Let's get to this second keyboard wizard post, a 40th anniversary special of distinction.
This is one of those special jams where, when I think about what my favorite live recording of this particular artist might be, I come up with this one as opposed to all his others, legit and unlegit.
It's another of those France Musique rebroadcasts where they split the whole performance over two weeks, and you just thank the ORTF gods that they have the good sense to do so and that folks at home are waiting with the "record" button ready.
The playing here is just out of the atmosphere and the quality of the improvisation so high that you wonder how much more inventive it could possibly get.
I think it's my favorite live thing of this cat because it immediately precedes his G.I. Gurdjieff Sacred Hymns phase, and that's my favorite issued recording of him.
That takes it into a way more Eastern flavor than his much-revered Koln Concert platter and the Bremen/Lausanne solo LP, both also very high on my list of solo piano performances all time by anyone.
The kind of concentration and skill it takes to sit down at a piano for this long and have what you do exist at this level of melody and musicianship -- when 2/3 of it is made up straight off the top of your head -- would be almost inconceivable to me, were the audio proof not encoded into these here bytes.
Enough chatter: let's let Keith Jarrett take you aloft, as only he can navigate the 88-key flight plan.
Keith Jarrett
Festival de Jazz
Pinède Gould
Antibes
Juan-les-Pins, France
7.25.1979
01 Antibes Ia
02 Antibes Ib
03 Antibes II
04 My Song
05 Never Never Land
Total time: 1:46:45
disc break goes after Track 02
Keith Jarrett - piano
digital capture of two 2018 France Musique rebroadcasts that together form the complete concert
388 MB FLAC/July 2019 archive link
I shall return, perhaps Saturday, with more jazzy jewels and pop perfection -- as well as some rock righteousness and even some country classicism -- as we begin to arrive at August here.
You better not miss this Keith Jarrett show though; he is beckoning for you come down from your ivory tower to get the news, recorded precisely four decades ago today.--J.