Lee Konitz on Keith Jarrett

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“A master jazz musician goes onto the stage hoping to have a rendezvous with music. He/she knows the music is there (it always is), but this meeting depends not only on knowledge but on openness. It must be let in, recognized, and revealed to the listener, the first of which is the musician him/herself. This recognition is the most misunderstood part of the process (even by musicians). It is a discrimination against mechanical pattern, for content, against habit, for surprise, against easy virtuosity, for saying more with less, against facile emotion, for a certain quality of energy, against stasis, for flow, against military precision, for tactile pulse. It is like an attempt, over and over again, to reveal the heart of things.

Given the above, jazz is not "about" the material. The material provides a layer of substance above or beyond which the player intends to go. It's also possible to do this by going deeper into the material. (If a song is good enough, it can provide the path, but the process is not dependent on the material.)”

- Keith Jarrett

“The lyrical, romantic style of Keith Jarrett, born 1945, is probably the most influential in contemporary jazz piano after Bill Evans's. Following a period with Miles Davis, he formed very successful American and European groups in the 1970s, featuring saxophonists Dewey Redman and Jan Garbarek respectively. He is a fervent apostle of the value of improvisation, and his work with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette is some of Konitz's favorite music.”

- Andy Hamilton’s Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improvisor’s Art [2007].

Experiencing Keith Jarrett either in a solo concert or with his Standards Trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette has always been challenging as it was difficult for me to get beyond his effusive, ebullient and elated gestures, movements and utterances and into his music. These mannerisms were a distraction that I had to work very hard to overcome, although it was always worth the effort because of the brilliant richness of his music.

As Richard Cook put it in his Jazz Encyclopedia: “There are some simple virtues in his playing which any listener can surely respond to: gorgeous melodies, patiently evocative development which can lead to genuinely transcendent climaxes, beatific ballad playing. But it can be hard to tune out musical (and non-musical) matter which is likely to have dismayed as many as it has enraptured.”

I was curious about the reactions of other Jazz musicians in this regard and found the following assessment by Lee Konitz in Andy Hamilton’s Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improvisor’s Art [2007].

“Keith is a great piano player. He has a great rhythm section, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette. I think Brad Mehldau is more creative, but Keith is looser in some way. I don't know Keith's out-playing that much, except his

record Inside Out, which I enjoyed very much — and a newer one that's great stuff, Always Let Me Go.

Once I did a television show with Chet Baker, and Charlie Haden and Beaver Harris, in the new Half Note club in New York. It was a jazz series on a small TV station. Keith showed up, and asked to sit in with us. I  think it was the only time I've ever played with him. We were playing standards, and I was very impressed.

I had a "Keith Jarrett" routine with [pianist] Harold Danko. We went into the sounds of moaning, and gestures. We did that one time in Denmark, when Keith and his wife were in the audience. I asked Harold, "Should we?" and we did. I looked over, and Keith was kind of laughing. I could live without the vocal and body action, but the music is the end result I'm interested in.

If  the player is drunk or high, and the music is good, so be it!

I haven't talked to him much about improvising, really. I just know that he has an affinity for Lennie's [Tristano] music. On one of his albums, Tribute, he mentions me as one of the people that he's paying tribute to. I was very pleased with that. I didn't know his playing very much till he played standards, really. I heard one of his solo performances from Paris, and I was very impressed with that. He's a great musician — he's really an improviser.

[Hamilton] 

He's a problematic player though. As Enrico Pieranunzi says, he sometimes seems to put great weight on some idea that’s really very banal. There seems to be some lack of critical faculty.

Well, the few standards records that I have with Jack DeJohnette and Gary I have very few criticisms of them as I think he makes great choices. I agree he plays very uncritically and unedited in some way —  but if you hear a banality come out, and can mess with it a bit, that's not a bad thing. We all coast into "banalville" occasionally. 

[Hamilton]

He obviously thinks he's a great player!

Well, you've got to think that. He's not a great singer, so I wish he would not distract from the great playing with the histrionics. But Keith is a special musician, and being special can bring lots of problems adjusting to us "non-specials." Whatever he has to do to make it happen is incidental to us, the lovers of greatness.”