Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett is a pianist and composer whose work spans an extraordinary range from avant-garde to jazz standards interpretation, making him one of jazz’s most acclaimed and individualistic voices. His career demonstrates remarkable versatility: from his early work with Charles Lloyd’s quartet in the mid-1960s and his electric period with Miles Davis (1970-1971), to his formation of two distinct groups—the American Quartet with Dewey Redman and the European Quartet with Jan Garbarek—that explored different facets of Post Bop and Free Jazz. Jarrett’s prolific output on Impulse! Records in the early 1970s, including albums like “Fort Yawuh” and “The Survivors’ Suite”, captured his most adventurous group work before his transition to predominantly solo and trio formats. His solo piano concerts, particularly “The Köln Concert” (1975), became among the best-selling jazz recordings of all time and established wholly improvised performances as a viable format. Jarrett’s Standards Trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette, active from the 1980s onward, produced definitive interpretations of the American songbook across numerous ECM releases. His work on ECM Records, where he recorded extensively from the 1970s through the 2010s, documented his evolution across classical music, jazz standards, and free improvisation. A stroke in 2018 ended his performing career, but his recorded legacy across multiple idioms remains unparalleled in its scope and influence.