Standard Deviation

Jazz legend Keith Jarrett needs no introductions.

by Nate Chinen

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February 28–March 7, 2002

music

Standard Deviation

Jazz legend Keith Jarrett needs no introductions.

by Nate Chinen

In jazz parlance, a "standard" is a song in the collective repertoire, rendered familiar by years of interpretation. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, meanwhile, lists a dozen additional usages of the word. A standard can be the banner carried into battle, the basis of value in a monetary system, or "something established by authority, custom or general consent as a model or an example." These nonmusical definitions, although rarely considered in the jazz world, have proven every bit as germane to its development over the last 20 years. And during that time — an era in which jazz’s standards of excellence have mostly revolved around, well, jazz standards — few musicians have challenged the system more effectively, or with more thoughtful nuance, than pianist Keith Jarrett.

It was in 1983 that Jarrett, along with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette, recorded Standards, Vol. 1 & 2 (ECM) — inaugurating what would become known as his Standards Trio. Coming as it did on the heels of an incredibly fertile decade, this move was seen by some observers as a regression. The Keith Jarrett of the ’70s had led two visionary avant-garde quartets, produced a body of striking original compositions and executed a succession of stunning, free-improvised solo piano performances (including the groundbreaking Köln Concert, which became the best-selling solo piano record in history). So was the Keith Jarrett of the ’80s going to emerge as a song-book neo-traditionalist? The answer was yes and no — yes because the Standards Trio has continued to serve as Jarrett’s primary outlet, and no because the trio’s exploratory methods transcend any repertory agenda (placing it worlds apart from, say, Wynton Marsalis’ Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra). Jarrett puts it much more simply: "For them it’s about the material. For us it’s about how we come at it."

Jarrett has lately been coming at it with renewed sense of purpose, in the wake of a trauma that threatened to curtail his playing altogether. During a fall tour in 1996 — merely eight months after recording Tokyo ’96 (ECM), one of the trio’s richest albums — the pianist experienced a sudden and total loss of energy. "The only way I could describe it," he later told the Los Angeles Times, "was that aliens were invading my body." In fact, Jarrett had fallen prey to an interstitial bacterial parasite that triggered severe chronic fatigue syndrome. He canceled the rest of his dates, retreated to his rural New Jersey home and soon began a heavy regimen of antibiotics. "It was very sudden," he now recalls. "It isn’t like I had a chance to think about it while I was drowning; I just went down." It was more than a year before he played again in public, and even then the chance of relapse — a very real possibility — prevented him from committing to another tour.

Six years later, Jarrett is not only back in action but also possessed of a certain newfound wonder. ("If I get a chance to play at all," he says, "it’s somehow a miracle.") That sense has virtually blossomed on recent records — as the brittle lyricism of 1999’s The Melody at Night, With You (a solo meditation recorded at home during Jarrett’s recovery) led to the brilliant ebullience of 2000’s Whisper Not (a trio outing captured live in Paris). The latter album revealed a noticeable shift in style; the new Jarrett seems more direct, less prone to dramatic flourishes, than before. This is no accident. During Jarrett’s convalescence, he listened to a number of his own recordings with a critical ear. "[There were] self-indulgent things that I didn’t want to hear anymore," he explains. "I didn’t like how long my introductions were, a lot of the time. If you think about it — after you’re sick, and let’s say you’re still sick, and you’re trying to maintain a certain level of energy — you’d want to just get to it. So it works positively for the music, for me to think like that. Because previously I had probably used more energy playing piano than any pianist ever did. I had to readjust those parameters, and in doing so I realized all the things I didn’t like about my playing. Like digging into the keys too much too often. Phrasing less liquid than I really heard in my head."

Changes have crept into the repertoire as well. Whisper Not features a preponderance of bebop tunes, which Jarrett plays with a skittering quicksilver touch. Meanwhile, Inside Out, a London concert recording released last year, actually consists of songs with no pre-existing structures. This development counts as both a milestone and a natural progression for the group. True, all of the musicians involved are familiar with open-form playing (all three came of musical age in the ’60s, after all). In just the past year, DeJohnette joined saxophonist John Surman on Invisible Nature, while Peacock played on Marilyn Crispell’s Amaryllis. (Both are ECM albums featuring stretches of free improvisation.) But as a group, the trio has only rarely jettisoned its standard repertoire ("We just never thought of it," Jarrett notes, with a laugh). That the resulting music often sounds impressionistically tuneful — reflecting ghost-images of chord progressions, or shadings of the blues — reveals the depth of the trio’s common language and the breadth of its reach.

The experience of playing without structure also revives an aspect of the pianist’s solo performances: the interplay of pure improvisation with what he calls "spontaneous composition." Jarrett has long maintained that one of his unrecognized strengths as a musician is programming — deciding how to steer the course of a performance. The pianist explains: "Knowing what should come next is not an improvisatory art. It’s a compositional art. What I do differs from other improvisers in that I’m using two parts of me interchangeably: the improvising part and the composer part. And I would say that, as a programmer, that’s what composers are doing. They’re taking sounds and they’re putting one after another, saying, ‘This should go here.’ They might do it while they’re writing on paper; I’m doing it while I’m playing." This remains true regardless of whether the group launches into a roiling, rumbling atonal piece ("Riot") or yearning Tin Pan Alley fare ("When I Fall in Love").

While Jarrett describes Inside Out as a "prelude to the next release" (a free-improvised set recorded live in Japan), the trio still mostly adheres to a classic repertoire. "There’s only been four concerts where we played most of the music like that, freely, since the summer of 2000," he says. Then he hastens to add that there’s no way of predicting which side of the coin will land face up for his first Philadelphia engagement in 20 years. "That sets up an interesting chemistry," he suggests, "because everybody’s in the same boat, including us. And I think that brings the audience into the event." The only sure bet is that the group will uphold the same rigorous standards for which they’ve been rightfully acclaimed.

The Keith Jarrett Trio (sold out), Fri., March 1, 8 p.m. Verizon Hall, 260 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999.

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