Keith Jarret Piano Solo 1988

Recorded in 2001 live at the State Opera House in Munich, Out of Towners features the Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette trio in the kind of performance we've come to expect from them these last 21 years: Stellar. Being one of contemporary jazz's longest-running bands has its advantages; one of them is having nothing to prove. First and foremost, this band plays standards like no one else.

Pianist, composer, and bandleader Keith Jarrett is one of the most prolific, innovative, and iconoclastic musicians to emerge from the late 20th century. As a pianist (though that is by no means the only instrument he plays) he literally changed the conversation in jazz by introducing an entirely new aesthetic regarding solo improvisation in concert. Though capable of playing in a wide variety of styles, Jarrett is deeply grounded in the jazz tradition.

The bulk of the DVD is this Berlin concert of 6 November 1971. This is one of the last recorded concerts with this band, which disbanded totally later that month. It features Miles on electric trumpet, Keith Jarrett on electric piano and electric organ, Michael Henderson on electric bass, Leon Chancler on drums, and Mtume and Don Alias on percussion. This band is the last one that has direct links to the "Bitches Brew" era, with Gary Bartz still in the band and Jarrett having taken over the two keyboards when Chick Corea left the band in 1970.

Keith Jarrett - Dark Intervals (1988) {ECM 1379}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 201 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 135 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 13 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1988 ECM Records | ECM 1379
Jazz / Post-Bop / Piano

Keith Jarrett weaves a special kind of spell in his improvisations, one somehow connected to a greater humanity, for though the music and playing are ethereal, one is never mistaken that they are anything but earthly. Jarrett is not a mere vessel, but a creative force of flesh and bone whose fingers speak in ways we can only understand without words. This live recording from Tokyo’s Suntory Hall expands that flesh, and feels so intimate it might as well have grown away from others in the cave of his private studio.

Keith Jarrett - Sun Bear Concerts - Piano Solo (1976) {6CD Set Japanese 1st Press ECM J00J 20375/80 rel 1990}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.58 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 928 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 52 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1976, 1990 ECM Records Japan | J00J 20375/80
Jazz / Post Bop / Piano

This gargantuan package – a ten-LP set now compressed into a chunky six-CD box – once was derided as the ultimate ego trip, probably by many who didn't take the time to hear it all. You have to go back to Art Tatum's solo records for Norman Granz in the '50s to find another large single outpouring of solo jazz piano like this, all of it improvised on the wing before five Japanese audiences in Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo, and Sapporo. Yet the miracle is how consistently good much of this giant box is.

Jeno Jandó was born at Pécs, in south Hungary, in 1952. He started to learn the piano when he was seven and later studied at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music under Katalin Nemes and Pal Kadosa, becoming assistant to the latter on his graduation in 1974. Jando has won a number of piano competitions in Hungary and abroad, including first prize in the 1973 Hungarian Piano Concours and a first prize in the chamber music category at the Sydney International Piano Competition in 1977. In addition to his many appearances in Hungary, he has played widely abroad in Eastern and Western Europe, in Canada and in Japan.

Keith Jarrett - Dmitri Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues Opus 87 (1992) {2CD Set ECM New Series 1469/70}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks) +CUE+LOG -> 379 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 324 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 25 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1992 ECM Records | ECM New Series 1469/70
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Piano Solo

The pairing of music and musician in this exquisite recording is so serendipitous, it is almost as if Keith Jarrett were playing one of his sweeping improvisations. He is not, of course; this is Shostakovich's unmistakable voice, and it is speaks in wide-ranging profundity. Each listening takes me deeper, and exposes things I had not heard before: one of my all-time favorite recordings.