Keith Jarrett Confronts a Future Without the Piano - NYT 10/21/20

[LudwigPastorius]

The pathbreaking musician reveals the health issues that make it unlikely he will ever again perform in public.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/arts/music/keith-jarrett-piano.html

...this month Mr. Jarrett, 75, broke the silence, plainly stating what happened to him: a stroke in late February 2018, followed by another one that May. It is unlikely he will ever perform in public again.

“I was paralyzed,” he told The New York Times, speaking by phone from his home in northwest New Jersey. “My left side is still partially paralyzed. I’m able to try to walk with a cane, but it took a long time for that, took a year or more. And I’m not getting around this house at all, really.”

-SNIP-

“Right now, I can’t even talk about this,” he said when the issue came up, and laughed his deflective laugh. “That’s what I feel about it.”

-SNIP-

“I can only play with my right hand, and it’s not convincing me anymore,” Mr. Jarrett said. “I even have dreams where I am as messed up as I really am — so I’ve found myself trying to play in my dreams, but it’s just like real life.”

As a musician, I can say that this has got to be horrible for him...having his ability to play taken away.

[luvs2sing]

1. Heartbreaking..

[MuseRider]

2. You a Bass player?

That must be awful for him. We stopped our concerts after our March concert and I did not have a contract for the first concert this year but I finally get to play next month. I cannot say how much that means to me. We will be spread out all over the stage and wearing a mask for a wind player is not ideal but we will be playing. Separate entrances and exits, plexiglass makes it sound like it is going to be very hard for ensemble but....the point was I cannot imagine how he feels. Not a big fan of his but he certainly is a major figure in Jazz and as a pianist. His entire life has been to do this. It is not like a regular job, it is everything. I cannot imagine his pain and frustration.

[LudwigPastorius]

6. "You a Bass player?"

Yep. My last work was a studio session in May.

I've got a pops concert coming up in November...I hope. Right now, it's not looking good, even with the testing/mask/distancing protocols they have in place, if new infections and deaths keep increasing, they'll probably shut the symphony hall down.

[MuseRider]

9. That is what I am afraid of.

Things are hopping here as the cases begin to really shoot up. I don't see us having any kind of season, will be lucky to play this one. At my age a longer stretch might seal my retirement. I need to keep it up and there is nothing, even Nutcracker is gone. This next concert is a pretty easy one as it is all Beethoven (Ludwig, gotta love your name) and I have done them to death.

I raised a rhythm section. A drummer and a bassist. Both jazz players while I am only classical.

[dhill926]

3. aw man....that is awful...

[Frasier Balzov]

4. Koln Concert part 2c

[NNadir]

5. He was one of the most innovative musicians ever.

I saw him in concert many times, in various incarnations.

It has to be very hard on him.

[LudwigPastorius]

7. I got to see him once, with the trio in 1987.

Great concert.

Yeah, the strokes, and the recent deaths of a couple of his long-time musical collaborators, make it unlikely that we'll hear from him again.

That sucks.

[NNadir]

10. It is a source of no small grief that Charley Haden, Paul...

Motion, Dewey Redman are all gone.

The albums that quartet released exploded my conception of music entirely.

In the early 80s they each played in small groups separately and one could see them in small intimate clubs...Seventh Avenue South...down in "the Village," places like that.

Reflecting on that time, which was not the happiest time of my life - before I became my wife's lover - I think that music kept me alive. It really did. You could almost always open the Village Voice, any issue, and find out that there was great music coming up somewhere. I'd literally stay alive in anticipation.

There were so many great musicians playing down there in these small clubs, John Abercrombie, Arthur Blythe,...

What I remember of Dewey Redman was his eyes as much as his music. He was an unsung giant. He was at his best with Jarrett I think.

I hope this music remains available to future generations and that ultimately its magnificence is fully recognized in the future.

[Alacritous Crier]

8. So sad...

[bif]

11. He was a real asshole...

When I saw him. It was a wickedly cold evening in Ann Arbor. Of course, about 1/2 the audience had colds and there was some quiet coughing to be heard. Keith would start playing and then would stop when he heard someone cough and glare at the audience. He did this several times until finally, he angrily pushed the bench away from the piano, marched over to the microphone and told the audience to get their coughing out of the way or he wasn't going to perform. I felt like yelling "Just shut up and play!" but I figured he would probably leave the stage so I kept quiet. It was during his solo concert stage.

[LudwigPastorius]

12. Yeah unfortunately, that was part of the whole package of what you got with Jarrett...

transcendent improvisation and artistry along with a prima donna attitude...

I get it. I don't like it when an audience that is supposedly there to listen is making noise, but some things can't be helped, and it IS possible for a musician to overcome outside distractions with practiced concentration and will.

I saw Olga Kern give a solo concert in a small church a few years back. When she started her showstopper, (Balakirev's Islamey, a notorious, fiendishly hard piece) a woman in the third row of the audience collapsed. Ms. Kern continued playing as an ambulance pulled up outside, and two paramedics, with walkie talkies squawking, wheeled a stretcher down front to take the poor woman away.

All of this was happening less than 25 feet away from her, and in her field of vision to the side. She never hesitated or missed a note. As a musician myself, it was the most incredible feat of concentration I have ever witnessed. So, Keith should have been able to handle a couple of people coughing or taking a picture while he's playing.

[bif]

13. And then there's his whining while he plays.

For years it drove me crazy, and I just couldn't listen to him. I finally gave up and now can sort of tune it out. The man is absolutely brilliant, don't get me wrong. I just wish there was a filter on my stereo that could tune out that range of the human voice.

You must have been flabbergasted at the Kern concert. That's pretty incredible.