Keith Jarrett, Paul Motian, Gary Peacock – The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn

What does it sound like?:

Keith Jarrett was a singular talent. A child prodigy, he began piano lessons at the age of three. Early on, his first experiment with composing was to add a note to a Mozart piece. He played the original to his teacher and his own version to himself at home. From the very beginning, he combined the classicist’s ambidextrous ability to wring every emotion from little squiggles on a page with the jazz musician’s ear for improvisation and adventure. His talent was so huge, his taste so mercurial and his personality so prickly, he struggled to fit into groups with other musicians. It’s no coincidence that it was his solo pieces made him famous, my favourite being Bremen/Lausanne rather than the big seller, Köln. Charles Lloyd, a saxophonist leaning towards Coltrane experimentation, accommodated him early in his career by giving him plenty of space to extemporise. He served a stint in Miles Davis’s electric band of the early seventies, where he worked alongside Jack DeJohnette, a powerhouse of a drummer who found a way to provoke and cajole Jarrett on to greater heights. The pair combined with Gary Peacock, a patient and melodic bass player, who had experienced the wildness of Albert Ayler, to record Jazz Standards in 1983. They refashioned the repertoire for a trio in a way no-one else had since Bill Evans in the sixties. Meanwhile, Paul Motian, the subtle and musical drummer in that Bill Evans Trio, had joined Jarrett for nearly a decade between 1967 and 1976. Despite his strange behaviour, assaulting his piano, banging the strings under the lid, grunting, moaning, berating the audience, stopping the music to lead a group cough, performing on a stage in complete darkness, Jarrett clearly inspired incredible loyalty from a number of his colleagues.

He also had a faithful and understanding fan base. In 1992, this trio performed a fundraiser for The Deer Head Inn, The Delaware Gap, Pennsylvania, a venue near to Jarrett’s home town where he first performed regularly as a sixteen year old. The beloved old venue had fallen on hard times. The gig wasn’t advertised, yet the hundred seat venue sold out and more than sixty more stood outside. At The Deer Head Inn, released in 1994, used seven tracks from that evening and, now, the remaining eight have been polished up for this release. All the songs are standards, many associated with Miles Davis. Peacock and Motian provide encouragement, filling pauses rather than playing solos, and giving the tunes an occasional push to keep them swinging. Motian’s gentle style compared to DeJohnette, creates breathing room for Jarrett, who remains under control, displaying a delicate touch on the ballads and a spectacular dynamism on the quicker tunes. His fingers are remarkable, gliding effortlessly over the keys, a wonder to behold. The title track, especially, ebbs and flows perfectly, masterfully building tension and release. The overall effect is feather light, yet rich with complex colour, exemplary intuitive trio jazz, the audience rapt and appreciative.

The fly in the ointment is Jarrett’s vocalisations. Mostly, they sound like an out-of-tune paper and comb, some distance from the microphones, but there are plenty of groans, gasps and yelps. He manages to contain them in the quiet passages and, mostly, the customers wilfully ignore them. After all, he can’t help it. He follows a long line of genius jazz pianists who hum, along with Theolonious Monk, Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson, Cecil Taylor, Erroll Garner and Jimmy Smith, to name a few. Perhaps, they are ‘alien conversations’. In Jarrett’s case, the noises he makes are especially disturbing in a context like this when he is playing pretty tunes so exquisitely. It is particularly ironic that he demands absolute silence from those who paid to attend, yet the most distracting noises come from his own mouth. You have to, somehow, listen past them, and when you do, you will find The Old Country is absolutely gorgeous.

Paul Motian’s presence in both trios, over thirty years apart, demands comparisons with Bill Evans. Just as Waltz For Debby completes Sunday At The Village Vanguard, now, At The Deer Head Inn is complete, all two and half hours of it. These eight numbers are equally as wonderful as the original seven. On The Old Country, a true Jazz great re-examines the standard song book with two warmly supportive friends and finds joyful new ways to present it. Easily one of the best Jazz releases of the year.

What does it all *mean*?

The evening of 16th September 1992 is almost a match for 25th June 1961, when Bill Evans, Paul Motian and Scott LoFaro worked their symbiotic, pastel-hued magic. 1992 is brighter, more energetic and weighted towards the star player but just as worthy of a high place in the upper echelons of Jazz.

Goes well with…

Expensive Hi-Fi, though it might make the humming more prominent. The recording quality is superb. A real pleasure to listen to.

Release Date:

8th November 2024

Might suit people who like…

Jazz trios.

18