"An arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds"

Friday, 5 December 2008

Atlantic submergence



Back to Jarrett: incredibly refreshing after Monday night's disappointment to be reminded, finally hearing 1972's Ruta & Daitya for the first time, that Keith was once a highly adventurous artist almost endlessly open to new sounds & textures. 

After two highly constrained decades, it's almost shocking to hear him neither solo nor in the standards trio (even though the mighty Jack DeJohnette is along for the ride) - & playing stunningly dense, rich, school of Miles electric jazz. 

In the same way, it's disconcerting to go back to the challenging, beautiful & original music the trio were once generating on albums like 1977's Tales of Another (in Gary Peacock's name), or the exquisite, live-improvised Changeless


That's not to say that there's no boldness in his tradition mining in the meantime - Monday's many peaks at the RFH showed that yet again. But, as Daniel Paton points out, he seems to have lost interest in innovating (& certainly in writing).  

It wasn't always this way. That's hardly a surprise, of course, with someone whose post-Miles, pre-standards output includes landmarks like Facing You, the Sunbear & Bremen/Lausanne concerts (&, yes, Koeln too...), & the two astounding quartets

For a reminder of that time (& not forgetting how thrilling the standards can be too, especially the earlier stuff): You Know, You Know (from Ruta) & Vignette (from Tales).  



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