Keith Jarrett; A Biography; Sandner

Author

Wolfgang Sandner [+–]

University of Marburg

Wolfgang Sandner, born in 1942, studied musicology, modern history and Italian. For almost three decades, he has been active as music editor for the German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He is professor at the University of Marburg, Germany and has penned portraits of such varied artists as Miles Davis, Heiner Goebbels and Arvo Pärt.

Translated by

Chris Jarrett [+–]

Johannes-Gutenberg-University

Chris Jarrett was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1956 and, an internationally successful pianist, organist and composer himself, is Keith Jarrett’s youngest brother. He teaches at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz, Germany and tours with piano and organ recitals. He is married to the Croatian-American pianist Martina Cukrov Jarrett and has been residing in Germany since 1985.

BEST HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN RECORDED JAZZ Certificate of Merit 2021, Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research

Few writers have come as close to Keith Jarrett as Wolfgang Sandner, who has not only closely followed Jarrett’s remarkable career from the 1960s, but has also had the opportunity to visit him in his home in the United States. For this biography, which is full of detailed musical analysis and cross-references to other artistic genres, Sandner has collected new information about Jarrett’s family background, much of which is thanks to the translator, Keith Jarrett’s youngest brother Chris. The book explores Jarrett’s work with other musicians, in particular the members of his American and European Quartets and his Standards Trio, it charts the development of his solo concerts, and it also investigates his work in the classical sphere, as well as the highly original music he has created in his own home studio. It also covers his associations with his various record labels and producers, notably his unparalleled relationship with ECM and its founder Manfred Eicher. This English edition is a significantly extended and updated version of the German original.

Series: Popular Music History

Prelims

Preface to the English Edition [+–] ix

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Keith Jarrett is one of the great pianists of our times. Before achieving worldwide fame for his solo improvisations, he had already collaborated with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. His ‘Köln Concert’ album (1975) has now sold around four million copies and become the most successful solo recording in jazz history. His interpretations of the music of Bach, Händel, Bartók or Shostakovich, have also received much attention in later years. Jarrett is considered difficult and inaccessible, and has often abandoned the stage during his concerts due to restless audiences or disturbing photographers. Only few writers have come as close to Keith Jarrett as Wolfgang Sandner, who has not only been following Jarrett’s remarkable career from the nineteen-sixties onward, but has actually had the opportunity to visit him in his home in Oxford, New Jersey. Sandner squelches some legends here, such as the one concerning Jarrett’s alleged Hungarian Roma family background. For this biography, which is full of detailed musical analyses and cross-references to other artistic genres, Wolfgang Sandner has also collected new information about the origins of Jarrett’s paternal family from today’s Baden-Württemberg region in Germany – this, not least, thanks to the translator, Keith Jarrett’s youngest brother Chris. This English edition is a significantly extended and updated version of the German original as concerns important aspects of Keith Jarrett’s life and work.

Foreword [+–] xi-xiii

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Acknowledgements [+–] xiv-xiv

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Keith Jarrett is one of the great pianists of our times. Before achieving worldwide fame for his solo improvisations, he had already collaborated with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. His ‘Köln Concert’ album (1975) has now sold around four million copies and become the most successful solo recording in jazz history. His interpretations of the music of Bach, Händel, Bartók or Shostakovich, have also received much attention in later years. Jarrett is considered difficult and inaccessible, and has often abandoned the stage during his concerts due to restless audiences or disturbing photographers. Few writers have come as close to Keith Jarrett as Wolfgang Sandner, who has not only closely followed Jarrett’s remarkable career from the 1960s, but has also had the opportunity to visit him in his home in the United States. For this biography, which is full of detailed musical analysis and cross-references to other artistic genres, Sandner has collected new information about Jarrett’s family background, much of which is thanks to the translator, Keith Jarrett’s youngest brother Chris. The book explores Jarrett’s work with other musicians, in particular the members of his American and European Quartets and his Standards Trio, it charts the development of his solo concerts, and it also investigates his work in the classical sphere, as well as the highly original music he has created in his own home studio. It also covers his associations with his various record labels and producers, notably his unparalleled relationship with ECM and its founder Manfred Eicher. This English edition is a significantly extended and updated version of the German original.

