50 Facts About Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett was born on May 8,1945 and is an American jazz and classical music pianist and composer.

Since the early 1970s, Keith Jarrett has been a group leader and solo performer in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music.

Keith Jarrett's improvisations draw from the traditions of jazz and other genres, including Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.

In 2003, Keith Jarrett received the Polar Music Prize and was the first recipient to be recognized with prizes for both contemporary and classical music.

In February 2018, Keith Jarrett suffered a stroke and has been unable to perform since.

Keith Jarrett was born on May 8,1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania to a mother of Slovenian descent.

Keith Jarrett's grandmother was born in Segovci, near Apace in Slovenia.

Keith Jarrett grew up in suburban Allentown with significant early exposure to music.

Keith Jarrett possesses absolute pitch and displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child.

Keith Jarrett performed in his first formal piano recital at the age of seven, playing works by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Saint-Saens, and ending with two of his own compositions.

Keith Jarrett attended Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, where he learned jazz and became proficient in it.

Keith Jarrett developed a strong interest in contemporary jazz, and was inspired by a Dave Brubeck performance he attended in New Hope.

Keith Jarrett was invited to study classical composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, but he was already leaning toward jazz and turned it down.

In 1964, Keith Jarrett moved to New York City, where he played at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village.

Keith Jarrett began to record his own tracks as a leader of small groups at first in a trio with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.

Keith Jarrett was asked to join the Miles Davis group after the trumpeter heard him in a New York City club.

Keith Jarrett has often cited Davis as a vital musical and personal influence on his own thinking about music and improvisation.

Keith Jarrett's keyboard playing features prominently on Live-Evil and he plays electric organ on Get Up with It.

DeJohnette left Davis' band in the middle of 1971, and Keith Jarrett followed in December.

Keith Jarrett was impressed by the fact that Eicher was primarily concerned with musical quality, as opposed to financial gain.

Keith Jarrett recorded a few solo pieces live under the guidance of Miles Davis at the Cellar Door in Washington, DC, in December 1970.

In 1973, Keith Jarrett began playing totally improvised solo concerts, and it is the popularity of these concert recordings that made him one of the best-selling jazz artists in history.

Keith Jarrett has commented that his best performances have been when he has had only the slightest notion of what he was going to play at the next moment.

In September 2005, at Carnegie Hall, Keith Jarrett performed his first solo concert in North America in more than ten years, released a year later as a double-CD set, The Carnegie Hall Concert.

In late 2008, he performed solo in the Salle Pleyel in Paris and at London's Royal Festival Hall, marking the first time Keith Jarrett played solo in London in 17 years.

In 1983, at the suggestion of ECM head Manfred Eicher, Keith Jarrett asked bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette, with whom he had worked on Peacock's 1977 album Tales of Another, to record an album of jazz standards, simply titled Standards, Volume 1.

The final concert of Keith Jarrett's trio was on November 30,2014 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark, New Jersey.

From an academic standpoint, these compositions are dismissed by many classical music aficionados as lightweight, but Keith Jarrett appeared to be working more towards a synthesis between composed and improvised music at this time, rather than the production of formal classical works.

The Celestial Hawk is a piece for orchestra, percussion, and piano that Keith Jarrett performed and recorded with the Syracuse Symphony under Christopher Keene.

In 1995 Music Masters Jazz released a CD on which one track featured Keith Jarrett performing the solo piano part in Lousadzak, a 17-minute piano concerto by American composer Alan Hovhaness.

Keith Jarrett has recorded classical works for ECM by composers such as Bach, Handel, Shostakovich, and Arvo Part.

In 2004, Keith Jarrett was awarded the Leonie Sonning Music Prize.

Keith Jarrett has played harpsichord, clavichord, organ, soprano saxophone, and drums.

Keith Jarrett often played saxophone and various forms of percussion in the American quartet, though his recordings since the breakup of that group have rarely featured these instruments.

Keith Jarrett has spoken with some regret of his decision to give up playing the saxophone, in particular.

Keith Jarrett is physically active while playing jazz and improvised solo performances, but the vocalizations are generally absent whenever he plays classical repertoire.

Keith Jarrett has noted his vocalizations are based on involvement, not content, and are more of an interaction than a reaction.

Keith Jarrett is highly intolerant of audience noise, especially during solo improvised performances.

Keith Jarrett feels extraneous noise affects his inspiration and distracts from the purity of the sound.

Keith Jarrett has complained onstage about audience members taking photographs, and has performed in the dark to prevent this.

Keith Jarrett is opposed to electronic instruments and equipment, which he has described as "toys".

Keith Jarrett was a follower of the teachings of George Gurdjieff for many years, and in 1980 recorded an album of Gurdjieff's compositions, called Sacred Hymns, for ECM.

Keith Jarrett's forebears were Christian Scientists, and though he endorses the core of the faith, he does not follow all its precepts, and identifies with the Sufi tradition and mystical Islam.

In 1964, Keith Jarrett married Margot Erney, his girlfriend from Emmaus High School with whom Keith Jarrett reconnected in Boston.

Keith Jarrett has four younger brothers, two of whom are involved in music.

Chris Keith Jarrett is a pianist and Scott Keith Jarrett is a producer and songwriter.

Keith Jarrett's race has been a source of commentary by media and activists throughout his career, as he has reported being recurrently mistaken as a Black person.

Keith Jarrett suffered two major strokes in February and May 2018.

In February 2023, the YouTuber, musician and educator Rick Beato released on his YouTube channel an extensive interview video with Keith Jarrett, made at Keith Jarrett's home and home studio.

Still unable to use his left hand, Keith Jarrett played for Beato with his right hand alone, saying he was able to practise in this way about twice a month.