Keith Jarrett was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome in the ‘90s. In 1997, he had to stop touring, recording, and even playing the piano. 1998 marked the point at which Keith managed to heal, recover, and come back to playing.
Nearly 20 years later, at the beginning of 2018, Keith suffered two major strokes that were serious enough that he is still partly paralyzed and unable to play the piano with two hands. “I don’t know what my future is supposed to be,” he told the New York Times in October 2020. “I don’t feel, right now, like I’m a pianist.”
2017 marked his last solo piano live performance.
1998-2017
During the last 20 years, Keith Jarrett has released more than 10 solo piano albums. Of those releases, only one, The Melody At Night, With You, was a studio recording; all the others were recorded live. Compared to the earlier period starting in 1972 with Facing You — during which time Keith Jarrett released a balanced number of concert and studio solo piano recordings — this was a major switch, and the turning point was indeed the 1999 release.
The Melody At Night, With You is Keith Jarrett’s final piano solo studio recording to date. It was initially a Christmas gift to his wife. The music here cannot be compared to A Multitude of Angels, as physically — and certainly, mentally — these are two different men. We can imagine him as a completely exhausted version of himself, but somewhere inside him, his love for music and his wife will empower him to start playing again and record a few songs for what is certainly the most thoughtful Christmas gift anyone has ever received.
The Melody at Night, with You
(ECM) Release Date October 1999
From that point, all the solo recordings released by Keith Jarrett are from his live performances, whether extracts or entirely reproduced. Due to the nature of his music, it makes sense, but this also means that his next solo release is certainly going to be from the concerts he performed during the last two decades.
So, to get an idea of the materials available, here is a list of his solo concerts, highlighting the ones for which an album has already been released.
Piano Solos – Concerts
Between 1998-2017, Keith Jarrett played around 80 piano solo concerts, all over the world: mostly in Japan (21 representations), the United States (19), Italy (9), and France (5). The most played concert hall during this period – and maybe during his entire career – is the one and only Carnegie Hall.
Here is the entire list of his solo performances from 1999-2017:
– September 27, 1999
Metropolitan Festival Hall, Tokyo, Japan
– September 29, 1999
Metropolitan Festival Hall, Tokyo, Japan
– October 27, 2002
Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan
– October 30, 2002
Metropolitan Festival Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Radiance
(ECM) Release Date May 2, 2005
– October 31, 2002
Metropolitan Art Space, Tokyo, Japan
– November 7, 2004
Santa Cecilia Hall, Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Rome, Italy
– November 10, 2004
L’Auditori, Barcelona, Spain
– November 14, 2004
Musikverein, Vienna, Austria
– September 26, 2005
Carnegie Hall, New York, NY, USA
The Carnegie Hall Concert
(ECM) Release Date September 26, 2006
– October 14, 2005
Metropolitan Art Hall, Tokyo, Japan
– October 17, 2005
Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan
– October 20, 2005
Metropolitan Art Hall, Tokyo, Japan
– October 21, 2005
Metropolitan Art Hall (?), Tokyo, Japan
– March 13, 2006
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA
– March 19, 2006
War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, CA, USA
– July 16, 2006
Konzertsaal, KKL Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland
– July 19, 2006
Gran Teatro La Fenice, Venice, Italy (Veneto Jazz Summer Festival)
La Fenice
(ECM) Release Date October 19, 2018
– October 31, 2006
Salle Pleyel, Paris, France
– November 3, 2006
Salle Pleyel, Paris, France
– February 17, 2007
Orchestra Hall, Symphony Center, Chicago, IL, USA
– October 14, 2007
Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy
– October 18, 2007
Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, Palace of Arts, Budapest, Hungary
– October 21, 2007
Alte Oper, Frankfurt, Germany
– May 14, 2008
Kanagawa Kenmin Hall, Yokohama, Japan
– May 17, 2008
Orchard Hall, Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan
– May 20, 2008
Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan
– May 23, 2008
Metropolitan Art Space, Tokyo, Japan
– November 26, 2008
Salle Pleyel, Paris, France
– December 1, 2008
Royal Festival Hall, London, UK
Paris/London: Testament
(ECM) Release Date October 2, 2009
– January 29, 2009
Carnegie Hall, New York City, NY, USA
– May 18, 2009
Teatro San Carlo, Naples, Italy (Angeli Musicanti Festival)
– October 9, 2009
Henry Le Boeuf Hall, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
– October 12, 2009
Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany
– October 16, 2009
Tonhalle, Zürich, Switzerland
– February 12, 2010
Orchestra Hall, Chicago, IL, USA
– March 15, 2010
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA
– March 19, 2010
Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA, USA
– January 16, 2011
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY, USA
– April 6, 2011
Sala São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
– April 9, 2011
Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Rio
(ECM) Release Date November 4, 2011
– April 12, 2011
Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Argentina
– May 28, 2011
Orchard Hall, Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan
– May 29, 2011
Orchard Hall, Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan
– June 2, 2011
Main Auditorium, Sejong Center, Seoul, South Korea
– January 25, 2012
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City, NY, USA
– March 27, 2012
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA
– April 1, 2012
Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
– April 4, 2012
Orchestra Hall, Symphony Center, Chicago, IL, USA
– May 6, 2012
Orchard Hall, Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan
– May 11, 2012
Orchard Hall, Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan
