Keith Jarrett’s solo piano music – answers to the cloze exercise

Keith Jarrett is an American pianist born in 1945 whose ¹ work belongs primarily ² to the jazz genre. Jarrett is most famous for his live ³ solo piano performances, at least ten recordings of which have been released ⁴ as albums since 1973, and which continue today. Typically consisting of 1-3 tracks, each between 20 and 50 minutes long, these performances are completely improvised ⁵ and unrehearsed ⁶. Often progressing through a number of musical styles on the way (for instance gospel, folk, abstract classical), Jarrett develops ⁷ melodic, harmonic, textural and tonal ideas throughout each track in a manner that brings to mind the construction of classical music. Many are simply musical masterpieces ⁸. Some are somewhat self-indulgent ⁹. The ‘Cologne Concert‘, from 1975, is the best-known ¹⁰ example of such a solo recording. It is still one of the highest-selling ¹¹ jazz albums of all time, having sold over three million ¹² copies: a huge number for the genre.

In the mid-1990s, Jarrett developed ¹³ chronic fatigue syndrome ¹⁴ (CFS). As a result, he withdrew from public performance, and in fact was for long stretches ¹⁵ unable to play at all. During this period he managed to produce only one recorded album: ‘The Melody at Night with You‘. Recorded secretly as a Christmas present for his wife, this disc contains only short, simply-played jazz standards with practically ¹⁶ no improvisation. A pretty album, and one that was critically quite well received, ‘The Melody at Night with You‘ nevertheless ¹⁷ reveals how much Jarrett’s medical condition had restricted his abilities.

Jarrett began performing publicly ¹⁸ again at the end of the 1990s. Reportedly, Jarrett was concerned ¹⁹ that he would not be able to maintain the concentration ²⁰ and stamina ²¹ required to perform extended solo concerts ²². He need not have ²³ worried. Rather than halting it, Jarrett’s CFS appears only to have delayed briefly his continuing musical development ²⁴. In 2002 in Japan he performed a series of solo concerts, using a different approach from his pre-CFS concerts. Rather than developing musical ideas through one extended improvisation, each performance consists of a larger number of shorter pieces, each between one and fifteen minutes long. Each piece is more self-contained, but influenced ²⁵ in some way by the content of the previous ²⁶ piece, so that the overall performances remain coherent ²⁷. The pieces are performed in an extraordinary variety of styles, many not recognisable ²⁸ as ‘jazz’ as usually understood. They are considered not only ²⁹ among Jarrett’s greatest performances, but also ³⁰ to rate among the finest recordings in all piano music.

A 2002 concert in Osaka was released in 2005 as the double album ‘Radiance‘ – that’s track 8 you can hear in the background – and a further live solo album ‘The Carnegie Hall Concert’ was released in 2006. So keep listening!

Words and notes