Music Arcades: Keith Jarrett: Solo Concerts

I picked up this double-cassette when I saw it on the counter of a shop (probably Fopp) for £2.99, intended precisely to provoke an impulse purchase. You could pay that amount of money just for a pint of Guinness in the Showroom bar (and wait longer to be served there), so it seemed like a good deal to me — even if it turned out to be only half as good as The Köln Concert, which I liked.

It's possibly not as pretty as The Köln Concert, but nevertheless quite enjoyable if you're in the mood for this kind of thing. How's that for a sophisticated appreciation?

I'm not an expert on Jarrett; I didn't even know that this album existed until I saw it, and I didn't know that there's also a Paris solo concert (I just found that out when I was comparing the customer reviews of Köln, Bremen and Lausanne on Amazon). Being so prodigiously talented, Jarrett has never had to bend to commercial pressures, and I mostly like his outspoken opinions on everything from the amplification of bass to the nature of marital relationships. Though he stresses his belief in divinity (when D and I saw his trio at the Royal Festival Hall in 2000, someone shouted, with thick Scandinavian accent, "You are the greatest", to which Jarrett replied, "There's always one greater"), you get the impression that he's a bit full of himself. I probably would be, too, if I could play the piano like him.