing along later a little less nasally than usual.

‘One Day I’ll Fly Away’ usually identified with Randy Crawford is the biggest song selection surprise but as Jarrett explained to Stuart Nicholson in June’s edition the spur to record it came from another source, via Nicole Kidman’s interpretation of the song on the Baz Luhrmann-directed 2001 film Moulin Rouge.

“It was one of my secret weapons. When I heard Nicole Kidman sing it I thought the song was beautiful, I thought here’s a song we should try. I was sure Charlie probably didn’t know the song, he probably knew most of them but that one I was thinking he may not have heard, which was true. I had to revise the version, the actual version in Moulin Rouge has a big orchestra, a big production, and I had to find a way to make it intimate and dramatic at the same time, so the little turnaround which gets us to the beginning of the song is not really there in the original, and of course there’s no orchestral interlude, and I tried to make the build up shorter so that it didn’t crest until you got through the piece.”

Like his take on ‘One Day I’ll Fly Away’ Jasmine is a pared-down album throughout with minimal fuss and an emphasis on the art of the song from two of the finest and most influential jazz instrumentalists in jazz history. In a world desperately and constantly distracted, Jasmine keeps its gaze firmly on what matters during its every note.

– Stephen Graham