A spiritual (?) journey (Part 2)

As I was saying, I'm a fan of the music of Keith Jarrett. Listening to his playing now, I find it difficult to imagine that I didn't fall in love with it straight away. Such is the sense of wonder it inspires in me. Such is the extent to which it moves me. Yes, I know some musicians grow on you. You're either not ready for them the first time you hear them, or you just need to allow time for them to grow on you. But it's different with Keith Jarrett. Today he moves me like no other musician I've heard before or since. Yet the first time I heard him I didn’t get it at all.

A few years ago when my brother Mark went to live overseas, he left me his extensive collection of Miles Davis CDs for safekeeping. He also left me a handful of CDs by other artists, among them Keith Jarrett's La Scala. I gave it a listen but it left no real impression on me.

I while later - I think it was Christmas time - we were up in Nelson where my father was living and someone put on The Melody at Night, With You. I thought it was beautiful. I still enjoy listening to it, although it's quite unlike most of Keith Jarrett's other recordings. It's very restrained (it was his first recording after a long period of enforced inactivity due to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and he used a specially adjusted piano as he had insufficient strength in his hands to play a normal piano). Some people rather disparagingly refer to it as "Jarrett lite". But it's a good CD for introducing people to the world of Keith Jarrett without fear of scaring them off with some of his "heavier" material. It certainly did the trick for me. Back in Christchurch, I bought my own copy of The Melody at Night, With You. I also gave La Scala another listen, and before long I was hooked.

What really sealed my fate was seeing Keith Jarrett perform with his trio on the Standards DVD. The performance is shocking in a way. All his eccentricities (the facial contortions, the vocalizing, the dancing while playing) are laid bare, but at the same time his passion, joy, and ecstasy are so plain to see. I knew that I was witnessing something special. It wasn't just great music; there was something more to it.

On just about every Keith Jarrett recording I own, whether it be solo, trio, or quartet, there are certain passages that are so beautiful they almost bring me to tears. My reaction is more or less the same every time I listen to them. There are also moments of ecstasy, of rapture. I'd never experienced this while listening to music before, and I remember telling someone once that listening to Keith Jarrett changed the way I listen to all music, changed the way the sound enters my ears. How can someone's piano playing have such an effect? In an effort to answer this question, I started reading about Keith Jarrett and his approach to music.

(To be continued...)