Creation

Keith Jarrett

EN / DE

"Creation" features music selected by Keith Jarrett from his improvised solo concerts recorded in 2014 in Japan, Canada, and Europe. Where in the past the solo documentation has shown the improvisational process unfolding over the course of a single evening, this time Jarrett zeroes in on the most revelatory moments from six concerts in Tokyo, Toronto, Paris and Rome and shapes a new dramaturgy from the intuitive sequencing of the material. With this rewarding departure, Keith Jarrett gives us here the most up-to-the minute account of his spontaneously created music. (Creation is one of two releases issued on May 8th, Keith Jarrett’s 70th birthday, the second album being an ECM New Series recording of the pianist playing concertos of Samuel Barber and Béla Bartok).

Für "Creation" hat Keith Jarrett Musik aus seinen improvisierten Solokonzerten des Jahres 2014 in Japan, Kanada und Europa ausgewählt. Während seine Solo-Aufnahmen in der Vergangenheit zeigten, wie sich der Prozess der Improvisation im Verlauf jeweils eines einzelnen Abends entfaltete, greift sich Jarrett diesmal die aufschlussreichsten Momente aus sechs Konzerten in Tokio, Toronto, Paris und Rom heraus und gestaltet aus der Abfolge des Materials intuitiv eine neue Dramaturgie. Mit diesem fruchtbaren Ansatz vermittelt uns Keith Jarrett hier den neuesten Stand seines  spontanen Musikschaffens.
(Creation ist eine von zwei Veröffentlichungen, die am 8. Mai, Keith Jarretts 70. Geburtstag, erscheinen. Die zweite ist eine ECM New Series-Aufnahme, auf der der Pianist Konzerte von Samuel Barber und Béla Bartok spielt).
Featured Artists Recorded

April-July 2014

Original Release Date

08.05.2015

  • 1Creation, Part I, Toronto - Roy Thomson Hall, June 25, 2014
    (Keith Jarrett)
    08:17
  • 2Creation, Part II, Tokyo - Kioi Hall, May 9, 2014
    (Keith Jarrett)
    07:40
  • 3Creation, Part III, Paris - Salle Pleyel, July 4, 2014
    (Keith Jarrett)
    06:59
  • 4Creation, Part IV, Rome - Auditorium Parco della Musica, July 11, 2014
    (Keith Jarrett)
    07:33
  • 5Creation, Part V, Tokyo - Kioi Hall, May 9, 2014
    (Keith Jarrett)
    07:13
  • 6Creation, Part VI, Tokyo - Orchard Hall, May 6, 2014
    (Keith Jarrett)
    09:25
  • 7Creation, Part VII, Rome - Auditorium Parco della Musica, July 11, 2014
    (Keith Jarrett)
    08:17
  • 8Creation, Part VIII, Rome - Auditorium Parco della Musica, July 11, 2014
    (Keith Jarrett)
    08:36
  • 9Creation, Part IX, Tokyo - Orchard Hall, April 30, 2014
    (Keith Jarrett)
    08:30
Jarrett has taken a different tack with ‘Creation’, in that it consists of nine discrete tracks, each roughly seven to nine minutes in length, culled from concerts that he gave in Toronto, Tokyo, Paris and Rome last year. With his many previous live solo piano recordings, Jarrett presented full concerts or at least significant chunks to represent the course of entire evenings of music, down to the tumults of applause between each improvised selection. While  ‘Creation’ (which is applause-free) is not a ‘greatest hits’ selection from the 2014 Jarrett World Tour, it seems like Jarrett’s attempt to create a unified uber-concert that stresses his playing at its most lyrical. Slow, feelingful music abounds, striking the musical markers that Jarrett can claim as his own when it comes to solo piano playing. As usual, Jarrett sounds like the master of all that he surveys and summons, whether it’s the sombre hymnal passages that open the disc to the more jazz-based, richly harmonic, tender playing of the third track to the diatonic, heart-on-sleeve splendour of the fifth track.
Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
 
So konzentriert in der Struktur, so klar und fast grafisch konturiert hat man ihn in seinen Solo-Improvisationen selten gehört. […] Die bewusste Auswahl aus vier unabhängigen Konzerten ordnet sich zu einer Suite, die einmal mehr große Lust an der spontanen Gestaltung, aber auch an der retrospektiven Auslese und Bewertung verrät.
Wolf Kampmann, Jazzthing
 
Das Klangbild ist reich an faszinierenden Details: Vielfach ist – wie im sechsten Part – die singuläre Anschlagskultur des Pianisten zu bewundern. Sie bewirkt eine ausgewogene Balance zwischen sensibler und energischer Tongestaltung. Mit dem neunten Teil vollendet Keith Jarrett sein episches Werk, das einen weiteren Meilenstein im Schaffen des Künstlers bildet.
Gerd Filtgen, Fono Forum
 
The cognoscenti might be surprised at how Spartan much of this playing is, but with a rich dimensionality, such that notes sound as though they’re coming  from out of the shadows of others, advancing through the speakers with a depth of field more associated with visual arts.
Colin Fleming, Jazztimes
 
