"But in Rio, it's as you say, much more positive, and much more hopeful, and much more joyful," Jarrett says. Now, he is engaged again - and in Rio de Janeiro, the relationship was still new. It doesn't feel good, but if you're an improviser, you wonder, 'What will I play now?' So for a while, the curiosity of your new situation creates the music." "Whenever a change happens in a person's life - especially a large change, and especially an unpredictable one, like your spouse leaving or something - if you're an artist, you can use that," Jarrett says. He speaks of the experience as an influence on his music at the time. Three years ago, Jarrett went through a divorce from his wife of 30 years. But what can you do worse than that if you're dancing? The same with this." "Like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance: She falls over it's her worst nightmare come true. "But you have to be ready to fall on your face - flat on your face - and have failed miserably," he says. It's a liberating experience, he acknowledges, to play solo. So that made me free of something, I think." It wasn't Holland, or Germany, or the States, or Japan - it was south of the equator. "It was obvious when I listened to the CD that I was connecting to the culture. "I get to the place, I try to absorb the culture that I'm in, listen to the language, think about where I am, and that's about the only preparation that might be important," Jarrett says. Jarrett says it's comparable to an "out-of-body experience." But he does try to get a feel for his setting before the show itself. Music Jazz Pianist Keith Jarrett On Fresh Air I myself feel skeptical, even though I know they were." And I know a lot of people probably are skeptical about whether they really are always improvised. What actually happens is so much in the moment, so much of a nanosecond. "I have no idea, moment to moment, how to prepare for these things, either. Jarrett says he has no particular preparation routine for a completely unscripted performance like this. He says the result, now available on the album Rio, was some of the best music he's ever produced in a career spanning almost 50 years.Īll Things Considered host Guy Raz recently spoke with Jarrett about that night and this recording. At one point, he had an offer to study classical composition in Paris with the famed teacher Nadia Boulanger – an opportunity that pleased Keith Jarrett's mother but that Jarrett, already leaning toward jazz, decided to turn down.On April 9 of this year, the jazz pianist Keith Jarrett sat alone on the stage of an old opera house in Rio de Janeiro, his only company a piano - an American Steinway he described as "not perfect at all."įor nearly two hours, Jarrett played - as he often does - without any idea of what was coming next. In his early teens, he developed a strong interest in the contemporary jazz scene a Dave Brubeck performance was an early inspiration. In Keuth Jarrett teens, as a student at Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, Jarrett learned jazz and quickly became proficient in it. Encouraged especially by his mother, Keith Jarrett took intensive classical piano lessons with a series of teachers, including Eleanor Sokoloff of the Curtis Institute. Keith Jarrett gave his first formal piano recital at the age of seven, playing works by composers including Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Saint-Saëns, and ending with two of his own compositions. He began piano lessons just before his third birthday, and at age five he appeared on a TV talent program hosted by the swing bandleader Paul Whiteman. Keith Jarrett possesses absolute pitch, and he displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He grew up in suburban Allentown with significant early exposure to music. Keith Jarrett was born Pennsylvania to a mother of Austrian and Hungarian descent and a father of either French or Scotch-Irish descent. If you like this plays you can listen similar transcriptions of Brad Mehldau, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck and Hiromi Uehara, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson.
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