Keith Jarrett Turns 80: Hear his Thoughts in Sound
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Keith Jarrett, Venezia, Teatro Malibran, 24/07/2001.
Photo: Robert Masotti
Keith Jarrett is a true icon of modern music. The pianist came up through the jazz scene, playing with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis on signature recordings by both artists. He’s led several ensembles over the years with major jazz musicians including Charlie Haden, Jan Garbarek, Paul Motian, Jack DeJohnette and many, many more. In the 1970’s he began a new path that made the piano and Keith Jarrett synonymous. His series of solo piano improvisations, Facing you, The Köln Concerts” and the Sun Bear Concerts established his reputation for free form, yet melodic improvisatory flights. He spent the 80’s and 90s partly running from that reputation, making albums with orchestras, his standards trio, clavichords, recording Bach and an album of over dubbed impressions for flutes and drums called Spirit.
In the early 2000s we ran a series called Thoughts in Sound, non-narrated meditations by several artists, among them Keith Jarrett. As a bonus Echoes podcast, I’d love for you to hear it. At the end, I say that Keith is still playing solo concerts and working with his standards trio, but that, sadly is no longer true. The pianist suffered a pair of paralyzing strokes in 2018, and while he has recovered enough to be mobile, his ability to play is almost completely gone. But Keith Jarrett is still with us at 80 and his music will be with us forever.