Niemand außer ihm selbst weiß, welche existenziellen Erfahrungen zu der melancholischen Tiefe geführt haben, die etwa ‚Part V‘ auf ‚Creation‘ auszeichnet. Jarretts bedachtsamer, mit kleinen Zögerlichkeiten flirtender Anschlag hat immer noch Magie. Seine neuen Stücke sind allerdings keine Kraftakte des Geistes mehr, wie seine muskulösen Einspielungen in den Achtzigerjahren. Aus ihnen spricht viel eher eine wehe Seele von einer unbestimmten Sehnsucht nach Transzendenz. […] Faszinierend.
Samir H. Köck, Die Presse
 
His uplifting choices suggest he is in a spiritual mood. Each of the untitled nine pieces are created in the moment. Slow paced and lyrical, sometimes growing out of a simple vamp, the music nevertheless dissipates like smoke. With all the emphasis on gently ebbing, flowing harmonic/melodic ideas, there’s no resolution: you’re left with a sense that something profound has just happened.
Gary Booth, BBC Music Magazine
 
He allows us here to take better note of his profound simplicity, his gift for brushing the clutter aside and conjuring complete works – or sketches of what could become written pieces – in real time. And so Jarrett brings us once more up to that naked flame. There road there is much more familiar than it one was, but this time it’s getting there that makes this feel complete.
Bob Doerschuk, DownBeat
 
These excerpts, despite their different origins, sound like a nine-part suite. All of the music is thoughtful and taken at a slow tempo. Some of the movements are darker than others while some are quite dramatic. Jarrett puts plenty of feeling into these improvs and one excerpt leads logically to the next one. […] the results are a thoughtful and thought-provoking set of lyrical music.
Scott Yanow, Los Angeles Jazz Scene
 
Sieben- bis zehnminütige Kostproben, nachdenkliche, eigenwillige Fantasien. Es sind Ausschnitte aus improvisierten Konzerten von 2014 - fast meditative Abläufe, in denen sich die Gedanken des Solisten auf besondere Weise verdichten, hin- und hergewendet werden bei wechselnder Beleuchtung, lyrisch, geduldig, neugierig, aber auch auf eine fast verbohrte, störrische, grüblerische Weise und mit mancher Nähe zu Beethoven und Dvořák und den Gesten eines guten Popsongs. Das mag kein Jazz sein, aber es kommt aus dem innersten Impuls aller Improvisation: der romantischen Suche nach einer unbekannten Lichtung, einem unvermuteten Durchbruch. Ob man’s in kleinen oder großen Portionen hört: bewegend und wunderschön.
Hans-Jürgen Schaal, Kultkomplott.de
 
The great thing about this album […] is that it feels like a single solo work, albeit with brief silences between pieces. Jarrett appears to be giving you 73 minutes of contracted jazz in his own unique manner. [] Jarrett explores a scene of beauty and wonder with this CD which becomes more ethereal and thoughtful as it moves towards its conclusion. Music to get lost in.
Paul Rigby, AudiophileMan
"Creation" signals a departure from the ‘traditions’ of Keith Jarrett’s many ECM recordings of solo improvised piano. Earlier concert recordings have reflected the flow of musical ideas and inspirations as developed in the course of an evening (as on The Köln Concert, Paris Concert, Vienna Concert, Rio etc) or several evenings (Bremen-Lausanne, Sun Bear Concerts, Testament etc.)  Creation - drawn from concert recordings made in Japan, Canada and Europe in 2014 - is different.

After reviewing all the music from his 2014 performances, Keith Jarrett honed in on the most revelatory episodes from six concerts in Toronto, Tokyo, Paris and Rome and sequenced them, effectively creating a new concert, a new suite of pieces with its own inner logic and momentum. The concept opens up fresh possibilities, extending the improviser’s art to include an intuitive reassembling of material. The resultant album is perhaps the most strongly lyrical of Jarrett’s recent solo releases, the choice of music emphasizing pieces in which there is a sense of song being born, voices striving to be heard. Creation also offers the most up-to-the minute account of Jarrett’s uncanny capacity to construct compelling music in real-time:  his melodic-harmonic imagination as an improviser and his ability to consistently find and shape new forms remain, after all these years of solo concerts, remarkable.  

The album begins with music from Toronto. Paul Wells of Canadian national news magazine Maclean’s, reviewed the concert at the Roy Thomson Hall, concluding that “Jarrett matters because he possesses the improviser’s secret to greater degree than almost anyone. He can spin melody and logic, structure and surprise, richly and indefinitely.”

Three of the improvised pieces sequenced here - Part IV, Part VII and Part VIII -   are from a concert Jarrett gave at Rome’s Auditorium Parco della Musica  on July 11, 2014.  Jarrett returns to Italy on May 18, to play a solo concert at Teatro San Carlo in Naples.

On May 22 he performs at the KKL Hall in Lucerne, Switzerland.