Here’s a fun musical connection: the pianist Keith Jarrett sued Steely Dan over similarities between ‘Gaucho’ (1980) and his track ‘Long As You Know You’re Living Yours’ from the album Belonging (1974). Walter Becker and Donald Fagen acknowledged the influence and officially credited Jarrett, admitting: “Hell, we steal. We’re the robber barons of rock ‘n’ roll.”
It’s been a bad year for the jazz world, and I’m not just talking about the new Billie Holiday documentary. Not only has the pandemic closed down a predominantly live industry, we’ve also lost some of the greats, both to COVID and otherwise; McCoy Tyner, Lee Konitz and Gary Peacock to name a few. A longtime bandmate of Peacock’s, Jarrett also effectively retired from performing, following two strokes in 2018 that left him partially paralysed.
Fortunately he spent half a century recording no fewer than 80 albums, and that’s before you include his classical output, featuring Bach recitals on harpsichord and duets with violinist Kim Kashkashian (pause for double take). Jarrett was three years old when he started on the piano, and by the age of seven he was publicly performing Mozart, which seems appropriate.
After stints with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis (he’s one of 25 musicians appearing on 1974’s Get Up With It), the pianist embarked upon live solo improvisations that became best-selling records (most notably 1975’s The Köln Concert), marked by a self-described “existential sadness” and a serious, spontaneous approach to playing. So unplanned were these performances that he once sat at the piano in silence until someone yelled out: “C-sharp major!” “Thanks,” he replied, “I needed that.”
Jarrett is known for his physical style (often standing up) and sensitivity to crowd noise; cough drops are sometimes handed out to his audience, and he has been known to stop playing to lead the crowd in a group cough. This seems slightly hypocritical considering the volume of his own vocalisations, but when inspiration strikes Jarrett claims he’s but “a pawn, a willing victim of the process of creativity.” So until your hands can conjure virtuoso solos of their own free will, he kindly invites you to suck on a Strepsil.
1971 marked the beginning of Jarrett’s fruitful relationship with German record label ECM, known for its blurring of genre and minimalist cover art; its motto, “The most beautiful sound next to silence,” speaks volumes about the label’s aesthetic, combining abstract, ambient and world music in a catalogue that spans from John Cage to Jean-Luc Godard.
It was ECM boss Manfred Eicher who suggested Jarrett, Peacock and Jack DeJohnette form a “Standards” Trio in 1983, who ultimately spent 30 years as one of America’s most popular jazz groups. As well as standards, the trio performed original compositions and collective improvisations, as found on the 1987 release Changeless.
Considering it’s culled from multiple concerts in Kentucky, Texas and Colorado, Changeless sounds remarkably of a piece; an organic whole that keeps evolving until it seems to levitate. The music on Changeless does change but imperceptibly gradually, like the flow of a glacier or the drift of the Moon away from the Earth. Each track revolves around Jarrett’s ostinato, the rotating patterns and circular artwork evoking a sense of infinity, none more so than on the aptly named 15-minute piece ‘Endless’.
The track displays the sadness and warmth that courses through Jarrett’s music, united with DeJohnette’s shimmering percussion and Peacock’s gliding basslines. The pianist sounds emotional in his playing and euphoric in his cries, reaching beautiful heights when his hands appear to fall out of phase as though unstuck in time. Spontaneous and circular, it sounds like it’s slipping away and lasting forever, and though live jazz will be poorer for his absence, we still have Jarrett and his music on Steely Dan albums.
Hear more ‘Kings Of The Keys’ over on our Spotify playlist.
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