Keith Jarrett(1945 — ?)
Keith Jarrett
États-Unis
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Keith Jarrett is an American jazz pianist and composer born in 1945. Famous for his fully improvised solo concerts, he created the Köln Concert (1975), one of the best-selling solo piano albums in history.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born on May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania; a child prodigy on the piano.
- Member of Charles Lloyd's group in the late 1960s, then of Miles Davis's electric bands (1970-1971).
- Recorded the Köln Concert in 1975, an improvised solo piano album that became a huge international success.
- Founded the Standards Trio in 1983 with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette, which reinterpreted jazz standards for more than 30 years.
- Stricken with chronic fatigue syndrome in the 1990s, then suffered a stroke in 2018 that ended his career as a concert performer.
Works & Achievements
First solo piano studio album, foreshadowing the path of the great improvisations to come.
Landmark album by the European quartet with Jan Garbarek, a model of the “ECM sound.”
A complete solo improvisation that became the best-selling solo piano album in history.
An imposing box set gathering five solo concerts given in Japan, a pinnacle of total improvisation.
A hugely popular album by the European quartet, with a luminous and accessible melody.
First record by the trio with Peacock and DeJohnette, devoted to reworking jazz standards.
Classical recordings on piano and harpsichord, showing his grounding in Baroque music.
An intimate album recorded at home during his convalescence, of great emotional restraint.
Anecdotes
On January 24, 1975, at the Cologne Opera House, the piano meant for Keith Jarrett never arrived: he was handed a small Bösendorfer rehearsal piano, out of tune in the high notes, weak in the bass, with temperamental pedals. Exhausted and suffering from back pain, he nearly cancelled everything, then decided to play anyway by avoiding the instrument's faulty registers. The recording of this improvised concert would become the best-selling solo piano album in history.
It was a 17-year-old high school student, Vera Brandes, who had organized this Cologne concert: the youngest concert promoter in Germany. Without her insistence that the concert go ahead despite the poor piano, the famous “Köln Concert” would never have existed.
When he improvises, Jarrett involuntarily sings, hums, and moans as he follows his own melodies. These vocalizations, which he says he is unable to control, can be heard on almost all of his records and have given sound engineers no end of trouble.
Jarrett demands absolute silence from his audience: he has interrupted concerts to scold spectators who were coughing or taking photographs, sometimes asking people with colds to leave the hall. For him, the slightest noise can shatter the concentration needed for total improvisation.
In the early 1970s, in Miles Davis's electric band, Jarrett played the organ and the electric piano even though he hated these instruments. After that experience, he would devote most of his career to the acoustic piano, which he considers the only truly “living” instrument.
Primary Sources
I don't feel right now like I'm a pianist.
I was paralyzed. My left side is still partially paralyzed.
Jarrett has often explained that before a solo concert he strives to “empty himself” of any preconceived idea, so as to discover the music only at the moment his fingers touch the keyboard.
Key Places
Keith Jarrett's birthplace, where he revealed a prodigious talent for the piano at a very early age.
The school where the young Jarrett studied briefly before throwing himself into the New York jazz scene.
Site of the legendary improvised concert of January 24, 1975, which gave rise to the “Köln Concert.”
Home of Manfred Eicher's ECM label, which released the bulk of Jarrett's work.
City of the Rainbow Studio, where many ECM albums were recorded, including those of the European quartet.
A rural area where Jarrett lives a secluded life, on a farm with its own recording studio.