Author Archives: Olivier Bruchez

“Answer Me” from Budapest 2016 released by ECM to mark Keith Jarrett’s 75th birthday

A version of “Answer Me” from the July 3, 2016 concert in Budapest was released today by ECM Records to mark Keith Jarrett’s 75th birthday.

Here are some articles about the release:

Thanks to Sascha and Mathilde for the links.

Update (May 9, 2020). According to ECM Records (on Facebook and Twitter), “Answer Me” is part of Keith Jarrett’s forthcoming solo album, recorded in Budapest:

Hungarian rhapsody: on Keith’s birthday, a live version of “Answer Me, My Love”, from his forthcoming solo album, recorded in Budapest.

France Musique dedicated a whole day to Keith Jarrett yesterday. Most of it can be streamed from francemusique.fr.

Thanks to Matthias and Sascha for the links/information.

Limited re-release of “Sun Bear Concerts” on vinyl

A limited facsimile edition (350 copies) of the 10-LP Sun Bear Concerts box set will be released in mid-November in Germany. It will be available from ZEIT-Shop only.

"Sun Bear Concerts" 10-LP re-release
“Sun Bear Concerts” 10-LP re-release

Thanks to Matthias for the information!

Update (November 3, 2019). ZEIT-Shop only ships to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

“Montreux Jazz Festival 1967” officially available

The full name of the release is Swiss Radio Days Jazz Series Vol. 46 / Charles Lloyd Quartet, Montreux Jazz Festival 1967. It has already been released on October 25, 2019, by The Montreux Jazz Label. It will be released later in some countries. It’s important to note that this is an official release, as this concert has previously been available on multiple bootlegs. Apparently, the original tape from the Swiss Radio has been used, so the sound should be optimal (I haven’t heard it yet!).

Montreux 1967 tape. Photo by Yvan Isher.
Montreux 1967 tape. Photo by Yvan Isher.

The album features Charles Lloyd, Keith Jarrett, Ron McClure, and Jack DeJohnette. The 32-page liner notes include texts from Yvan Ischer, Ron McClure, René Langel, and Pierre Grandjean.

"Montreux Jazz Festival 1967" cover
“Montreux Jazz Festival 1967” cover

The tracklist is as follows:

CD 1

  1. Days and Nights Waiting (6:39)
  2. Lady Gabor (12:03)
  3. Sweet Georgia Bright (31:58)

CD 2

  1. Love Ship (9:38)
  2. Love Song to a Baby (12:22)
  3. Forest Flower (27:36)

Thanks to Matthias for the information!

“The Melody At Night, With You” official transcriptions available from Schott Music

Friedrich Grossnick’s transcriptions of The Melody At Night, With You are now available from Schott Music. The transcriptions are authorized by Keith Jarrett, just like the Köln Concert transcription, which was released in 1991.

"The Melody At Night, With You" (Schott)
“The Melody At Night, With You” (Schott)

Tender is the night on what is, perhaps, Keith Jarrett’s most intimate album. It is comprised of solo piano renderings of jazz ballads and folk songs, played with unmistakable affection. Jarrett dispenses with the jazz soloist’s conventional emphasis on dexterity, the ‘clever’ phrase, the virtuosic sleight-of-hand. Instead he strips these songs to their melodic essence and, gently, lays bare their emotional core.
This transcription, which has Keith Jarrett’s personal approval, was worked out at the keyboard and aims, above all, for maximum playability within the greatest tonal range. Friedrich Grossnick, as an experienced pedagogue, has produced an outstanding score with particular sensitivity to Jarrett’s interpretation thus enabling its faithful recreation on the piano.  

More information about “Munich 2016” album

The correct title of the album is Munich 2016, not München.

A lot of online stores now have the cover art for the album.

"Munich 2016" cover

As well as more information about the album and excerpts from the tracks:

A solo concert from Keith Jarrett – recorded at Munich’s Philharmonic Hall on July 16, 2016, on the last night of a tour – finds the great improvising pianist at a peak of invention. Creating a spontaneous suite of forms in the moment with the intuitive assurance of a master builder – interspersing touches of the blues and folksong lyricism between pieces of polyrhythmic and harmonic complexity – he delivers one of his very finest performances. An attentive and appreciative audience hangs on every note, every nuance, and is rewarded with some tender encores including a magical version of “It’s A Lonesome Old Town”…

Jarrett’s solo concert recordings form a unique and continually evolving body of work inside his discography. To trace the line that leads from 1973’s Solo Concerts Bremen-Lausanne is to follow an extraordinary musical journey. High points along the road have included The Köln Concert, Sun Bear Concerts – due for vinyl reissue in the coming months -, Concerts (Bregenz München), Paris Concert, Vienna Concert, La Scala, Radiance, The Carnegie Hall Concert, Testament, Creation, A Multitude of Angels, and La Fenice. Munich 2016 brings the story up to date, a document of Jarrett’s most recent European performance, held in ECM’s hometown. The particular intensity of the Munich performance singles it out as one of the truly outstanding concerts. So, too, the flow of its component parts.

The shape of the individual concerts has been transformed, the large arc of the early concerts, with unbroken improvisations spanning an entire set, giving way to performances made up of discrete, tightly focused spontaneous compositions. Since Jarrett embarked on this quest the number of solo improvisers has multiplied exponentially yet his sense for developing motifs and melodies and uncovering forms in real time remains unparalleled. There is, still, nothing else like a Keith Jarrett solo concert. “Through a series of brilliant solo performances and recordings that demonstrate his utterly spontaneous creativity,” the Polar Music Prize committee noted a few years ago, “Keith Jarrett has simultaneously lifted piano improvisation as an art form to new, unimaginable heights.”

Thanks to Matthias and Jan for the links.