Review: Keith Jarrett keyboard genius puts on extended solo concert temper tantrum - San Jose Mercury News
3/20/10 9:32 PM
Review: Keith Jarrett
keyboard genius puts on
extended solo concert
temper tantrum
By Richard Scheinin
rscheinin@mercurynews.com
Posted: 03/20/2010 06:36:37 PM PDT
Updated: 03/20/2010 06:36:38 PM PDT
SAN FRANCISCO — Keith Jarrett stepped onstage
Friday at Davies Symphony Hall to thunderous and
worshipful applause. Spot-lit, he made a deep
emptying Buddha-bow toward his 2,700 fans in the
sold-out hall, then sat down at the at the piano for a
solo recital. The ritual was about to begin.
Quietly, he launched a free-form improvisation,
flicking fingers at keys, building sounds from
scratch, making them denser and rumblier, adding
in right-handed squiggles like Jackson Pollack paint
splatterings. Then someone coughed.
Uh-oh.
To Jarrett, 64 years old and among the most
revered figures in jazz, coughs are signs of
ingratitude and insufficient attention. They break his
concentration, interrupt his creative flow. It's been
an issue at his concerts for four decades.
He stopped playing.
"Perfectly placed," he snipped, about the cough.
Deep sigh. He was about to play again when
someone else coughed.
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"Oh, now there's going to be a contagion."
Jarrett stood up and wandered away from his
instrument and over to a microphone to complain
about audiences everywhere; they just cannot stop
coughing when he tries to play softly for them.
"Even the Japanese have started to cough. That's
how weird it is."
Surely, this was now building toward one of his
classic rants, which ECM — his record label, which
recorded Friday night's show — should collect and
issue as a multidisc set titled: "Curb Your
Enthusiasm!"
Jarrett was there to perform for people who love
him, who paid up to $90 per ticket, yet here he was,
doing a Larry David routine. He didn't look happy
with himself, but he kept on with it, one minute
playing the role of professional victim, the next
behaving like a Proustian eccentric who just can't
tolerate what he called "impurities entering the
system."
Meaning coughs and inattention to his creative
process.
Verging on heartbreak
Over the next half-hour, Jarrett managed to
alternate his ornery outbursts with tender interludes
of meditative impressionism, or the rollicking
blues-gospel vamps that are his calling card. He
stood, crouched over the piano as he played, left
foot stomping, his hands working in tandem, like
call-and-response choruses in a church, or his
right hand carving improvised arabesques, graceful
as a figure skater.
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Review: Keith Jarrett keyboard genius puts on extended solo concert temper tantrum - San Jose Mercury News
He began one of his searching ballads, where the
harmonies never quite resolve, leaving the listener
in a state of wistfulness verging on heartbreak.
But then someone again coughed, quietly.
Jarrett stopped in midchord, and wandered back to
the microphone.
"I have a theory. Maybe music and mucus are
similar." With a pained smile, he offered another
theory: "We've forgotten how to concentrate." True
enough. His own lack of focus was undermining
this event, presented by SFJAZZ as a highlight of its
spring season.
"I did a whole talk to several audiences already,"
Jarrett continued minutes later, "and when they write
the reviews, if there are any, they mentioned that I
complained."
Imagine that.
"I'm going to keep complaining 'til I die," he
promised. "I mean, where does the music come from
but a complaint? I walk out on the stage — out from
this world from which I came, and I realize what a
complaint I have against it."
Thank you, Mr. David.
Now about coughs: They are annoying, but they
happen at every concert, especially in wintertime. At
quiet concerts, they tend to stand out. And Jarrett
was choosing to play quietly.
Took requests
After intermission, he improvised a lullaby, more
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3/20/10 9:32 PM
gentle music from this ornery performance artist —
this sensitive man in meltdown.
More coughs.
He stopped playing, shaking his head and just
staring at the keyboard.
"OK, I give up."
He stood up.
"I flew my engineer from Switzerland to do this," he
said.
He was affronted by the lullaby's curtailment: "I was
in the process of making something. I had to cut it
short."
The coughs, he explained, are "on the tape."
And now from the balcony: "Just play!"
Another voice: "Shut up!"
Jarrett looked stricken: "I've been a really good guy
since Perugia," he said, referring to his 2007
performance at the Umbria Jazz Festival, where he
infamously cursed out the crowd for taking flash
photos.
A defender at Davies shouted out: "Let him talk!"
Jarrett went on: "Am I wrong that there's something
weird going on in San Francisco?"
"This reminds me of the tour I did in Europe," Jarrett
said. "They hated Americans there."
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Review: Keith Jarrett keyboard genius puts on extended solo concert temper tantrum - San Jose Mercury News 3/20/10 9:32 PM

Throwing up his hands, he asked for requests.

The first was "What Is This Thing Called Love," and

he played it. Someone asked for "In-A-Gadda-Da-
Vida," and he laughed. He played a gospelized
"Summertime" and soon was ready to call it a night.

Jarrett left the stage. But about two-thirds of the

crowd remained: His fans stood and cheered for
their hero, shoring him up. Looking both miserable
and grateful, he returned five times, for five encores,
including a purely felt "Over the Rainbow" and a
tepid blues.

The tapes were running, presumably. Maybe there'll

be enough for an album.

Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-5069.

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