Category Archives: Releases

“Concerts: Bregenz / München” and “No End” to be released by ECM in November 2013

Concerts: Bregenz / München

Concerts: Bregenz / München

According to Jazzwise (“Jazz breaking news: Two Keith Jarrett gems emerge from the vaults”), ECM Records will release two Keith Jarrett albums in November 2013 (currently both listed with a release date of November 25 on Amazon):

  • “Concerts: Bregenz / München” (1981) – as announced on KeithJarrett.org in May 2013 (although I didn’t expect this 3-CD set to be released before 2014)
  • “No End” (1986) – featuring “a rarely heard side of Jarrett’s output as he multi-tracks himself on electric guitars, Fender bass, drums, tablas, percussion, recorder and piano at his home studio”
No End

No End

Excerpt from “In conversation with Keith Jarrett” (2009) about the “No End” session:

You mentioned the quartet earlier. Do you see a role for that again in your music?

I am basically never thinking of the future. I actually have things from the past. Believe it or not there’s a sequel to Spirits that was done on all electric instruments: two guitars, electric bass, drums, percussion, voice and occasionally something else.

When did you do this?

Shortly after I did Spirits in the late 1980s, and this has been resting in my house ever since and I played it for a couple of people recently and they go, ‘Oh my God! This has to come out, because nobody is going to believe this stuff!’ And one of the things about it is, I’m playing all the instruments, but the thing I really get a kick out of it every time I hear it is how tight the rhythm section is. It’s like the best feel on some of these things I could ever get because I knew what I wanted. When you’re with percussionists, their sense of time is slightly different. Every drummer is different, and you’re playing piano and you’re trying to blend and find where the rhythmic point is, and it’s a blend of all those guys. But here, it’s so contagious because [the rhythm section] was all me. And I’m not saying this from an egotistical standpoint. It’s… I guess the word is contagious. It’s like hearing Miles’ rhythm section at the Blackhawk, and you hear how they are at one. Every beat at exactly the same precise place, and for me it was all my sense of time. The reason I bring that up is there is not just a future, there’s [also] a past. At the moment the Trio is going to go the length. The next release is going to be the Paris and the London concerts together; there was something special going on there.”

Thanks to David and Felix on the Keith Jarrett Yahoo! Group for the information.

Update (October 10, 2013). Post updated with album covers.

“Concerts: Bregenz / München” to be re-released as a 3-CD set

Thanks to Nick for noticing that the latest ECM Records catalogue lists “Concerts: Bregenz / München” as a 3-CD set:

“Keith Jarrett
Concerts
Bregenz /München
Keith Jarrett: piano
Recorded May and June 1981
ECM 1227–29 | 3_CD 279 4570″

Only the Bregenz concert was released on CD (in the 1980s?). “Part IV” from the Munich concert was later released on the “Selected Recordings” compilation in 2002. “Hymns/Spheres” was also re-released in January 2013, after years of being only available on vinyl (or as a single CD entitled “Spheres”), so it makes sense for “Concerts: Bregenz / München” to finally get a proper re-release on CD this year (hopefully, as the release date is not currently known).

Update (May 6, 2013). ECM Records confirms that “Concerts: Bregenz / München” will be re-released, but not “soon” (which could mean 2014 or later).

“Mysteries/Shades” to be re-released in the UK on May 6, 2013

“Mysteries / Shades” will be re-released as a double CD in the UK by BGO Records on May 6, 2013.

“Founded in 1987, BGO Records is an independent reissue label specialising in classic highly collectable recordings of groups, singers and instrumentalists from the fifties through to the eighties. (…) UK distribution is by Universal Music Group & Proper Music distribution.”

Re-released in 2009, “Fort Yawuh / Death and the Flower” are also available from the same label.

Both re-releases are available from bgo-records.com for £9.99.

Interestingly, “Mysteries / Shades” have already been re-released in Europe by Impulse Records in 2011 and are still available. The new release by BGO Records is supposed to include “extensive new liner notes”.

Thanks to Jon for the information!

Update (May 4, 2013). It looks like this particular re-release will be available in other European countries as well (The Netherlands – thanks to Cees for the link – and Germany, at least).