Overture [+–] 1-8

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Jarrett‘s personal background and his life experiences connect him to Europe. His music plays an important role in the interaction between American and European musical traditions. In order to understand how these traditions have merged in the past and the role Keith Jarrett‘s played, we need to explore some basic historical, political and musical contexts.

Chapter 1

Growing up in Allentown [+–] 9-22

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Growing up in the small city of Allentown in Pennsylvania into a family with very limited means and intense inner tensions may have been a cause for Keith Jarrett‘s tendency to roll himself up into a musical cocoon. He was a „Wunderkind“ and trained classically from the start, turning to jazz in his teens. First important steps in his career took place with Don Jacoby and Stan Kenton.

Chapter 2

Three Steps to Jazz: Art – Charles – Miles [+–] 23-42

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

The hippy age and one of the most fascinating jazz groups reflecting the age with their music: The Charles Lloyd Quartet. It was probably first through his intense and ground- breaking performances with this group that Jarrett‘s larger career began. It led to his relucatant decision to accept Miles Davis‘ invitation and join his band, a duty which would require him to use an electric piano. After his period with Miles, he never played this instrument again.

Chapter 3

Ideal Partnership [+–] 43-53

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

The development of the important and longstanding relationship to the publisher Manfred Eicher of ECM Records. Seldom have musician and businessman worked so closely together towards a common goal.

Chapter 4

The Formative Years [+–] 54-67

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

In a slow motion, concentrated review of these formative years, one might see them as a single, zany panopticon. And, indeed, some audiences reacted to these multi-directional sound happenings with a certain amount of irritation. In the end, however, these pieces are united by one substantial characteristic: Keith Jarrett’s will to develop his music on the spur of the moment, and not to capitulate to the mandates of a given mode that would restrict his urge to create.

Chapter 5

Winding Paths to Musical Mastership [+–] 68-84

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

‘Serious music,’ first solo ‘free improvisations,’ and the musicians who would help mould Jarrett‘s ensemble style: Dewey Redman, Gary Peacock, Paul Motian, Jan Garbarek, and especially Jack DeJohnette. Audiences in the United States were especially surprised by the repeated transformations of this jazz pianist – now turned into a composer of music with a serious, classical nature.

Chapter 6

Limitless Soloist [+–] 85-105

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Speaking of Jarrett as a born soloist doesn’t mean he was somehow freed from the hardships of a regular pianistic existence. The solo recordings are the centerpiece of Keith Jarrett’s oeuvre, and it would be surprising if they didn’t reveal his personality, musical preferences and aesthetic standards more clearly than his involvement in other musical spheres.

Chapter 7

Grandeur and Crisis [+–] 106-122

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Keith Jarrett‘s financial difficulties and a lack of perpetuum in the field of solo piano improvisations lead him straight into a psychological and financial crisis. Personal decisions of enormous importance are made and Jarrett remarries. He also attempts to re- find himself in musical projects such as the ‘Spirits’ recording.

Chapter 8

The History of a Cult Recording [+–] 123-130

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

The ‘Köln Concert’. The conditions around this concert (an often-discussed subject) have added substantially to the legends that soon followed the recording, which was to become one of the most talked about productions in the recent history of jazz.

Chapter 9

America’s Songbook [+–] 131-144

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Keith Jarrett never gave up on jazz standards, which remained in his repertoire all his life, but the birth of the ‘Standards Trio’ was a project dedicated to transforming them. It was Jarrett’s idea to work exclusively with standards from the ‘Great American Songbook,’ a vaguely defined smorgasbord of chorus-line hits, Hollywood movie music and Broadway musicals, mainly from the twenties, thirties and forties. These songs had always made up an important part of the usual jazz musicians’ repertory. The avant-garde of the sixties, however, in their revolutionary taste for tabula rasa, would have preferred to see them sent to the moon, or, at least, placed on an ‘index.’

Chapter 10

The Jazz Man as Classical Musician [+–] 145-153

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

In his classical performances, we are face mainly with interpretations of music by J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart, but Jarrett also performed music by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bartok, Händel and many others.

