Keith Jarrett

- written while listening to the Köln Concert, La Scala and The Vienna Concert on a train, over and over, without beginning or end -


How would I describe Keith Jarrett's music as he plays his piano in these concerts?

A beauty of muted passion, rather than dramatic and sublime in a Kantian sense - what's bursting in Jarret held in minimalist reign.

Harmony that is off balance. Discordant harmony.

What we hear is not so much the struggle of a man to come into being, but a man making love to the muse who sings through his instrument. We witness effort, yes, in a delerium that encompasses us.

Trills and moments when the music misses a rail, backs up and continues on. Within a constancy of notes that don't go anywhere, become anything, that are unrelenting throughout.

Where the echo of the note is dampened. He knows the terrain, but he's never visited this musical spot before. He learns as he plays. As he plays, he intuits the next notes. Impromptu within a form.

Anyway, we know his music plays him, his whole body, everything, the concert hall, our ears.

We listen in a stillness to Jarrett, but it is the power of his body, its guttural aesthetic, that keeps us there.

We join him in his ecstasy, flying to his muscular, musical spirit. To his glottal harmonies.