Keith Jarrett - Radiance (2005) [2CD]
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It's Keith Jarrett's 60th birthday on May 8, and ECM is marking a landmark in the life of an inspirational, fitfully indulgent, awesomely prolific musical giant with this double-disc recorded at two concerts in Japan in 2002. It's the first album of solo piano improvisations that Jarrett has released since La Scala in 1995, a set that just preceded his long withdrawal from the scene through illness. But for a special date in his life, solo improvisation is maybe the appropriate gesture - it was a solo album, the bestselling Köln Concert of 1974, that first brought Jarrett recognition outside of jazz circles.

Since the recovery of his health and his return to playing, Jarrett has reportedly been unsure of his continuing capacity to hold an entire show on his own, but there's such a lot of music in this suite-shaped but highly abstract performance that his doubts must have been laid to rest by it. Middle years have brought a more explicit commitment to unpremeditated improvisation, which Jarrett has been exploring extensively lately with his Standards Trio - an interesting test of loyalties for those of his fans who first fell in love with the pianist's music for its catchy playfulness with pop and country-tinged melodies.

This set is full of fascinating references, with Jarrett visiting dark, percussive labyrinths of sound like a less ferocious Cecil Taylor, a raindrop tone-poetry of spacey melodies slowly spreading out of slow chord-movements. But it has to be acknowledged that Jarrett has sometimes found his own reveries more absorbing than is evident from outside his head - and there's quite a lot of that here.

Listeners to Jarrett's standards-based music should bear in mind that some 20 minutes of the first disc passes before anything resembling a hook appears, and though the third track touches on Jarrett's early Bill Evans affections, and the eighth has a solemnly sumptuous ballad melody, much of the first disc is very private and reflective. The first time you hear a whoop from the audience is after track two of the second disc's short, fizzing freebopper, and the following flinty, incisive theme development over a classic Jarrett driving left-hand vamp. You constantly witness the intense, majestic dance of all the music that Jarrett has been through over the years. But it takes some close listening to do it justice.

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Tracklist:
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CD 1
1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9

CD 2
1. Part 10
2. Part 11
3. Part 12
4. Part 13
5. Part 14
6. Part 15
7. Part 16
8. Part 17

*ECM 1960/61

Recorded live Part 1 – 13 Osaka, October 27, 2002, Part 14 – 17 Tokyo, October 30, 2002


Personnel:
Keith Jarrett, piano


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