Keith Jarrett

• Born: May 8, 1945
• Place of Birth: Allentown, Pennsylvania

AMERICAN JAZZ COMPOSER, PIANIST, SINGER, AND KEYBOARD PLAYER

A versatile jazz pianist, Jarrett has performed extended solo improvisation concerts around the world, and he has recorded several well-regarded piano works by classical composers.

MEMBER OF The Charles Lloyd Quartet; the Standards Trio

The Life

Keith Daniel Jarrett (JAHR-reht) was born on May 8, 1945, to Daniel and Irma Jarrett in Allentown, Pennsylvania. A child prodigy, Jarrett was playing melodies on the piano by ear by the age of two. Jarrett began taking piano lessons at the age of three, and at the age of seven he presented an entire solo recital that included classical works as well as his own compositions. Jarrett’s parents separated when he was eleven, leaving his mother to raise him and his four brothers. At age fifteen, he turned to playing jazz and popular music, and he began playing in local jazz bands. Contacts through summer music camps led to scholarships to the Berklee School of Music in Boston, but he attended only one year before moving to New York, where Art Blakey asked him to join his band, the Jazz Messengers, after hearing Jarrett at a jam session at the Village Vanguard.

After the year at the Berklee School of Music, Jarrett married Margot Erney in Boston. Once he became successful, the family moved to a house on several acres of land in New Jersey, where they raised two sons. Jarrett’s extensive touring and other disagreements led to their separation in 1979. He later married long-term girlfriend Rose Anne Colavito. In the 1970s he contended with severe back pain while touring, and in 1996 he was forced to stop performing for more than two years because of chronic fatigue syndrome. He returned to performing and recording, but on a limited basis.

Jarrett's label, ECM, released the first new compilation of his solo piano performances following his period of illness as Radiance in 2005, which captures two concerts he performed in Japan in 2002. Marking a turning point toward a new format in which he plays shorter improvisations, the recording was generally well received. He reunited with Charlie Haden to record an album of love songs titled Jasmine (2010) and in 2011, his label released a live recording of another of his solo improvisational concerts, this time from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as the album Rio. For the 2015 compilation Creation, pieces were collected from six different concerts he had conducted in 2014 to create a cohesive work.

In February and May 2018, Jarrett suffered from medically significant strokes. He suffered from severe complications, spending two years in a rehabilitation facility. In 2020, Jarrett announced that he had regained a limited ability to walk, though he was partially paralyzed on his left side. Following his recovery, Jarrett retained the ability to play piano with one hand. Though Jarrett announced that he intended to retire from professionally performing, he released his album Keith Jarrett: The Trios in 2024.

The Music

Jarrett’s eclectic style was forged through the influences of his training in classical piano, listening to jazz artists such as Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal, and Paul Bley, and performing in his early twenties with such prominent jazz musicians as Miles Davis, Art Blakey, and Charles Lloyd. Many of his recordings (more than one hundred) feature the various jazz trios and quartets with whom he has performed, but he is perhaps best known for recordings of solo concerts in the 1970s, which consisted of extended improvisations that defy categorization by genre. He has also recorded piano works by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Lou Harrison.

Early Works. After only a few months performing with Blakey, and still only twenty years old, Jarrett joined a quartet headed by Charles Lloyd in 1965 that toured Europe and the United States extensively. Several live and studio recordings of the group were made in the late 1960s, such as Forest Flower, and included several songs composed by Jarrett for the group. Jarrett also performed for two years with Davis’s group on several important recordings that highlight Jarrett’s talents at piano improvisation.

Expectations. The fusion of styles on this 1971 studio recording highlights the proficiency of Jarrett as a composer, arranger, and improviser. Romantic strings in the title ballad “Expectations” add a richness and glow not typically heard playing with a jazz trio of piano, bass, and drums. Perhaps the most representative and engaging track is “There Is a Road (God’s River),” which begins with an improvisational flight of fancy by Jarrett on piano, settles into a gospel groove with funk overtones in the guitar, and effortlessly melts into and out of slow sections, featuring a lush string ensemble that has the reverence of a hymn. The varied styles do not seem out of place, showing an inevitable quality that flows from one to another.

The Köln Concert. Recorded live in Cologne, Germany, in 1975, this may be Jarrett’s most popular album, selling more than three million copies. It consists of three improvisatory sections for piano, lasting twenty-six, thirty-four, and seven minutes each. Its popularity can be attributed to its accessibility, with sections of infectious rhythms and repeating, simple harmonies that push the listener forward on a joyful journey. While the repetition can create a hypnotic effect, there is always an internal logic and depth of influence that make this music more substantial and satisfying than works by imitators in the later genre of New Age music.

Standards, Vol. 1. This 1983 recording is the first of what would become an ongoing collaboration of twenty-five years among Jarrett on piano, Gary Peacock on double bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Standards, or well-respected pieces in the jazz repertory, are the mainstay of most jazz improvisation. The quality of playing and the unconventional interpretations on this recording, and the many subsequent recordings by this group, though, make these renditions of standards notable. The final track, “God Bless the Child,” starts with a bluesy, gospel feel that smolders for several minutes before solos by all three musicians find new directions to impel the work forward. It then returns to the opening feel and a satisfying fadeout.

Handel: Suites for Keyboard. Issued in 1995, this recording presents a completely different side to Jarrett’s abilities as a pianist. He demonstrates the control and precision needed to correctly play this music from the Baroque period, but he gives these groups of dances a lightness of touch that makes his interpretations compelling.

Musical Legacy

The recording Radiance and The Carnegie Hall Concert, issued in 2006, demonstrate Jarrett’s ability as a solo improviser. Despite his advancing age, he tours with the Standards Trio, playing both traditional and free jazz, as well as on his own. Jarrett is often criticized for the vocal grunts, sighs, and partial singing that accompany his jazz and solo improvisations, along with his tendency to thrust and move his body while playing. While these sounds and movements can be a distraction to listeners, they seem to indicate his total immersion into his performance that makes so much of his music engaging. Jarrett has been a strong advocate for the use of acoustic, rather than electronic, musical instruments, and his innovations in improvised and composed music on traditional instruments prove that electronics are not necessary for musicians to find new ways of expression.

Principal Recordings

ALBUMS (solo): Life Between the Exit Signs, 1967; Restoration Ruin, 1968; Somewhere Before, 1968; With Gary Burton, 1968 (with Gary Burton); Birth, 1971; ECM Works, 1971; Expectations, 1971; Facing You, 1971; The Mourning of a Star, 1971; Ruta and Daitya, 1972 (with Jack DeJohnette); Fort Yawuh, 1973; In the Light, 1973; Backhand, 1974; Belonging, 1974; Luminessence, 1974 (with Jan Garbarek); Personal Mountains, 1974; Treasure Island, 1974; Arbour Zena, 1975; The Köln Concert, 1975; Death and the Flower, 1975; Mysteries, 1975; Shades, 1975; El juicio (The Judgement), 1976; Hymns/Spheres, 1976; Spheres, 1976; Staircase, 1976; The Survivor’s Suite, 1976; Bop-Be, 1977; Byablue, 1977; My Song, 1977; Ritual, 1977; Silence, 1977; Nude Ants, 1979; The Celestial Hawk, 1980; Sacred Hymns, 1980; Invocations/The Moth and the Flame, 1981; Changes, 1983; Standards, Vol. 1, 1983; Standards, Vol. 2, 1983; Spirits 1 and 2, 1985; The Well-Tempered Clavier: Book 1 (J. S. Bach), 1988; Standards in Norway, 1989; Works by Lou Harrison, 1989; Bye Bye Blackbird, 1991; J. S. Bach: Three Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, 1991; Shostakovich: The Twenty-four Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, 1991; The Well-Tempered Clavier: Book 2 (J. S. Bach), 1991; At the Deer Head Inn, 1992; Bridge of Light, 1993; Handel: Suites for Keyboard, 1995; The Melody at Night with You, 1999; Whisper Not, 2000; Radiance, 2005; The Carnegie Hall Concert, 2006; Works, 2006; Setting Standards: New York Sessions, 2007; Jasmine, 2010 (with Charlie Haden); Rio, 2011; Creation, 2015 Keith Jarrett: The Trios.

ALBUMS (with the Charles Lloyd Quartet): Dream Weaver, 1966; The Flowering, 1966; Nirvana, 1968; Soundtrack, 1969.

Bibliography

Beaumont-Thomas, Ben. "Pianist Keith Jarrett Unlikely to Perform Again After Two Strokes." The Guardian, 21 Oct. 2020, www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/21/pianist-keith-jarrett-unlikely-to-perform-again-strokes#:~:text=The%2075%2Dyear%2Dold%20told,or%20more%2C%E2%80%9D%20he%20said. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.

Carr, Ian. Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music. Grafton Books, 1991.

Dyer, Geoff. "Happy 70th Birthday, Keith Jarrett, Our Greatest Living Musician." The Guardian, 10 May 2015, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/10/keith-jarrett-70-greatest-living-musican-geoff-dyer. Accessed 29 Dec. 2017.

Moreno, Jairo. “Body ’n’ Soul? Voice and Movement in Keith Jarrett’s Pianism.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 83, no. 1, 1999, pp. 75–92.

Ouellette, Dan. “Out of Thin Air.” Down Beat, vol. 72, no. 8, 2005, pp. 36–41.

Strickland, Edward. American Composers: Dialogues on Contemporary Music. Indiana UP, 1991.

Yamashita, Kimihiko. “Ferociously Harmonizing with Reality.” Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History, edited by Robert Walser, Oxford UP, 1999.