Voltaire and Keith Jarrett
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
- Voltaire
So says the man who wrote Candide. Can’t argue that one too hard. One thing of which I am certain is that Keith Jarrett is an incandescent and touched by the muse pianist. I saw him on Sunday night at the SF Opera House and it was staggering, astonishing, whatever adjectives our poor imperfect language can muster up. Words are such an inaedquate translation for music.
I was surprised to not encounter more of my fellow musicians there. Perhaps it was because of the ticket prices, maybe because it was Sunday night…pianists Adam Shulman and Nancy Topf and drummer Tim Bulkley were there, all of whom were equally blown away, but I saw very few players among the sold-out throng. Mainly the audience was Keith fans and wealthy SFJAZZ patrons (of whom there are legions).
At any rate, Keith drew far more on dense and often dissonant 20th century classical language for his improvisations than he uses for the trio settings with Gary and Jack. Odd that 3 such adventurous musicians have created a very inside, if utterly lovely and swinging palate, in that trio. So I was very pleased to hear Keith draw from the colors he has used in other settings, as well as some new worlds. His technique is astonishing, but what is clear to me is that it is always, like Wayne, Herbie, Miles, later Trane, Lester, etc…in the service of musical expression. I cannot hang with the technique for technique’s sake crowd any more. It bores the shit out of me. I am equally bored and, frankly, a little offended by the (as my wife would put it) searching for termites "creative music" crowd who say “hey, it’s all good, shit happens, and what’s a beat between friends, anyway?” So when you hear folks who are master artists/craftsmen for whom technique is something synergized with expression and is the unseen way to express the indefinable and infinite, THAT thrills me. Wayne, Trane, Miles, Herbie, Ray, Sinatra, those are a few who come to mind in that regard. I have recently begun a very fun musical hookup with guitarist John Stowell, and he is definitely in that mode. I can think of no one who does it better than does Keith.
His sound alone is inexpressibly beautiful. His touch is liquid. I have never heard a more beautiful tone on the piano, and of course, it is tones…his harmonic knowledge is encyclopedic, spanning everything from Bartok to Takemitsu to the songbook to blues to Miles to gospel to….??? He is supremely about melody and the truth is, I think the reason he grunts, sings, hollers, moans, is that (at least in part) he is somehow trying to wring a vocalist out of that extraordinary tuned percussion instrument. It was all magical to me, but the one that sent me into a reverent trance was his second of 4! Encores. In this one he set up a bubbling La Mer style ostinato rippling endlessly between two hands, as a pan-diatonic melody inner voice slowly wound its way up, down and around the keyboard. It is one of the most amazing moments I have ever heard live, and I remember wishing it would not end, even as I knew it had to.
Of course, no Jarrett concert is complete without a little gratuitous bitching out of the audience. This time, after the 7th bow and before the 4th and last encore, he chastised “the tourists, the souvenir hunters” in the crowd for having the temerity to take snaps on their cell phones of him acknowledging applause. That shit gets a little old, but as always, while it would be nice if there were a necessary connection between someone’s artistry and their personal goodness, twas never that way. Sometimes nice guys make lovely art, sometimes it’s the high maintenance ones and troubled souls. I hear that, for next time, Keith has written it into his contract that his audience will be tied to chairs with red ball gags in their mouths so as to not disturb his grunting reverie – I kid, but I bet a good number of the folks at the opera house on Sunday would agree to those terms if they got to hear what we heard. (I'll stick to the CD, thanks.) I have read that Keith is trying to remake his image, saying “I’m really not such a cantankerous bastard” or some such. Well, he may need to change therapists, but not if it means he stops playing such wonderful piano once he gets well-adjusted.
Anyway, to close full circle w/Mister Voltaire, since doubt is all that is certain, or, as the Buddhists say, the only moment we have is now, it is wonderful to savor the sweet ones, one of which was mine in SF on Sunday night, sharing Keith’s artistry with 2000 or so other fortunate souls.
