•
Rating: You are a woman of the sea,
woman opening shores.
The morning air
white, is your air
of salt - and are sails
in the wind, are flags
unfurled onboard, your wide
and clear dresses.
This live performance by Keith Jarrett is like a seashell. You can hear the sea inside. An ethereal album. An album made of wisps of notes, of azure, of the applause of a crowd roaring with excitement like the surf. It's enchantment, this album, it's dance. Musical glimpses that open soul horizons colored with the warm hues of a Caribbean sunset. It's an album made of soul cliffs plunging into abysses of love, it's the delicate etherealness of foam and a smile, it's the bitterness of salt, it’s transport, it’s abandon, it’s transcendence. Everything is in this album. The wonder, the dizziness, the lightness of irony. And just listening to the splendid "I'll Remember April" would be enough to understand what fires this music burns with. Ten minutes of pure dancing heart, introduced by a long, very long, dreamy drum solo by Jack DeJohnette. A reading that drags you into a whirlwind of dance, woven with a dense fabric of bossa nova echoes, senses flaring carried by Jarrett's chords hammering their zest for life, their enthusiasm, their assured, angry happiness. And there are bossa nova echoes in this album. Tender and tingling echoes like dew on a late spring evening, as in "Last Night When We Were Young". And with what sweetness - almost moving - to hear, after a splendid solo by Peacock, Keith at the piano resuming the main theme, then floating lose oneself in the warm harmonies of "Caribbean Sky".
This live by Keith Jarrett is indeed like a seashell. There is the pearl of vitality inside. And you hear it in the lighter, more jagged, more ironic tracks. Like the expression of an amused smile, a smile where you bite your lip as if to ask yourself a question full of happiness, a question that already knows the answer. Like in the sinuous and intriguing theme of "Billie's Bounce" - where the memory of "Bird" Parker remarkably revives - or in the labyrinthine and sparkling virtuosity of "John's Abbey" - where the bebop gems of Bud Powell blossom again in a whirlwind.
But this album is also immense tenderness. Tenderness in the darker and shadier ballads, like "Never Let Me Go". Where the memory of the past laps at the shore of your heart, you look back at your steps, and you see the trace of where you have been, yet you still do not know where you will go, what path awaits you. Or the tenderness of dreamy abandonment, like two bodies searching to become one. It’s the ecstasy of "Mona Lisa," a track that is the vertigo of fusion, the marvel of a miracle, with Gary Peacock weaving a long, deeply inspired melodic solo on the double bass, so tenderly doubled by Keith’s right hand. A Peacock offering a true revelation, a poetic fury that gives meaning to the airy transparency of "My Funny Valentine". A true musical North Star pointing the way, guiding you on the path. Like a hand entwining with yours, holding it, not guiding you, but accompanying you.
Because this Keith album is like the sea, it’s immense, you can't capture it with words, with a review. But you can only describe the colors, the mood, the sensations it splashes on you with its waves of notes crashing upon your heart.
They are women who know
so well the sea
that with the breeze
next to you they walk
you feel on your skin
fresh sails unfurling
and on your lips clams
delicious murmurs.
[The verses in this review are by Giorgio Caproni]
Tracklist
Loading comments slowly
