The acoustics, the size of the stage and, of course, the model of the piano must also find favour in the eyes of the master. ‘ I just need the audience to do a few simple things in order to concentrate,’ argues the pianist. It isn’t unusual for his live albums to feature long minutes of applause at the end of tracks – a testament either to the contribution of the audience, or to Jarrett’s narcissism, according to his detractors. ‘ Audiences think I don’t like them, but the reality is that I need them more than any other artist live artist’ says Jarrett, who believes in the sacred nature of a live concert, where the invisible link that unites artist and audience has an impact on the creative work that’s taking place.
![keith jarrett transcriptions keith jarrett transcriptions](http://www.smanohar.com/music/whisper_not.jpg)
Over the years, this perfectionism fed a reputation of that of an unbearable diva an arrogant and distant artist, who was using and abusing his already fragile body. ‘ We just never had the recordings,’ smiles the great lover of classical music, who has made several studio recordings of Bach. That’s why I play concerts,’ says Jarrett, who believes that Mozart also loved to improvise. That’s what I’m looking for – this music that’s out there somewhere. ‘ There’s so much music that has never been played. In their hands, during their marvellous 1995 recording Live at the Blue Note the ballad “I Fall in Love Too Easily” becomes a river of a piece at more than 27 minutes long, seeming to traverse ages and genres and building a work around one D minor chord. In their hands “Autumn Leaves”, “My Funny Valentine” and “Someday my Prince Will Come” are crushed, kneaded and stretched to infinity, becoming virgin territory once more. For this trio, improvisation has always been the golden rule: no track list before going on stage but rather an intimate knowledge of the standards which then allow for an unlimited field of experimentation. His intimate relationship with live music has developed over the course of numerous solo albums, including the recently released Live in Budapest on his ever-faithful label ECM, as well as with two accomplices he met in 1983: double bassist Gary Peacock who died last September, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, a former partner of Miles Davis. Otherwise, you’re gonna die.’ Keith Jarrett often justified the sounds he made, as he people frequently asked him about them and they bothered purists.
![keith jarrett transcriptions keith jarrett transcriptions](http://image.slidesharecdn.com/keithjarrett-thekolnconcert-pianotranscription-151014182630-lva1-app6891/95/keith-jarrett-the-koln-concert-piano-transcription-1-638.jpg)
‘ When so much is going through you, to the point where you come close to feeling like you’re being strangled, you just have to make some kind of sound.
![keith jarrett transcriptions keith jarrett transcriptions](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/igotitbadandthataintgood-keithjarretttranscription-bysamleak-2018-180102123443/95/i-got-it-bad-and-that-aint-good-keith-jarrett-transcription-by-sam-leak-2018-2-638.jpg)
To which Keith Jarrett, whose parents were white, replied, ‘ I know, I know, I’m working on it.’ On stage, as if in a state of trance, you can see his slender, muscular body rise up, as if possessed by a higher power, while a guttural, almost mystical song escapes from his inner being to accompany his flights of fancy on the piano.
#KEITH JARRETT TRANSCRIPTIONS FREE#
‘ You have to be black,’ free saxophonist Ornette Coleman once told him. Improvisation, he says, ‘ is like being inundated with possibilities that run through your body’.įrom Charles Lloyd to Miles Davis, his free play has fascinated the great names of jazz, who saw in the pianist’s afro and dark complexion one of their own, a brother of both sound and blood. If I tell it what to play I get in its way, and I’d stop it from doing something bigger than I could ever imagine,’ explained the man who started playing the piano at the age of 3 and gave his first solo recital at 8. ‘ It’s as if my body, my left hand, just knows what to do. It’s rather like a therapy session held in front of 1,300 people, where the unconscious takes over and dictates the soundtrack. Despite the dry-sounding set-up (a man, a piano, an audience) and an opening number that lasts for more than 26 minutes, The Köln Concert has fascinated millions of listeners as it captures a virtuoso’s meanderings between jazz, baroque, and sometimes even country.
![keith jarrett transcriptions keith jarrett transcriptions](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7C5ypIQToYw/maxresdefault.jpg)
If Herbie Hancock will be remembered for a few finely tuned hits (“Cantaloupe Island”, “Watermelon Man”, etc), Keith Jarrett will leave to posterity a totally improvised concert recorded at the age of 29 in a small Cologne hall on a winter’s evening in 1975, that have been divided into “Part I” and “Part II”.