Concert Preview
Riffing with jazz pianist Keith Jarrett

By Marius Nordal
Special to The Seattle Times

	Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett will perform at Benaroya Hall Friday night.
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It was during these concerts that he began to explore every possible way to extract different sounds from the piano, including plucking the strings in a harp-like fashion and slapping on the wood with the palms of his hands as if it were a conga drum. His 1975 solo recording, "The Koln Concert," drew millions of new fans for Jarrett and is still regarded as a musical milestone from that era.

In 1983, he formed his Standards Trio and is currently spending all of his time touring with it, exploring the Great American Songbook.

Concert preview Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette, 8 p.m. Friday, Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle, $29-$75 (206-547-9787, www.earshot.org.

< p>Starting in the 1990s, he expanded his musical horizons even more by releasing a series of acclaimed classical recordings, which include Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier" and "Goldberg" Variations, several Mozart piano concertos and the daunting Shostakovich Preludes.

Since it's doubtful that very many full-time classical players, let alone jazz players, have learned this much European music, I opened our conversation by asking how he felt about the experience.

Q: You have been described as a musical ecstatic. Can you achieve this state while playing classical music like you can in jazz?

A: Classical music is kind of barren in that respect. I don't think classical players are changed by the music they play. First of all, the music is already old, and even if it's new, it's old. Somebody has been poring over it, rewriting it, erasing it — by the time the music is rehearsed and played, it represents a time that is gone.

As a jazz player, you're asked to do the opposite. You're asked to be emotionally fluid, like a liquid, and that's what we are anyway — we're 98 percent liquid. Because of that, a jazz player can get life-affirming or life-changing experiences that a classical player cannot.

"Today for me, the trio is a little island in a vast, barren place, and on this island, there is still vegetation. On any night, just before we're about to play a concert, I still feel the pressures of the world. But when we go out to play, it's almost a guarantee that the island is still there." — Keith Jarrett, Jazz pianist

I have never seen a classical player who's happy. Usually they talk so fast that it's hard for me to believe that there's any part of them that's relaxed! I personally think that the stress of learning and interpreting that music is greater than the rewards.

Q: You've expressed a distaste for electric instruments. Yet, ever since the voice ceased to be the only instrument, we've come to rely on a whole factory of machines to produce musical sounds. Certainly your instrument, the piano, is probably the biggest, most unwieldy device of all. How do you determine the line that separates an "acceptable" machine from one that is not?

A: The line is, when the string is touched or the air moves through the instrument, does the sound go directly into the air at that point? Is the sound a direct product of the human touch? To cite an example — on the harpsichord, there was no way to control the volume. The reason the piano was developed was so the player had the option of hitting the keys with more or less force to change the volume.

In other words, the player would have more physical input, not less. This is the opposite of what a volume control on a synthesizer does to a player. On the piano, you use more muscles in different ways to create a sort of full-body interaction with the music. On synthesizers, where touch-sensitive keys are largely replaced by simple volume sliders or pedals, it would probably be better if you just hung your arms from a wire, like a linear-tracking turntable, and just played with your fingertips! (He laughs.)

	Keith Jarrett with drummer Jack DeJohnette, left, and bassist Gary Peacock.

Q: I've felt that out of the three great jazz pianists of your generation — I'm referring to you, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea — that the other two really dropped the ball because they got hung up on synthesizers. You're the only one who followed through with the piano.

A: Well, I learned from their mistakes. I had the experience they ended up having on synthesizers, but I noticed it earlier. When we first toy around with something new, especially guys — us toy guys — it's always momentarily fascinating. It's like 'Wow, an electric piano!' So you go and play it, and the sooner you recognize the bad effect it will have on your hands, the less likely it is that you're going to sell your soul to the wrong dealer.

Even when I played electric piano with Miles Davis, my brain was trying to say it was OK, even though it wasn't, and that could have been like a toxin working on my body. So, I soon left because it was clear to me that the moment I touched an electric piano, that it was a toy, not a real instrument.

Q: You grew up in the 1960s during all of the social upheaval and even participated in some of the musical changes when you were with Miles Davis and (saxophonist) Charles Lloyd. Do you feel any irony, or perhaps like you're in a time warp, because you are now revisiting the "Great American Songbook"?

A: When the trio started in 1983, it was a radical idea to play standard tunes — almost no one was doing it anymore. When you made a recording with a band, there was an unspoken message that it had to be new music.

