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America’s Got Talent
15 Jul2008
CONCLUSION (excerpt)
Keith Jarrett
The Survivors’ Suite
ECM : 1977
KJ, piano, bass clarinet; Dewey Reman; tenor sax, percussion; Charlie Haden, bass; Paul Motian, drums.
Maybe if we had Keith Jarrett’s talent we’d be regularly throwing full-on crispies at other bloggers, or at our commenters for their weak-ass contributions and lo-grade lurking (love you, commenters and lurkers!). Maybe we would consider that it is simply a tremendous privilege for you to read us, and fuck all the haters, wannabes, and cameramen. Hard to say, what without that talent and all.
Jarrett strikes us as something like a modern-day Art Tatum, someone who’s skill and pianistic genius sometimes outweighs his ability to figure out where to put it all (or, in Jarrett’s case alone, how to deal with those that don’t immediately share his appreciation for his own genius). This is most glaring on the solo sides. But when paired with equally talented sidemen, as in the Standards Trio (Peacock, DeJohnette) or especially in the American Quartet, with Redman, Haden, and Motian, his tendencies toward excess — and excessive beauty — are held in check and he becomes fully integrated into THE BAND. And here: what a great band.
Survivors’ Suite is an out-of-print ECM gem recorded live in West Germany (giving some resonance to the title) in April 1976. While very much a cohesive whole — each side is a track, “Beginning” and “Conclusion” — the Suite has lyrical moments and more open-ended explorations. We’ve elected to highlight a little of each, from the beginning of “Conclusion.”
The opening few minutes are among the most thrilling the band ever threw down, a series of colliding and interlocking riffs that’s both funky and indeterminate, swervingly off-kilter and masterfully assured, threatening to jump the rails but purely by design. Motian uncorks a propulsive drum solo and afterwards you’ll be forgiven for wondering if a different band has taken the stage. Jarrett unfurls a placid and crystalline melody as if suddenly remembering, whoops, this is an ECM album. This lovely section is easy on the ears, but the band subtly subverts it as well, finding odd tonal hints of dissonance and off rhythmic accents. They’re showing they can have it both ways, all ways, any ways. And damn if they aren’t just about right.
Oh, and here’s how to turn a tirade into lemonade: deliciously refreshing.
- In: Keith Jarrett
12 Responses to America’s Got Talent
ledrew
July 16th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Hat tip to DJA for spotting (and re-spotting) our personnel glitch on the Standards Trio.
djjord
July 16th, 2008 at 9:54 am
it is still available digitally from Amazon, iTunes etc.
Alex
July 17th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Ooh…dunno about the Tatum thing! I would defend his music to the hilt, and personally speaking, his music hits me far, far before and much, much more than his technique (which – granted – is totally mindblowing: I think only Cecil Taylor has anything like Tatum’s facility with the instrument). Tatum is THE master of our instrument!
I actually really like Jarrett on the opening gesture of this track, but I’d say that from a bird’s-eye view, the track is something of a microcosm of KJ’s career – devolving into that neo-con, self-consciously hip, facile, ultimately self-indulgent ‘thing’ he does. [I think he does something sinister to his bands too...how can DeJohnette in particular be made to sound so staid by the standards trio? Similarly, Motian and Haden for me towards the end of this...]
Sorry – rant over! ;)
Wally Mason
July 19th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
One of the most appealing things about your posts is that I am forced to dig into the collection. Then re-listen, re-evaluate and savor again music that I have taken for granted. As I listen now to my copy of Survivor’s Suite I am again overwhelmed and forced to write to thank you for bringing this recording back into my awareness!
Karl Walters
July 21st, 2008 at 1:53 pm
In response to Alex’s comment: “the track is something of a microcosm of KJ?s career – devolving into that neo-con, self-consciously hip, facile, ultimately self-indulgent ?thing? he does”
Perhaps the opening section, the devolving interplay between piano and drums, feels self-indulgent upon first listen. Particularly when heard in relation to the fairly straight-ahead changes and solos of the subsequent section, the opening out section can leave a bad (or at least questionable) taste in the listener’s ear.
But what makes this piece great is the backwards nature of the form. Unlike most pieces that begin with a theme that is progressively developed (harmonically, melodically, and/or rhythmically), this piece begins with the deconstruction. Like the chemical components in the primeval ooze hinting at their destined cohesion before their transformation into life, this piece’s initial descent and ascent into and out of formlessness gives it the arc of a life’s move away from adolescence and into maturity. Hence the opening section becomes more comprehensible and necessary upon multiple listens.
Massimo Magee
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:56 am
“Perhaps the opening section, the devolving interplay between piano and drums, feels self-indulgent upon first listen.”
I don’t think it was the opening section that was being labeled as self-indulgent, but the later section (that’s certainly how I heard it anyway) The opening is great, it really feels like there’s some genuine soul being put forward by the musicians (of course Dewey Redman helps with that in a big way), but then it devolves into limp ‘self-consciously hip’ [definitely] cocktail stuff. That may sound harsh or misguided but that’s the way it came across to this listener
Alex
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:35 am
Massimo – yes, you’re right – that’s exactly how I meant it! I really quite enjoy that opening section…it’s where it goes from there that I’m considerably less keen on…
Karl – I take the point about the form being ‘backwards’, but only I think by very conventional standards…order emerging from ‘chaos’ (not the right word, but gives the gist) I would think of as a fairly standard formal device by the sixties, let alone 1977 – as when a blowout coheres into a theme, etc. etc.
Anyway – to be more positive – Redman sounds FANTASTIC throughout IMHO!
ledrew
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Excellent points, all, and while we tilt in the direction outlined by Alex in his posts as well, we should probably remind folks that the clip above is only an excerpt from a much longer piece, a suite, intended to be taken in in one sitting (we presume). It’s a bit out of context, and perhaps unfair to judge a morsel of a larger work…not that we don’t find the contrast jarring. But there is a wider arc being sketched here.
Massimo Magee
July 26th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Alex, I saw you playing with Jake and Roger Telford and Dominic Lash at the Red Rose in June last year, made quite an impression, good to see you again, even if only in a virtual sense
peter breslin
July 26th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Jarrett brings to mind Dickens…”the best of times/the worst of times.” Some of the finest adventures I’ve been exposed to are KJ’s doing…some of the most ridiculous crap I’ve had to endure, truly some of the worst that improvised music has to offer, spring from KJ’s spotty, touch and go catalog. Survivor’s Suite, for me, encapsulates these extremes, as Alex already mentioned. I have no quarrel whatsoever with Jarrett’s personality…that stuff falls in the “who cares?” category for me. (Though I suppose his own long time disdain for his brilliant Fender Rhodes work with Miles Davis circa Live/Evil did have me wondering for a while, although in the Electric Miles documentary, he’s more generous toward his own contribution and avoids ripping the band a new one, as he did in the PBS documentary). Anyway, KJ’s music itself is soaringly inspirational at times for me and mind bogglingly infuriating at others. When I first heard Survivor’s Suite, probably 1978 or so, it was one of the landmark recordings that got me despising ECM records. :-)
PB
Alex
July 29th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Hey Massimo –
Thank you – that’s really kind of you! Are you still in London?
Alex
Art
August 14th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Yeah, I’ve always loved the Quartet stuff and, after the original listen, been bored to tears with the solo and trio stuff.