Chapter 11

The Complete Artist [+–] 154-163

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Keith Jarrett as a ‘serious’ composer. It is as easy to make negative comments about these compositions, as it is difficult to do them real justice. Even if statements made referring to Jarrett’s classical works as eclectic monsters, compositions without beginning and end, reanimations of a failed ‘third stream jazz,’ naïve pieces of work using material which had long expired, can be proven through structural analysis, they also ricochet in light of Jarrett’s aesthetic courage to take his right to be old-fashioned, a-historical, untouched by thought systems and fads; to make experiments, search for knowledge, collect experience and search for musical truth, even if he is unsure where to find it.

Chapter 12

Objection [+–] 164-171

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Jarrett‘s personality and how it effects the music and the listener. Jarrett is a human veto. In most cases, of course, he is, as such, not objectively wrong. Whether it is really wise, and therefore ‘correct,’ to put up such a constant front, even in some rhetorical dispute, is quite another question. But if Keith Jarrett were a yes-man, his art would be different and not nearly as alluring as it is.

Epilogue

Epilogue [+–] 172-174

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

“Not on the lake and not in the mountains nor in the sky a single straight line, an unmixed color or a single resting point – only movement, irregularity, the arbitrary, diversity, an unending flow from shadows into lines and only quiet, tenderness, harmony and the need for beauty.”

Discography

Discography [+–] 175-195

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

End Matter

Bibliography [+–] 196-200

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Keith Jarrett is one of the great pianists of our times. Before achieving worldwide fame for his solo improvisations, he had already collaborated with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. His ‘Köln Concert’ album (1975) has now sold around four million copies and become the most successful solo recording in jazz history. His interpretations of the music of Bach, Händel, Bartók or Shostakovich, have also received much attention in later years. Jarrett is considered difficult and inaccessible, and has often abandoned the stage during his concerts due to restless audiences or disturbing photographers. Few writers have come as close to Keith Jarrett as Wolfgang Sandner, who has not only closely followed Jarrett’s remarkable career from the 1960s, but has also had the opportunity to visit him in his home in the United States. For this biography, which is full of detailed musical analysis and cross-references to other artistic genres, Sandner has collected new information about Jarrett’s family background, much of which is thanks to the translator, Keith Jarrett’s youngest brother Chris. The book explores Jarrett’s work with other musicians, in particular the members of his American and European Quartets and his Standards Trio, it charts the development of his solo concerts, and it also investigates his work in the classical sphere, as well as the highly original music he has created in his own home studio. It also covers his associations with his various record labels and producers, notably his unparalleled relationship with ECM and its founder Manfred Eicher. This English edition is a significantly extended and updated version of the German original.

Index [+–] 201-215

Wolfgang Sandner

University of Marburg

Keith Jarrett is one of the great pianists of our times. Before achieving worldwide fame for his solo improvisations, he had already collaborated with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. His ‘Köln Concert’ album (1975) has now sold around four million copies and become the most successful solo recording in jazz history. His interpretations of the music of Bach, Händel, Bartók or Shostakovich, have also received much attention in later years. Jarrett is considered difficult and inaccessible, and has often abandoned the stage during his concerts due to restless audiences or disturbing photographers. Few writers have come as close to Keith Jarrett as Wolfgang Sandner, who has not only closely followed Jarrett’s remarkable career from the 1960s, but has also had the opportunity to visit him in his home in the United States. For this biography, which is full of detailed musical analysis and cross-references to other artistic genres, Sandner has collected new information about Jarrett’s family background, much of which is thanks to the translator, Keith Jarrett’s youngest brother Chris. The book explores Jarrett’s work with other musicians, in particular the members of his American and European Quartets and his Standards Trio, it charts the development of his solo concerts, and it also investigates his work in the classical sphere, as well as the highly original music he has created in his own home studio. It also covers his associations with his various record labels and producers, notably his unparalleled relationship with ECM and its founder Manfred Eicher. This English edition is a significantly extended and updated version of the German original.

