ECM: Keith Jarrett plays Barber

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. With this departure, Keith Jarrett gives us here the most up-to-the minute account of his spontaneously created music. ECM Player

For much of the 1980s, Keith Jarrett balanced his improvisational activities with performances of classical music and contemporary composition. On this disc, with concert recordings from 1984 and 1985, he is heard playing Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto op. 38 and Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and rising to the challenges of these major works. The New York Times praised Jarrett’s playing of the Barber with Dennis Russell Davies in this period (“a sinewy, vigorously lyrical performance … both sensitive and strong”), and the Bartók with Kazuyoshi Akiyama was most enthusiastically received in Japan. After the Tokyo Bartók performance Jarrett returned alone to the stage of the Kan-i Hoken Hall to play a touching improvised encore, also documented on this recording. The album includes liner notes by Keith Jarrett and Paul Griffiths. ECM Player