Keith Jarrett
Groundbreaking Jazz Auteur By Jim AllenBoundary-breaking jazz innovator
Along with a handful of similarly forward-looking peers, Keith Jarrett changed the idea of what a jazz pianist's work could encompass, mostly by transcending accepted definitions of jazz in the post-bop era and creating his own syncretic paradigm. He started out playing in saxman Charles Lloyd's hippie-friendly late-'60s band, but wasted little time getting his solo career underway, releasing his first album in 1968. He didn't get his direction sorted out right away - his second record is actually a folk-rock singer/songwriter outing - but by the early '70s Jarrett was firing on all cylinders, delivering an idiosyncratic sound that blended an open-ended jazz sensibility with blues, gospel, and rock on one hand, and a more European, classical-minded sensibility on the other. He became one of the key artists on groundbreaking European label ECM, his personal and musical eccentricities exemplifying ECM's auteurist approach. His 1975 live album The Koln Concert became one of the biggest-selling jazz albums ever released. Throughout the decades, Jarrett has remained a marquee name both in concert and on record, whether he's playing jazz standards, free improv, or even classical repertoire.
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