Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 20, 1995 TAG: 9510200002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES J. GANS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The pianist spends most of the year at his home in rural northern New Jersey, where he has created a self-contained world conducive to the physical and mental demands of his art.
Jarrett, who turned 50 in May and remains one of the most influential pianists of his generation, sifts through 200 to 300 offers a year from around the world to perform solo concerts, classical recitals or with his Standards jazz trio featuring drummer Jack DeJohnette and bassist Gary Peacock.
But for the past decade or so, he has limited himself to 10 to 20 appearances a year. In February, for example, he became the first improvising musician to perform at La Scala, the legendary opera house in Milan, Italy.
For Jarrett, experiences away from his instrument are a key part of the creative process.
``I think that musicians who are interested in being creative actually should play less,'' he said. ``One of the keys to the trio is that we do not play too much together. We always leave a tour with a new high, and our next tour is far enough away that by the time we play again we're very, very curious.''
Jarrett's group plays standard songs by the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, and Hoagy Carmichael, among others, as well as jazz classics by such musicians as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins. There are also some Jarrett originals.
This month the trio is making its first U.S. tour in eight years - playing seven concerts over three weeks - that began Oct. 7 at New York's Carnegie Hall and ends in Boston on Oct. 27.
The tour coincides with the release of the six-CD box ``Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note: The Complete Recordings'' on ECM, documenting the trio's entire sold-out engagement at the New York jazz club in June 1994 - its first club date since 1983, shortly after the group was formed.
ECM also has released a single CD of the trio's 26-minute version of ``Autumn Leaves,'' which typifies the freshness and imagination with which they imbue even the most familiar evergreens.
``We don't have any arrangements ever,'' Jarrett said. ``One of the great things about doing this material is that nothing has to be decided. We all know the songs. ... What you're hearing even on ballads is the ferocious desire to connect with the music.''
For almost any other jazz musician, such a six-CD release would be unprecedented. But Jarrett's lengthy discography includes the six-CD solo piano ``Sun Bear Concerts,'' recorded in Japan in 1976. That has led to criticism that Jarrett again is being self-indulgent.
``They almost always release stuff after people die. I want to see this while I am alive ... to have a chance to see what listeners hear,'' he said.
Although there was no notion in advance to release all six sets on disc, remarkably there are only three duplications of tunes among the 38 tracks. The selections include Charlie Parker's ``Now's the Time,'' Frank Loesser's ``If I Were a Bell,'' Thelonious Monk's ``Straight, No Chaser'' and Irving Berlin's ``How Deep Is the Ocean.''
During a three-hour conversation on the screened-in front porch of his farmhouse, Jarrett carefully chose his words, animatedly using his hands to emphasize a point.
``When I first came here 23 years ago, I would say I might have been a critic of the so-called accepted norms in music and in the society,'' Jarrett said. ``But I think it's only gotten worse. For me to be here means I can have some distance from much of the world that I disagree with. In other words, I don't have to be in an elevator listening to piped-in music as often.''
But despite the relative isolation, Jarrett has by no means shrunk from the world. He has published scathing commentaries, writing in a 1992 New York Times opinion piece that ``the original musician ain't got a chance'' in an increasingly commercialized music industry. He likened New Age music to ``Jell-O,'' called world music ``a hoax'' and took to task ``young neo-pseudo-be-boppists fresh from the convention.''
And he has backed up his words with his output. In the past two years, he has released recordings of Handel's ``Suites for Keyboard''; ``Bridge of Light,'' featuring his own romantically inspired symphonic works; and trio recordings, including ``Bye Bye Blackbird,'' a tribute to Miles Davis, with whom all three trio members once worked, and ``Live at the Deer Head Inn,'' a return to the Poconos jazz club where he played one of his first jazz gigs after graduating from high school in Allentown, Pa. Drummer Paul Motian filled in for DeJohnette on that session.
Jarrett lives on the farm with his second wife, Rose Anne. The only background noise is the wind rustling through the trees, and the birds. Jarrett's house is at the end of a private road near a lake, the only passers-by his three cats.
For Jarrett, silence is important to the creative process - he needs a blank canvas on which to improvise. ``Sonic ideas don't spring up out of noise,'' said the pianist, dressed casually in blue jeans and a green plaid shirt.
Inside his remodeled 19th-century farmhouse, he has an exercise treadmill and a sauna. His body is muscular and wiry, with no hint of middle-age paunch. He believes in good nutrition for the mind and body - no fast food or mind-altering substances. Jarrett needs to be in shape for his concerts. He will twist his body over the keyboard, work up a sweat, and hum, grunt and moan.
Some purists find the noises he makes unnerving, and to them, Jarrett advises: ``If it bothers them so much, just don't buy it. Listen to old Bud Powell albums instead.''
Just a short walk from the main house, in a converted garage, is Jarrett's airy studio. The walls are decorated with concert posters and covers from some of the 45 albums he has recorded. There is a platinum disc for his 1975 solo piano recording, ``The Koln Concert,'' which has sold nearly 1.5 million copies.
Dominating the room are two Steinway grand pianos - an American and a German model that differ in touch and feel - which Jarrett will work on depending on where he will be performing. On a music stand are scores for three Mozart piano concertos he is preparing for recording. There are also two custom-made harpsichords - an instrument Jarrett used for some Bach recordings. In one corner, there is a drum kit - as a youngster, some of his first jazz gigs were as a drummer.
A child prodigy, Jarrett began piano lessons at the age of 3. At age 15, he began formal composition studies, but turned down an opportunity to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Instead, he opted for jazz, briefly attended the Berklee School of Music in Boston, and in the mid-1960s began touring with drummer Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and saxophonist Charles Lloyd's popular quartet, where he first teamed up with DeJohnette.
His final stint as an accompanist came with Miles Davis in 1970-71; since then, he has led his own groups.
``I wanted to be making the music,'' he explains about his choice at the time. ``I had an impulse to create the music at the moment, so jazz was the only form of music that allowed you to.''
But starting in the 1980s, Jarrett has made a foray into the classical world.
``It isn't so much that I wanted to become a classical player,'' he said. ``It's that there was certain music in the classical world that I felt very close to and felt that there was still more to do with, even though there might be lots of recordings.''
Jarrett's classical recordings range from the Baroque composers to the 20th-century Russian Dmitri Shostakovich.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB