Budapest Concert

Keith Jarrett

Budapest ConcertBudapest Concert
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Release date: 30.10.2020 ECM 2700/01
2-CD23,00 €add to cart2-LP34,90 €add to cart
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The second complete show to be issued from Keith Jarrett’s 2016 European tour – following on from the widely-acclaimed concert released as Munich 2016 – this double album documents the pianist’s solo performance at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in Budapest. Jarrett, whose family roots reach back to Hungary, viewed the Budapest concert as akin to a homecoming, and the context inspired much creative improvisation. Where Jarrett’s early solo concerts shaped a large arc of music over the course of an evening, the later concerts have generated suite-like structures, comprised of independent “movements”, each of them a marvel of spontaneous resourcefulness. Creative energy is applied also to familiar songs given as encores, “It’s A Lonesome Old Town” and “Answer Me”, transformed in the Budapest concert.
Das vorliegende Doppelalbum dokumentiert das Solokonzert des Pianisten in der Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in Budapest und ist nach dem vielbeachteten Konzert in München (Munich 2016, ECM 2667-68) die zweite Liveaufnahme aus seiner Europatournee von 2016.
Jarrett, dessen familiäre Wurzeln bis nach Ungarn zurückreichen, betrachtete das Konzert in Budapest als eine Art „Heimkehr“ - ein Umstand, der seine Kreativität an diesem Abend besonders beflügelt haben mag.
Während Jarretts frühe Solokonzerte im Laufe eines Abends einen großen musikalischen Bogen spannen, sind seine jüngeren Konzerte von eher suitenartigem Charakter geprägt. Seien es subtil gesponnene Tongebilde, polyrhythmische Studien, Bluesanklänge oder die Standards, die er als Zugaben spielt – das Budapester Konzert verdeutlicht einmal mehr die schier grenzenlose Spiellust und stilistische Bandbreite des Pianisten und seine einzigartige Fähigkeit, aus dem Moment zu schöpfen.
Featured Artists Recorded

July 2016, Béla Bartók Concert Hall, Budapest

  • CD 1
  • 1Budapest Concert, Part I
    (Keith Jarrett)    14:42
  • 2Budapest Concert, Part II
    (Keith Jarrett)    06:54
  • 3Budapest Concert, Part III
    (Keith Jarrett)    08:10
  • 4Budapest Concert, Part IV
    (Keith Jarrett)    07:35
  • CD 2
  • 1Budapest Concert, Part V
    (Keith Jarrett)    05:13
  • 2Budapest Concert, Part VI
    (Keith Jarrett)    03:52
  • 3Budapest Concert, Part VII
    (Keith Jarrett)    05:45
  • 4Budapest Concert, Part VIII
    (Keith Jarrett)    05:35
  • 5Budapest Concert, Part IX
    (Keith Jarrett)    02:42
  • 6Budapest Concert, Part X
    (Keith Jarrett)    08:40
  • 7Budapest Concert, Part XI
    (Keith Jarrett)    05:54
  • 8Budapest Concert, Part XII - Blues
    (Keith Jarrett)    04:04
  • 9It's A Lonesome Old Town
    (Charles Kisco, Harry Tobias)    08:01
  • 10Answer Me
    (Fred Rauch, Gerhard Winkler)    04:55
Depuis le ‘Köln Concert’ de 1975, les traversées en solitaire et en public ponctuent en effet de tout leur lyrisme une discographie jouant avec la notion de répertoire et d’improvisation. Scindée en deux parties bien distinctes, la prestation de ce soir d’été 2016 au Béla Bartók Concert Hall de Budapest étonne et transporte. D’un magma sonore sans architecture précise mais à la vie bouillonnante émerge un déluge d’invention mélodique, pourtant sans thème mais incantatoire, sobre et lumineuse. D’une beauté aussi insaisissable que souvent bouleversante.
Bruno Guermonprez, Le Figaro Magazine
Budapest Concert is the second complete show to be issued from Keith Jarrett’s 2016 European tour, recorded two weeks earlier than the widely-acclaimed concert released as Munich 2016. The new double album documents the pianist’s solo performance at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in Budapest. Jarrett, whose family roots reach back to Hungary, viewed the concert as akin to a homecoming – also with regard to his lifelong affection for Bartók, as he explained to the audience - and the context inspired much creative improvisation.
 
Where Jarrett’s early solo concerts shaped a large arc of music over the course of an evening, his later performances, particularly since the Radiance album, have generated suite-like structures, comprised of independent “movements”, each of them a marvel of spontaneous resourcefulness. Reviewing Munich 2016 in London’s Financial Times, Mike Hobart suggested that “the early recitals mixed classical musings, populist references and jazz spontaneity into extended streams of invention, but later recitals separated the strands.” If the process of improvisation was once the subject of the concerts, it could be said that Jarrett’s 21st century solo concerts are less about seeking than finding. There is nothing tentative about the music making on display here: its sense of assurance is among its striking characteristics - whether a ballad, a polyrhythmic study, a tone poem or an essay on the blues is being shaped in the moment.
 
“His magnetism for the audience must come from his polygenre attitude,” wrote Gábor Bóta on Hungary’s Népsava news site. “Jarrett consumes all genres, from light to serious, and makes them his own. Since the entire performance is improvised, we witness the music being birthed right in front of us…One feels that he just sniffs the air, catches a moment’s feeling, clicks his fingers, squints his eyes and there we have it: the right notes, the right melodies, a completely unique performance.”
 
Creative energy is also applied to more familiar songs given as encores, and “It’s A Lonesome Old Town” and a particularly rhapsodic “Answer Me” are transformed in Budapest.
 
Lately, Keith Jarrett has been saying that he views Budapest Concert as his current “gold standard”, the reference work against which other solo recordings might be measured. Whether heard as a late high point in an unprecedented musical journey or enjoyed entirely on its own terms, it is a remarkable achievement.

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