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Historical / BY DAN OULLETTE
ECM RECORDS
Keith Jarrett
Jarrett’s Pivotal Moment
ECM Records has released a plethora of Keith
Jarrett live recordings over the years. But the
latest is undoubtedly a crown jewel. A Multitude
Of Angels (ECM 70:41, 77:15, 74:01,
75:22 ), a four-CD box set produced
and engineered by Jarrett, comprises four
otherworldly solo concerts from 1996 that he
played at smaller opera-like houses in four different
Italian cities (Modena, Ferrara, Torino,
Genova) on Oct. 23, 25, 28 and 30.
In his self-penned liner notes, Jarrett
calls the epic concerts the “pinnacle” of
his career, recorded during a time when
he was “playing for my life.” Collectively,
they represent the last concerts he played
without breaks within sets. Jarrett plays
straight through—no stops—so that each
piece floats in a consummate improvisational
brilliance. Above all presides a joyful
expression of spiritual creativity steeped in
the sensibility of the here and now.
The concerts, still vivid after 20 years,
were recorded by Jarrett himself on a
DAT machine. They are the final shows he
performed before he went on a multiyear
public performance hiatus because of the
debilitating effects of chronic fatigue syndrome.
(He reemerged on record with the
gorgeous The Melody At Night, With You
in 1999 and reunited with his Standards
Trio of bassist Gary Peacock and drummer
Jack DeJohnette that same year.) He underscores
the significance of this moment
in the liners, claiming that “this is a major
event for me.”
Given the circumstances, one might
expect Jarrett to stay in the contemplative
zone he establishes in the first piece in
Modena (simply called “Part I”). It has a feel
of anguished journey-music with gentle
single-note ruminations and relaxed crescendos—wistful
and moving at the same
time. However, in “Part II” he opens playfully
with keyboard pounces, chase-like
scampers and a tumble of dissonance—all
played with his signature vocal inflections,
which irritate some, but here add another
intimate element to his state of being.
Jarrett’s show in Ferrara features the
best track of the box, “Part II,” where in the
midst of him crooning and tapping his feet
in rhythm, he plays into a rollick, with an
almost hoedown bluesy feel. It’s a tour de
force that, in certain stretches, finds him
wrestling with a stutter-step rhythm and a
flurry of high notes.
The Torino concert features Jarrett intuiting
wispy strains of melody in “Part I”
and fast, peppery passages in “Part II.”
Here, a touch of the avant-garde intersects
with a saloon-style piano roll that leads to
a stretch of tranquility, opening to a funky
plateau. The Genova show begins with a
sparkling excursion across the keyboard. It
leads to ”Part II,” which calms with a quiet
melancholic longing and a strong-fingered
rhythmic resolve. It’s a fitting capstone to
Jarrett’s four-stop odyssey.
What’s remarkable about this box is
how commanding Jarrett is when creating
such delicate and memorable music, continually
pausing the flow and unspooling
it anew from a well of melody and rhythm.
Ordering info: ecmrecords.com
DB
Micic/Abercrombie/
Bernstein/ Lund
Inspired
ARTISTSHARE
Tribute recordings so frequently come across as
overly contrived projects with only minimal
commitment by the artists involved that you
have to readjust your perceptions when you
encounter a genuine one. On the surface, bringing
together four highly disparate guitarists to
celebrate one artist might seem as high concept
as these types of projects come, but the focus is
the late Jim Hall—and few jazz masters in the
past 20 years have wielded so much influence or
attracted so much love.
Veteran Americans John Abercrombie and
Peter Bernstein are directly part of Hall’s lineage
of combining harmony, melody and guitar
voicings in interesting ways. Norwegian
Lage Lund and Serbian Rale Micic are a generation
removed, but have displayed an interest in
pushing Hall’s legacy into the future. Each of
the four gets a solo piece, six duets present various
combinations, and the four combine for
an exploration of the harmonic possibilities of
Hall’s 1963 composition “All Across The City.”
Inspired runs a certain risk of being of interest
only to guitarists—it is, at its extreme, the
ultimate six-stringers’ nerd-out session—but
the ability of the players to find a variety of ways
to combine different motivic approaches generates
interest. The combination of Abercrombie
and Lund on “I’m Getting Sentimental Over
You” is a particular highlight, as the two display
an exceptional level of creative interplay
and responsive listening.
This is a recording that exudes warmth,
going beyond the sweet-toned instrumentation
to the depth of feeling these four guitarists have
for the subject of their tribute. —James Hale
Inspired: Dream Steps; Alone Together; Bon Ami; My Funny
Valentine; I’m Getting Sentimental Over You; All Across The City; My
Ideal; I Should Care; Body And Soul; I Hear A Rhapsody; Embraceable
You. (55:53)
Personnel: Rale Micic, John Abercrombie, Peter Bernstein, Lage
Lund, guitars.
Ordering info: artistshare.com
80 DOWNBEAT FEBRUARY 2017