Keith Jarrett

I saw him improvise on the piano last night at Carnegie Hall. Before Jarrett came on-stage some dude came out and told us to shut off our cellphones and not cough and to try to keep the noise down. He said that we should do that because, by entering Carnegie Hall, we had agreed to a "social contract" of audience comportment. That was annoying.

Then Keith Jarrett walked out and took a spot behind a microphone. He was wearing a gold-colored vest, black shirt, and black pants. He gave a confusing, rambling speech about how the economy should not be bolstered if it allows art to 'slide off the table.' He did quote a good Monk line about how we wouldn't need light if it weren't darkness all the time. Then he walked over to his piano, sat down, and said something about how the piano hasn't changed since the 1800s. People cheered.

Then he played five minutes or so of slightly dissonant romantic noodlings. He finished, got up, bowed, and played some impressionistic, watery stuff. This was much better. When he plays, he shakes and shimmies, stands up and sits down, stomps his feet, emits strange mildly-orgasmic noises and high-pitched tuneless wailing. After his second improvisation, he began talking, stopped, then got up and walked over to the microphone. He then said something close to the following: "People often ask me what's easier: beginning or ending? They're both hard. The hardest thing is improvise for 45 minutes and not lock yourself into a corner. If I had students, I would tell them to play music that doesn't lock them into a corner. That's hard to do, but sometimes you can redefine corner." Then he walked back to his piano as the crowd cheered.

When he resumed playing he was still exploring bluesy, hard-grooving sounds. It was funky and spiritual, with detours into glassy Satie-like delicacy. It was beautiful and you could bob your head to it. He seems supremely arrogant, and I'm not sure if his vocalizing and physicality isn't all a shamanistic put-on (he doesn't do that shit when he plays classical), but Keith Jarrett is capable of making gorgeous, emotional, and swinging music. My friend Jeremy said he sounds like a classical Billy Joel. So be it. I was glad to hear him in person.