At dinner, the night before our first trio recording session, (bassist) Gary Peacock had been assuming that we would play new music. When I said that I wanted to do standards, his mouth dropped open and he looked like he had suffered a loss of hearing — he couldn't figure out why I would want to do something like that. So, there's really nothing that's new or radical, it just depends on the context in which it's presented.

Also, if you think about what I did before 1983 (during the avant-garde jazz era), it's apparent that one thing that I didn't get to do was swing! I loved the avant-garde, but there was one unspoken thing about it — you weren't supposed to swing very often. That's the problem with labeling something, you close off some possibilities. Free-form jazz players thought they were breaking away from musical restraints, but how really "free" were they when, by tacit agreement, they were not allowed to swing?

One night, not long ago, we finished playing a set and were coming off the stage when Gary Peacock made the sign of the cross at me and said, 'Don't come any closer!' I asked what he was talking about and he said, 'Once, when I was with Miles Davis, I thought I'd played music that swung as hard as anything I'd ever heard — but we just beat that by light-years!' (Laughs.)

So, in the Standards Trio, we come to the music as open-minded players, not as nostalgic refiners of some old arrangement or style. So that truly gives us the same freedom as if we were playing free jazz.

Also, nostalgia is another reason I don't do solo concerts any more. When you walk on stage with a totally empty mind preparing to improvise all new music, the audience's input is extremely important. If they're there to experience the nostalgia of my 1970 concerts, it might come off like one of those Peter, Paul & Mary reunions you see on PBS television! (Laughs.)

Q: There is a perception that you are temperamental or touchy, because you might get irritated when someone in the audience coughs. Yet, another perception comes when one listens to your music, which is often deeply serene and profound and emotionally mature. Do you feel you're misunderstood?

A: Oh, sure — to the point where it's hilarious now. How many decades does it take for people to finally decide 'maybe he's gotta do these things.' (Laughs). The thing about being seen as difficult is that, it's all relative. I've been considered difficult only because I wanted a good piano, and no one else in jazz ever asked for one! At one point, I was wearing enough musical hats where, because I didn't need the bread, I didn't have to worry anymore about playing every single night. So I started thinking, 'What do I need? What improvements are necessary to deliver to the audience the things that I do, and in the best possible light?' And the audiences, almost without exception, were offended when I gave them that information (laughs).

I once played a solo concert at the Oberlin Conservatory. After the sound check I decided that I was going to have to make an announcement during the concert about this bad piano they provided. I thought, if this is the instrument people come through here and play on, the students, who are sitting here listening and paying money to the school, should know that the school needs a good piano.

So I got nothing but flak because I mentioned it. My reputation came from the fact that I was trying to correct things that would be getting in the way of what the audience came to hear.

Q: Some of your improvised works turned out to be masterpieces. I know that there are concert pianists who would love to program some of those. Have you considered having them transcribed and published?

A: Well, "The Koln Concert" does exist in printed form. Putting it all together was an ordeal that I wouldn't want to go through again soon. The guy who did the transcription was amazing, but I had to spend all of my time at one point overseeing the whole project.

Sometimes we couldn't even get close to the reality of the music because there would be floating rhythms or "ghosted" notes in the middle of an improvisation. I had endless back and forth conferences with the transcriber because, sometimes, there might be no time signature, or if there was, it was wrong. I mean, how does one use a clunky, old European notation system to portray emotional states?

In the end, we printed a caveat at the beginning of the book saying 'If you really want to know what this is, you're going to have to listen to the record.' Anyway, ever since the book came out, I haven't gotten quite as many requests to do that kind of project again. (Laughs.)

Q: In the 1970s, your solo concerts had a very strong cultural resonance. But now, we're in a different era, surrounded by format-oriented, pop-music radio stations and a new generation of jazz players who seem capable of only looking backward. Have your audiences changed much over the 30 years?

A: Recently, since I narrowed my focus down to just playing with the trio, we've had the best audiences in sequence — that is, concert after concert — that we've ever had. I can only guess that there's hunger for good things out there ... maybe even more than in the 1970s. As you implied in your question, there are things going on in the world that make it more difficult for musicians today. One wonders if music is even important anymore, and that is a question that a musician in the 1960s or '70s would not wonder about.

Today for me, the trio is a little island in a vast, barren place, and on this island, there is still vegetation. On any night, just before we're about to play a concert, I still feel the pressures of the world. But when we go out to play, it's almost a guarantee that the island is still there. That's our job — the job of taking care of the vegetation on that island.

Marius Nordal: sjblancher@aol.com.

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