Keith Jarrett - Up for It: Live in Juan-Les-Pins

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Music reviews of Up for It: Live in Juan-Les-Pins

Music Review: Another mediocre KJT record
Rating: 3 Stars

This record, like many of its predecessors of late, has health problems as well. The problem with recording jazz standards is that they tend to become, like cliches in writing, so familiar to the audience that they lose their meaning. This is especially true if artists tend to record the same standards repeatedly. The Keith Jarrett Trio used to solve this problem in one or more of, I'd say, 3 different ways:

1) By resurrecting standards unfamiliar to most jazz listeners.
2) By recasting a familiar standard in a novel way.
3) By playing wholly improvised or original material within, or around, a standard.

The Keith Jarrett Trio, at their best, often combined these strategies. What they did not do was quickly play the head, launch into uninspired and meandering solos, play the head out, and end the tune. On those classic trio albums like Standards Vol. 1 & 2, Still Live, The Cure, and Standards in Norway, we hear Keith and his brilliant collaborators treating each song as if it were a blank canvas, inventing the form as they progressed and taking solos that had direction, logic, and inspiration. Beginning with, in my opinion, Tokyo '96, the KJT took a different approach that has prevailed ever since and has killed the music's magic.

Keith himself said that he had grown tired of playing long intros to each tune--but is the solution then to treat each tune in the reverse fashion, meaning to play little or nothing in the way of introductions and endings?

What we have on these newer albums is a depressing lack of imagination. If that sounds arrogant, let me explain. Each tune begins with little besides a rote statement of the melody. Keith's once-brilliant introductions (check out "Body and Soul" on The Cure) have faded into simple variations of the melody or meandering note clusters. Keith's solos often display a lack of direction and logic and, worst of all, feature seemingly dazzling legato lines that go nowhere and feel like hollow technical shows of wizardry. Jack has gotten into the habit of swinging earlier in the tune, sometimes even during the first head. In past years, he tended to restrain himself early in the tune, playing half-time on a limited number of drums and launching into full swing only when the energy of the tune demanded it. And Gary, at least on Up For It, seems unusually passive.

When we listen to the Keith Jarrett Trio, we are listening mainly for new approaches to familiar material. Standards die if they don't find new interpretations. We all can agree that there was something truly new and magical about Keith's recording of, for instance, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" on Tribute. There is real invention and magic and sensitivity on that recording, and many others. On the other hand, a tune like "Autumn Leaves", which Keith has recorded on almost every major trio record, including Up for It, lacks any semblance of novelty and probably deserves to not be played much anymore, especially in the bland way that the trio tends to play it. Incidentally, both times I've seen the trio live, they've inevitably played "Autumn Leaves" and the tune has degenerated into repetetive boredom.

Why treat each tune the same way? On Tribute, Keith turns "You and the Night and the Music" into a 20-minute minimalist invention of profound power. Later on in the same concert, "Billie's Bounce" is as straight-ahead as can be, albeit with supreme groove and inventiveness. Each tune on the great KJT recordings, it seems, is treated as a new process. I don't believe this is the case any longer. I'm starting to fear that the trio may have lost its magic.

What caused this? One certain cause is the deteriorating health of all three members. Apparently, Gary underwent surgery for cancer, and Keith's health problems have been well-documented. Another possible cause might be that the three musicians have simply become too familiar with each others' playing styles and have exhausted the spontaneity inherent in their earlier recordings.

I do not really give much credence to Keith's emphasis (in the album's liner notes) on the poor weather at Antibes as a pre-concert depressant. I don't underemphasize the effect of the weather on the instruments. I'm a musician myself, and I know how moisture can ruin a good instrument (incidentally, the piano on Up For It sounds lousy). However, Keith's emphasis on the problems before the show seems to read, like many other similar statements, like the ramblings of a prima donna searching for an excuse for a bad performance.

I give this record 3 stars because, despite its shortcomings, it is still the work of one of the most important jazz musicians ever.

Description of Up for It: Live in Juan-Les-Pins

Jazz CDs

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