Jazz breaking news: Two Keith Jarrett gems emerge from the vaults
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Fans of iconic pianist Keith Jarrett are in for an early Christmas present in the form of two extended and previously unreleased 1980s albums that are to be issued in the same week in mid-November on ECM.
Concerts – Bregenz/München (from 1981) and No End (from 1986) are two very different releases from the prolific pianist’s vaults.
The first of these captures two remarkable 1981 improvised concerts from Austria and Germany (recorded at the Festspielhaus Bregenz and the Herkulessaal Munich) and while the Bregenz concert was previously available on vinyl, this new 3CD set marks the first appearance of the complete Munich performance and both concerts on CD. Jarrett biographer Ian Carr noted in 1992: “The Bregenz/Munich concerts were Jarrett’s most brilliant live solo recordings to date; his level of inspiration is quite extraordinary, and the music covers a wider musical and emotional range than ever,” and followed his other totemic live albums Bremen/Lausanne, The Köln Concert and Sun Bear Concerts.
Accompanying this is the newly released No End, issued here as a double album. It features a rarely heard side of Jarrett’s output as he multi-tracks himself on electric guitars, Fender bass, drums, tablas, percussion, recorder and piano at his home studio. Jarrett himself has described the results as “just a feeling or a rhythmic idea or a bass line concept or melody. None of this was written down.” These cap an amazingly busy year of no less than five Jarrett releases, which includes the reissued Hymns/Spheres, Somewhere with his trio and a recent Bach recording with Michelle Makarski, J S Bach: Six Sonatas for Violin and Piano.
– Mike Flynn