- Voltaire
So says the man who wrote Candide. Can’t argue that one too hard. One thing of which I am certain is that Keith Jarrett is an incandescent and touched by the muse pianist. I saw him on Sunday night at the SF Opera House and it was staggering, astonishing, whatever adjectives our poor imperfect language can muster up. Words are such an inaedquate translation for music.
I was surprised to not encounter more of my fellow musicians there. Perhaps it was because of the ticket prices, maybe because it was Sunday night…pianists Adam Shulman and Nancy Topf and drummer Tim Bulkley were there, all of whom were equally blown away, but I saw very few players among the sold-out throng. Mainly the audience was Keith fans and wealthy SFJAZZ patrons (of whom there are legions).
At any rate, Keith drew far more on dense and often dissonant 20th century classical language for his improvisations than he uses for the trio settings with Gary and Jack. Odd that 3 such adventurous musicians have created a very inside, if utterly lovely and swinging palate, in that trio. So I was very pleased to hear Keith draw from the colors he has used in other settings, as well as some new worlds. His technique is astonishing, but what is clear to me is that it is always, like Wayne, Herbie, Miles, later Trane, Lester, etc…in the service of musical expression. I cannot hang with the technique for technique’s sake crowd any more. It bores the shit out of me. I am equally bored and, frankly, a little offended by the (as my wife would put it) searching for termites "creative music" crowd who say “hey, it’s all good, shit happens, and what’s a beat between friends, anyway?” So when you hear folks who are master artists/craftsmen for whom technique is something synergized with expression and is the unseen way to express the indefinable and infinite, THAT thrills me. Wayne, Trane, Miles, Herbie, Ray, Sinatra, those are a few who come to mind in that regard. I have recently begun a very fun musical hookup with guitarist John Stowell, and he is definitely in that mode. I can think of no one who does it better than does Keith.
His sound alone is inexpressibly beautiful. His touch is liquid. I have never heard a more beautiful tone on the piano, and of course, it is tones…his harmonic knowledge is encyclopedic, spanning everything from Bartok to Takemitsu to the songbook to blues to Miles to gospel to….??? He is supremely about melody and the truth is, I think the reason he grunts, sings, hollers, moans, is that (at least in part) he is somehow trying to wring a vocalist out of that extraordinary tuned percussion instrument. It was all magical to me, but the one that sent me into a reverent trance was his second of 4! Encores. In this one he set up a bubbling La Mer style ostinato rippling endlessly between two hands, as a pan-diatonic melody inner voice slowly wound its way up, down and around the keyboard. It is one of the most amazing moments I have ever heard live, and I remember wishing it would not end, even as I knew it had to.
Of course, no Jarrett concert is complete without a little gratuitous bitching out of the audience. This time, after the 7th bow and before the 4th and last encore, he chastised “the tourists, the souvenir hunters” in the crowd for having the temerity to take snaps on their cell phones of him acknowledging applause. That shit gets a little old, but as always, while it would be nice if there were a necessary connection between someone’s artistry and their personal goodness, twas never that way. Sometimes nice guys make lovely art, sometimes it’s the high maintenance ones and troubled souls. I hear that, for next time, Keith has written it into his contract that his audience will be tied to chairs with red ball gags in their mouths so as to not disturb his grunting reverie – I kid, but I bet a good number of the folks at the opera house on Sunday would agree to those terms if they got to hear what we heard. (I'll stick to the CD, thanks.) I have read that Keith is trying to remake his image, saying “I’m really not such a cantankerous bastard” or some such. Well, he may need to change therapists, but not if it means he stops playing such wonderful piano once he gets well-adjusted.
Anyway, to close full circle w/Mister Voltaire, since doubt is all that is certain, or, as the Buddhists say, the only moment we have is now, it is wonderful to savor the sweet ones, one of which was mine in SF on Sunday night, sharing Keith’s artistry with 2000 or so other fortunate souls.
posted by Michael Zilber at 3:07 PM
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