Keith Jarrett: the Man and His Music

Review

Ian Carr clearly writes about Jarrett from the heart, but with the insights of a professional musician that lend an insight into what lay behind the impulse to create that gives, me anyway, an introduction to the staggeringly broad range of Jarret's music. I do have veryu broad tastes but I have to admit to being put off a some of Keith Jarrett's music in the past, not because it was too far away from anything else that I like but because it just simply confounded my expectations of what I was going to hear.

It is true to say that Carr's praise seems a bit over the top in places but this music is never played with anything other than full commitment. Once the listener "gets" music like Jarrett's then it does become something almost magical. The best defense Carr has about the strength of his praise of Jarrett's work of course is that so many people, especially critics, have so unfairly damned his work over the years. Keith Jarrett has pushed the boundies of his music to the limit over and over again. He has, therefore, made it hard for the blinkered and lazy to keep up with where his music is coming from creatively. I have ready many a review of Jarret's work (any many others besides) that I could tell what it was going to say even before I had heard the music and the review wwas often very wide of the make after I had heard it. This is because the reviewer clearly just didn't like Jarrett on principle, he does conform the a type of "correct" jazz form that many expect so he has often got the template poisoned review whatever he had played. It is refreshing, therefore, to read a book about Jarret's music from a writer who actually likes it. I was, afterall, drwan to this book because I liked a lot of his music, I did not want to be put off it, on the contrary, I wanted to be guided to more of his music that I have not yet got into. Carr does the latter with great skill.

The beauty of this book and of Carr's writing (see his Miles Davis biography) is that it gives just enough insight into the life of the musician to help the reader understand where the music was coming from at any given time. In other words the focus is on opening up the music to the reader and he does not get bogged down in irrelevant details of Jarrett's everyday life.

I started off reading this with a grudging respect for Keith Jarrett, I like some of his music but did not really try to explore the rest because I was never sure which Keith Jarrett it would be, Carr has opened this up to me and I have also reinvestigated a number of other artists who record for the ECM label, starting with Kenny Wheeler via Gnu High, on which Jarrett played. I can not understand why I did not have more of his albums. I loved his playing on Ranier Bruninghaus' album Freigeweht since the early 1980s but have little else with him on it, that has now changed but I guess it was availability and cost that prevented me before. The internet has made so much available at reasonable cost and sometimes very cheaply. So get this bookmand start checking out more of Keith Jarrett's music.