Reviews

BBC Music Magazine, Best Books about Jazz, 25 October 2022

This new biography of one of the world’s great musicians turns out to be sadly timely. Jarrett announced in October that damage from two strokes has almost certainly ended his performing career. Ian Carr’s Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music came out as long ago as 1992. Wolfgang Sandner came to know Jarrett through Manfred Eicher, the founder of ECM, and has visited Jarrett’s home in New Jersey.
Sandner is an erudite music critic and a long-time fan of a musician who, for all his talent, divides opinion. The enforced distance from his subject has probably made this a better book (Carr slipped into special pleading). A good deal of family information is supplied by the pianist’s youngest brother, Chris Jarrett, who also translated it from the original German (Rowohlt, 2015).
Sandner is a trustworthy guide who takes the story right up to this year’s belated release of The Budapest Concert from 2016 and the rumours of ill health. He is in no doubt that Jarrett is a genius – and even if you think ECM has released too many albums and detect bouts of hubris and note-spinning – he makes a strong case.
London Jazz News

Given his impact on jazz and solo improvisation this past half century, relatively few are the books on Keith Jarrett. This is surprising, considering all the critical acclaim, the phenomenal influence he has had on countless musicians, his colossal commercial success and the headline-grabbing outbursts. Perhaps so few biographers have attempted to tackle Jarrett out of fear of failure to do his artistry justice. Wolfgang Sandner, whose Jarrett biography was first published in German in 2015, shows no such timidity in grappling with the complex musical and personal traits that have made Jarrett, the musician, surprisingly difficult to pigeonhole, and Jarrett, the person, difficult to fathom. By curious happenstance, this updated English language version was translated by Chris Jarrett, the youngest of Keith Jarrett's four brothers, who has long resided in Germany. Translation is something of an art in itself, and Chris Jarrett's precision and deft feel for phraseology bear the hallmarks of one successful in his own right as a pianist and composer. His fine translation contributes hugely to the flow and lyricism in Sandner's pen.
All About Jazz

This is a musical biography to enjoy and think about, to read and then be returned to the records informed with new insight. As befits its reticent subject, it is not a personal biography of the pianist, although the necessary details are here, but what it does so well is to explain why Keith Jarrett is so important, and why his two strokes – the news of which came just after this book went to the press, although the post-2018 silence is noted with concern – have probably ended the career of a musical genius. If that proves to be the case, this is the biography that will help us make sense of his remarkable legacy.
Jazz Journal

Sandner's book is a very thoughtful piece of work, a very valuable successor to Ian Carr's biography -- perhaps more philosophical, and also less of a hagiography
The Wire

A sadly timely biography of the great jazz pianist. Wolfgang Sandner is an incisive, knowledgeable writer who is in no doubt of Jarrett's genius.
Mojo

I have to say I very much like Sandner’s writing style. As a biographer it’s refreshing that he doesn’t pull any punches, being unafraid to tell it like it is. As a result, this biography benefits from his objectivity. ... It’s not necessarily the obvious facts that make a great biography, it’s the little surprises, the anecdotes, the meat on the bone that adds to the storytelling. Sandner is especially adept at this, although it’s impossible to know just how much of the detail is from the pen of the author, and how much from the input of Jarrett’s younger brother Chris. Either way, it’s a good combination that actually makes this book a bit of a page-turner, unusual in itself for a biography.
For Jarrett fans, Sandner’s book is essential reading. It adds a different perspective and offers valuable insights in a thoughtful, often illuminating way.
UK Vibe

In this major biography of pianist Keith Jarrett, Wolfgang Sandner not only classifies Jarrett's recordings within the history of jazz, music and culture, but he tempts us to listen in a new and deeper way, and he enables us to understand the music beyond the boundaries of emotional listening.
Wolfram Knauer, Director, Jazz Institute, Darmstadt

Superbly rendered, expanded and updated translation... retreads some of the pianist's formative milestones while stringing through them artful observations, interpretations and connections.
New York City Jazz Record

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Keith Jarrett

A Biography

Wolfgang Sandner [+–]

University of Marburg

Chris Jarrett [+–]

Johannes-Gutenberg-University

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