Keith Jarrett Hits the High Note: Review
by Claudia Zanella

It might have passed unnoticed to some of you that on the 17th of February the jazz piano player Keith Jarrett performed his improvisations in Chicago. The artist, who is by many regarded as a genius and by all one of the most influential jazz musicians, had not been in Chicago since 1985. More than a concert "Improvisations for Solo Piano" was an event.

I had the luck to be there and to live a magic night of music. It was so mesmerizing that I'd like to share it with all of you who already know Jarrett's music and to those who just love music.

Here is the report.

Keith Jarrett enters the stage wearing black trousers, a black shirt and a dark waistcoat with shades of gold and silver. He’s donning sunglasses, and he will keep them on for the rest of the evening.

The audience welcomes him with a long applause and with cries of enthusiasm so that Keith takes the microphone and jokes about it: "Have I already played?" He reminds the public to switch any electronic devices off, mobiles, palms, beepers, etc. and not to cough during the performance because the concert will be recorded. Then he tells a story about Chicago: for years he thought of New York as the city of the beginning of his career but, in fact it was Chicago, he's remembered it only recently, that claimed him first in an important concert. He picks on an idiot in the stalls who has already aimed his video recorder: "At least unscrew the lights…put green lights on, instead of red, so it'll look like…birthday cakes!" He underlines, proud and full-bore, that there won't be a single key tonight running through cables; they will all come directly from the piano.

He finally sits on his bench, but it is not time yet: he takes the white towel, perfectly folded on the Steinway grand piano; then he turns to the audience and winks: "See? Even a white towel!"

Giggles run through the public.

Then silence. He puts the towel at its place and his hands on the keyboard: a confusion of keys overwhelms the theater, while his fingers scuttle, confident and crazed, along the ivory. But somebody from the stalls coughs: one, two, three times…it is a nervous cough that does not want to stop.

Jarrett pauses and cups his own right ear: "I can hear it! You are disturbing me!" In the silence another cough blows. "That's it!" Keith makes a sign, and then "one more minute."

The theater is frozen. But Jarrett makes a fresh start and this time gets into the groove.

The first movement is very jazzy. Mark, my partner, would dance if he could, with his long legs, wedged and crumpled up in the small seat. Jarrett does not hesitate to jump and dance at his own music. He completes the execution and thanks the clapping audience with a bow, very politely. But he cannot stay away from the piano. He improvises a slow, very sweet movement, with romantic shades, never rhetorical, always searching for surprising melodies. He cannot keep from singing, aloud and almost unconsciously.

This is the Jarrett that I prefer: magic and visionary. Another enchanted applause praises the performance. Then another movement starts: swift and virtuoso, it is a good alternative to the sweetness of the previous one. It also has a pinch of humor.
New applause and a new bow; he seems satisfied but looks forward to doing better.

He sits back on his bench and starts a new movement: slow, visionary, sweet, romantic and more and more magic; a nostalgic series of wintry canvases, as the snow that covers with white all the streets, parks and skyscrapers of Chicago, cross the mind. They confound one within the other until they melt into a double trill that continuously stretches itself towards high pitch keys, while the left hand holds its flight with a long series of chords. The double trill proceeds, sweet and precise, in an escalation, until it solves itself into a thrilling melody, exact and dilated by the tonal pedal, like an echo of drops in the frost. The conclusion keeps the same level of impressionistic trance.

The audience, almost in tears, goes out of its mind and skins hands with clapping. Keith Jarrett gets up, takes a bow and looks at the audience: this time he believes it, too. The long ovation finally wanes but Keith does not want to proceed. "It is difficult to follow yourself when you know you can't do better than that," he confides. He sits on the keyboard, moves his fingers along the wood of the piano – what more could I do? It is the eternal dilemma that all artists have. The solution is a rapid virtuoso ending with no conclusion, not even a chord; it is a suspension: Keith snaps up and shrugs – it's a joke!

When Jarrett leaves the stage the lights turn on in the stalls and along the galleries, on the red velvet seats on the face of the public, still enchanted.

The first part of the show ends. A man in black approaches the Steinway to tune it.

In the second part of the concert the atmosphere changes considerably. The first movements are very dark: the melodies are contradictory; the accompaniment is low, obscure and alienating. It is like a night run in a maze, with no way out. He stands up to take the applause, but he is still in that mental space, loses his balance, stumbles and leans on the piano. I too feel like this: estranged.

And here comes another mood: restorative and calming like a chamomile for the nerves, traditional and classical. Jarrett seems to be tired and during the clapping he tells an anecdote; the words do not reach me very well but I understand that it does not make sense for him to play the blues on a German piano…that he would rather play on a Steinway made in USA, because the piano at his disposal tonight is not warm enough for the blues, and too glassy. A voice from the audience says: "but this is jazz!" Keith is already sitting at the piano and nods "yes, it is," and finishes it thus: "thank you for telling me what I'm doing."

At this point the movements become really warm, very enjoyable and almost sensuous. The public appreciates and cannot get enough. It is vox populi: an encore, then another one, then another one again, and again, and again…Such enthusiasm leaves Jarrett incredulous and sarcastic: "do you always do this? This is not Bach or Beethoven." But he does not draw himself from it: it is blues, ethno, jazz, bebop…

Keith Jarrett is one of those generous musicians who do not spare themselves and give it all, until exhaustion. Now he moves slowly, always leaning against the piano; on his fatigued face a smile strains to thank the warm audience; so he claps his own hands. When he bows his arms swing devoid of energy.

He leaves the stage and this time won’t come back: the lights turn on in the theater on the audience that is applauding, standing up.

The crowd slowly exits along the golden staircase of the Symphony Center (ex Orchestra Hall) and swarms along an antarctic Michigan Avenue, just in front of the Millennium Park, hidden by the snow.

There are artistes whose art, so some critics say, changes the structure of the brain. Maybe Keith Jarrett, with his music, is one of them. I ask my partner: have our neurons created new connections tonight?

-- Claudia Zanella is a student in the MAE program.