On ‘Bourdeaux Concert,’ Keith Jarrett Releases Highly Lyrical Third Solo Concert From Acclaimed 2016 Tour (ALBUM REVIEW)

Two years ago, following the breaking story in The New York Times that pianist Keith Jarrett had suffered two strokes in 2018 and may never perform in public again, his label ECM released Budapest Concert, the second complete show issued from Keith Jarrett’s 2016 European tour, recorded two weeks earlier than the widely acclaimed concert released as Munich 2016. Now, two years later we are getting reports that Jarrett, still with no use of his left hand, has begun to play the piano again, using only his right hand. He continues to build up strength in his right hand, explaining it this way, The one limitation with my right hand is that my little finger has to play the melody. That is not true of having both hands. And the rest of my hand is there to pretend to play the chord.” While this is encouraging, we are not likely to hear Jarrett record or perform again. Nonetheless, the label has more in store for us from that same 2016 tour, issuing Bordeaux Concert, recorded six weeks after his concert in Budapest. Munich was the last stop on the tour so concerts in Vienna and Rome may subsequently get released at some point too. If it’s up to Jarrett, they will. 

Bordeaux Concert is a 77-minute performance, like the others on the tour, an improvised suite, here simply numbered I-XIII. There are no standards or familiar pieces as we found in the Munich and Budapest recordings. Although critics and fans have long considered his 1975 The Köln Concert as not only the gold standard for Jarrett but for improvisational solo piano, Jarrett claimed his new gold standard was the Budapest performance. Each concert has its own distinct character, and each can never be duplicated. These tone poems, blues, and ballads are being shaped in the moment. Only Jarrett knows where he’s headed, and he often surprises himself along the way. In Bordeaux, he moves through a wide range of moods, styles, and dynamics, such that at the time, some French reviewers favorably compared the event to Jarrett’s milestone 1975 Köln concert.

The emphasis in Bordeaux, the last concert that Jarrett would give in France, recorded at the Auditorium de l’Opera National de Bordeaux on July 6, 2016, is on lyricism but that is not immediately apparent through the first two atonal pieces, fluid and quietly dramatic, which comprise over 17 minutes.  Nonetheless, he begins to build the singular experience, an intimate conversation with the piano and the room of the transfixed audience, who hang on every note and enthusiastically applaud when given the opportunity. The first of these follows “Part III,” the stunningly beautiful lyrical piece, a ballad in sections with a hymnal kind of progression faintly suggesting gospel. You may have heard it released as a single. It’s a calming, huge giant pause, as if Jarrett is reflecting nostalgically on an event or person dear to him, the last chord sublime in itself. 

His creativity knows few boundaries. Rolling arpeggios mark “Part IV,” he again ruminates lyrically in “Part VI,” and then proceeds to encompass the major hallmarks of his playing with witty lines in Part VII, bluesy tones in Part VIII, more stunning lyrical balladry in “Part XI,” and, given the setting, the requisite nod to classicism in the final piece. Commenting on his improvisational style, and especially “Part III,” Jarrett related this to Nate Chinen in a recent interview for NPR, “It’s at least two things at one time. It’s a melody that I could have been sitting down and writing differently, but that isn’t what I am. I’m an improviser.” 

Every Jarrett solo performance holds its own magical appeal and Bordeaux certainly holds its own with any of the others in his storied catalog. 

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