Keith Jarrett: Sun Bear Concerts
Charles Johnson
Fri Feb 25, 2005 at 5:29 pm PST • Views: 370
A very generous LGF reader gifted me with an absolutely luminous recording, the 6 CD complete set of Keith Jarrett’s 1976 solo piano concerts in Japan: Sun Bear Concerts. You may have noticed it showing up a lot in the “Now Playing” section in the right sidebar.
This was Jarrett at the stunning height of his talent, improvising for hours upon hours and keeping it riveting throughout. There isn’t a note out of place, and his right-left hand independence and driving sense of rhythm are mind-boggling, almost inhuman. Sounding sometimes like Chopin, sometimes like a surreal Fats Waller, sometimes like a percussive instrument from another dimension, this is a work of sheer genius with crystalline, perfect sound—and very little of the “singing” that many find distracting in Keith’s later recordings.
LGF rating: five unreserved stars. 
UPDATE at 2/25/05 5:38:27 pm:
And the audience sits in rapt, totally undisturbed silence. The only clue you’re listening to live performances is when they applaud at the finish.
(Japanese audiences are the best-behaved audiences in the world.)
Frank says: