Saturday, February 23, 2008

Keith Jarrett Trio's box set

25 years ago, pianist Keith Jarrett started his trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette, playing "The Masquerade Is Over" in a Manhattan recording studio without rehearsal or any arrangement, as Charles J. Gans reports (San Francisco Chronicle). They had no idea that this partnership would last for 25 years. To celebrate the anniversary, the German ECM label releases a CD box containing the first sessions from 1983 with the trio playing mostly standards as well as some freer improvisations by the group. Over that time, Jarrett has not worked with any other jazz musician with the exception of Paul Motian who subbed for DeJohnette in 1992. At the time, playing standards for a musician of Jarrett's standing was "a radical notion", writes Gans, and Jarrett himself adds, "Jazz musicians don't have to always break down doors, there's music inside the rooms too."

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