David Dalle
Thursday December 10th, 2020 with David Dalle
Keith Jarrett I: Beginning with the end.

The incomparable Keith Jarrett's career at the piano has sadly come to an end. As a longtime sufferer of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which made him take a two year hiatus from concerts in late 1996, his concert appearances (both solo and as a trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette) had already slowed down significantly. After his return from hiatus, he tended to perform fewer than 20 concerts a year with only seven in 2015, eight in 2016 and only one concert in 2017. He suffered two strokes in 2018, which left him partially paralyzed on one side, bringing his illustrious performing career, which began in the mid 1960's with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd, and Miles Davis, to an end. It would be six years before he returned to solo piano concerts in 2002 with concerts in Japan. He changed the format of his solo improvised concerts. Instead of a large improvisation in 2-3 parts with each part lasting up to 40 minutes, his solo concerts were now comprised of a number of shorter pieces, with the longest in a recording being 17 minutes, but most between 3 and 9 minutes, still fully improvised. I find these shorter works fall into four categories. Type A: very spikey, modernist sounding, usually at a quick tempo. He always begins the concert with one of these pieces. Type B: his very popular foot-stomping, highly rhythmic piece with influences from blues, gospel, ragtime. Type C: slow, deeply emotional ballad. Type D: a subset of type C, a slow ballad made up of primarily tremolos and trills. Some of these ballads, both C and D, are among my favourite piano pieces. In July 2016 Keith Jarrett performed five concerts in Europe, starting in Budapest, and ending in Munich. Both concerts were recorded. We will hear his final concert, recorded July 16th in Munich, in full (except the encores).