– October 24, 2012
Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– October 29, 2012
Sala São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
– February 21, 2013
National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland
– February 25, 2013
Royal Festival Hall, London, UK
– February 5, 2014
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City, NY, USA
– April 30, 2014
Orchard Hall, Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan
– May 3, 2014
Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan
– May 6, 2014
Orchard Hall, Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan
– May 9, 2014
Kioi Hall, Tokyo, Japan
– June 25, 2014
Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto, ON, Canada
– June 28, 2014
Maison symphonique, Montréal, QC, Canada
– July 4, 2014
Salle Playel, Paris, France
– July 8, 2014
La Fenice, Venice, Italy
– July 11, 2014
Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, Italy
Creation
(ECM) Release Date May 8, 2015
– March 3, 2015
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City, NY, USA
– May 18, 2015
Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, Italy
– May 22, 2015
KKL, Lucerne, Switzerland
– November 13, 2015
Henry Le Boeuf Hall, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
– November 17, 2015
National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland
– November 20, 2015
Royal Festival Hall, London, UK
– November 23, 2015
Opera di Firenze, Florence, Italy
– February 9, 2016
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City, NY, USA
– April 29, 2016
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA
– May 2, 2016
Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA, USA
– July 3, 2016
Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, Palace of Arts, Budapest, Hungary
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City, NY, USA
After reading Brian Zimmerman’s review of his last solo concert at Carnegie Hall (on February 15, 2017), we can only expect a spectacular album, and hopefully, it will be released one day. That would be another best Christmas gift ever!
You can listen to the entire “Keith Jarrett Piano Solo” playlist here on Spotify (41 hours).
Note: The above list of dates is extracted from the so-very-well-documented website, KeithJarrett.org.
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1 Comment so far
Samuel Chell
The preference for live performance over studio recordings was established by Bill Evans with the legendary Vanguard sessions from June 25, 1961 (“Sunday at the Village Vanguard” and “Waltz for Debby”), scarcely 10 years after the introduction of the new technology of long-play 33rpm discs. Bill would continue to travel throughout his career, releasing recordings of his live performances, including a box set of 16 CDs (“Consecration” and “Last Waltz”) comprising his 8-nights at a San Francisco jazz club, August 1-8, 1980, ending a week before his death on August 15 in NYC. Revealing to Marian McPartland (“Piano Jazz,” 1978) that he considered solo piano the most gratifying yet challenging form of expression, Bill nevertheless performed with a trio throughout his career. After the death of brilliant bassist, Scott LaFaro, Bill would establish a long relationship with gifted bassist, Eddie Gomez, until forming his last trio in 1978 with two youthful musicians–bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera. As the elder patriarch, Evans would realize the fullest expression of his musical vision in his final trio, which would complete the circle of a remarkable journey–from the impressionism of his early trio with LaFaro to the expressionist art of his final trio, which abandoned the French impressionists as reference points and replaced them with giants like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, composers reflecting Bill’s own Russian ancestry. In the tradition of Romantic artists like Schubert and Schumann, Bill battled numerous demons and suffered greatly throughout his life while producing improvisations of singular brilliance and breathtaking beauty. Any survey of the latter half of jazz history would be incomplete if it did not include Bill Evans as a musician whose innovations and achievements placed him in the company of a seminal artist like John Coltrane.
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The preference for live performance over studio recordings was established by Bill Evans with the legendary Vanguard sessions from June 25, 1961 (“Sunday at the Village Vanguard” and “Waltz for Debby”), scarcely 10 years after the introduction of the new technology of long-play 33rpm discs. Bill would continue to travel throughout his career, releasing recordings of his live performances, including a box set of 16 CDs (“Consecration” and “Last Waltz”) comprising his 8-nights at a San Francisco jazz club, August 1-8, 1980, ending a week before his death on August 15 in NYC. Revealing to Marian McPartland (“Piano Jazz,” 1978) that he considered solo piano the most gratifying yet challenging form of expression, Bill nevertheless performed with a trio throughout his career. After the death of brilliant bassist, Scott LaFaro, Bill would establish a long relationship with gifted bassist, Eddie Gomez, until forming his last trio in 1978 with two youthful musicians–bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera. As the elder patriarch, Evans would realize the fullest expression of his musical vision in his final trio, which would complete the circle of a remarkable journey–from the impressionism of his early trio with LaFaro to the expressionist art of his final trio, which abandoned the French impressionists as reference points and replaced them with giants like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, composers reflecting Bill’s own Russian ancestry. In the tradition of Romantic artists like Schubert and Schumann, Bill battled numerous demons and suffered greatly throughout his life while producing improvisations of singular brilliance and breathtaking beauty. Any survey of the latter half of jazz history would be incomplete if it did not include Bill Evans as a musician whose innovations and achievements placed him in the company of a seminal artist like John Coltrane.