#262 The Best Album of 1989, Round 1 Match #24: The Beautiful South vs. Keith Jarrett
Hey folks!
Today’s Best Album of 1989 match is:
#45 The Beautiful South, WELCOME TO THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH
vs.
#84 Keith Jarrett, CHANGELESS
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We have one Designated Cheerleader, it’s from @bsglaser.bsky.social and it’s for CHANGELESS! Take it away, Brian!
It's no small task to wrap your mind and/or ears around Keith Jarrett. He's probably best known for his solo piano excursions (e.g., The Köln Concert from 1975), a format in which he's released dozens of hours of mostly improvised music. But he's also led American and European quartets that focus on composed material, recorded in various duo and trio combinations, laid down almost two-dozen classical records, and gone way, way out in a series of works that don't fit snugly into clear categories (e.g., improvising with symphonies, solo organ or clavichord albums, etc.). He's also been a sideman for luminaries like Miles Davis and Charles Lloyd. Even if he never plays another note (which seems likely, following a stroke a few years ago), Keith has done so much in so many directions that his discography can be a lifetime of listening for the average punter.
But all of that excludes the so-called "Standards Trio" with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette, the band that appears on CHANGELESS. This is a trio with more than 20 releases (ranging from single LPs to multi-disc box sets) since 1983, and presumably lots more in the vault.
Before we get to the music on CHANGELESS, I want to address something that came up during the nomination process: whether or not this is a "live album." Jarrett has plenty of studio recordings, but his solo piano and Standards Trio albums are mostly recorded in front of audiences. This trio, in fact, has recorded in a studio exactly twice: one long session in 1983 that yielded 3 LPs, and a shorter one in 1993 that paid tribute to the recently deceased Miles Davis. That's it. Everything else is live...I'd argue they're NOT live albums, but instead are albums recorded in front of an audience. The distinction, as I make it, breaks down roughly like this: LIVE RUST is a live album; RUST NEVER SLEEPS is an album recorded in front of an audience. They're very different propositions.
Which segues nicely into the main method by which the Standards Trio operates: They don't rehearse, and they don't compose. Instead, they use jazz standards as starting points to go on deep adventures into close listening and improvisation. Yes, they're playing deathless tunes like "Stella by Starlight," "All the Things You Are," and "Caravan," but these aren't ordinary blowing sessions over changes, nor is there any sort of set rotation of solos. Instead, they probe these tunes that they know by heart and blow them up and out, using the concert hall as a laboratory to see where they can lead each other and how creatively they can follow. The songs can explode and contract, and there's no real destination in the collective mind. Each tune is an invitation to hear something new inside of something old; the outcomes vary from interesting to revelatory, and you never know what you'll get.
Which brings us to CHANGELESS, one of a scant handful of Standards Trio albums that does NOT draw from the songbook of standards. Instead of being built on top of predetermined chord changes, CHANGELESS is fully improvised, a tactic that works differently each time the trio has tried it. On ALWAYS LET ME GO from 2002, the tracks range from a 3-minute miniature to explorations that trip past the 30-minute mark. It's not always easy to listen to, but can be astonishing when everything slots together in the moment.
On CHANGELESS, recorded in 1987 and released in '89, the trio gin up what feels like a tight suite of tracks that span 9 to 15 minutes each. What's especially notable about this all-improv set is the static baseline for each section: the band plays in a single key, and keeps the melodic and rhythmic deviations to a minimum. Or maybe I should say to they keep it to Minimalism: the tunes here (each drawn from a different concert on a month-long US tour) lean into the "repetition with variation" core of Minimalist composition, and especially rely on Peacock's often circular bass lines; he's not often out front quite like this on Standards Trio recordings, so it really stands out here (and is among the core reasons that this album reminds me of some of the best work from The Necks). The trio still does what it does best, but within some mutually agreed-upon limitations that force each musician to find new expressive pathways.
The Standards Trio is not to every listener's taste; in fact, I know some serious jazz heads who even find it hard to hear some of their records (and many other Jarrett joints) as quote-unquote jazz, maybe given how far afield they're willing to wander and how frequently they set form aside in favor of following a restless collective muse. But I find CHANGELESS to be among the trio's easiest entry points--it's very focused and can have a hypnotic quality when they all agree to lock into a groove. Try to not listen to it as a jazz record, per se, and instead open yourself up to hear them they way they're hearing each other--start together, and end up with something else.
Thank you, Brian!
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Yesterday, #20 Julee Cruise, FLOATING INTO THE NIGHT defeated #109 Eleventh Dream Day, BEET 75-44-1.
Thanks for reading and voting,
Kent