Keith Jarrett as well as Jack DeJohnette, who buy the farm along their formidable partnership to this day, bring together forces for an early on as well as unique collaboration. This beingness the tail destination of Jarrett’s electrical current amongst Miles Davis, Ruta as well as Daitya marks an archivally of import transition into his imminent acoustic pilgrimages. “Overture Communion” captures our attending from the start amongst a funky, wah-wahed electrical piano, warmly guiding us into the album’s exciting, withal somehow e'er plaintive world. The championship rail shakes things upwards amongst a spate of manus percussion every bit Jarrett flutes a to a greater extent than abstract improvisation than the ane that began the album, though to no less captivating effect. When Jarrett abandons flute for piano, a markedly unlike shape brands itself into the foreground. In doing so, something gets obscured. It’s non that instruments from such seemingly disparate geographies cannot tread the same path, but only that they don’t verbalize to each other every bit complementarily. Thankfully, Jarrett’s render to flute, this fourth dimension of bamboo variety, puts us correct dorsum into the conversation. DeJohnette takes upwards a measure drum kit for “All We Got,” a cutting that runs roughly inwards circles, fifty-fifty every bit it rouses us amongst its gospel-infused aesthetic. Jarrett finds himself acoustically redrawn inwards “Sounds of Peru.” Piano as well as manus drums operate magically this fourth dimension roughly every bit the span hones farther the groove it has been searching for. Jarrett opens upwards his playing, giving DeJohnette a wider berth inwards which to lose himself. No longer practice the drums skirt the periphery, but frolic inwards the territory proper. There is fifty-fifty what amounts to a percussion solo every bit Jarrett coos inwards the background amongst delight, thus preparing him for an inspired passage that grinds bass notes inwards counterpoint to his running correct hand. In “Algeria,” Jarrett sings into the flute again, leaving me to wonder why nosotros don’t hear him on the musical instrument to a greater extent than often, though possibly its linearity is somewhat limiting to a instrumentalist amongst such expansive hands (hence, his propensity for polyphonic playing). “You Know, You Know” brings us total circle to the electrical pianoforte for a to a greater extent than laid-back coolness earlier nosotros destination amongst “Pastel Morning,” a beautiful meditation on the electrical piano. In the absence of punchy distortion, it sounds close similar a vibraphone, its gentler capacities allowed to float of their ain accord.
The album’s championship is a curious one, as well as offers at best a rather opaque X-ray of the conceptual skeleton it sheathes. Ruta as well as Daitya advert to ii island-continents, remnants of the minute cataclysm to befall the neat isle of Atlantis. Both were populated yesteryear races of titans, known every bit “Lords of the Dark Face” every bit a way of indicating their ties to dark magic. If nosotros are to believe Madame Blavatsky, who inwards her minute book of The Secret Doctrine outlines their genealogical significance inwards her mystical, albeit highly racialized, trouble concern human relationship of creation, the Egyptians inherited the cosmological legacy of the Ruta Atlanteans, every bit supposedly evidenced inwards the similarities of their Zodiacal beliefs. Whatever the origins, in that place is much to ponder inwards Ruta as well as Daitya. The sensitive pianism for which Jarrett is as well as so renowned is inwards total evidence throughout, though for me his flute playing actually sells the album. Jarrett proves himself to a greater extent than than expert as well as plays amongst an addictive feel of abandon. DeJohnette, meanwhile, enchants amongst a melodic approach to his kit, peculiarly inwards his purpose of cymbals.
This isn’t an album I would necessarily recommend to those precisely starting their Jarrett or ECM explorations. For what it is—a coming together of ii destination musical minds—its importance is a given. While possibly non every bit consistently inventive every bit other likeminded projects (see, for example, the phenomenal Charles Lloyd/Billy Higgins essay Which Way Is East), it is for sure to a greater extent than striking than miss, as well as strikes this listener amongst the ambitions of its musicians’ attain every time.
Splitting his fourth dimension betwixt the electrical as well as acoustic pianos as well as a flake of organ, Jarrett teams upwards amongst drummer/percussionist Jack DeJohnette inwards a serial of experimental duets, his alone electrical session for ECM. The all-acoustic championship disclose ranges all over the lot, from tootling on a bamboo (?) flute to the energizing barrelhouse gospel riffs that would flower inwards the solo concerts. Tellingly, in that place is footling inwards this collaboration that predicts what Jarrett as well as DeJohnette would practice inwards their Standards Trio of the '80s; rather, it anticipates the exotic Third World side of Jarrett's American quartet straightaway inwards the hereafter as well as adds a finishing flourish to his jazz-rock period. Indeed, the most memorably percolating playing yesteryear both musicians turns upwards inwards the electrical numbers, where Jarrett utilizes the distinctively funky, wah-wah, fuzz-tone approach on electrical pianoforte that he developed amongst Miles Davis. As such, this is a valuable, underrated transition album that provides possibly the terminal glimpse of the electrical Keith Jarrett every bit he embarked on his notorious (and ultimately triumphant) anti-electric crusade.
All compositions yesteryear Keith Jarrett as well as Jack DeJohnette except every bit indicated
Recorded at Sunset Studios, Los Angeles, CA, May, 1971
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Track listing:
1. "Overture/Communion" - 6:00
2. "Ruta as well as Daitya" - 11:14
3. "All We Got" - 2:00
4. "Sounds of Peru/Submergence/Awakening" - 6:31
5. "Algeria" - 5:47
6. "You Know, You Know" (Jarrett) - 7:44
7. "Pastel Morning" (Jarrett) - 2:04
Personnel:
Keith Jarrett – piano, electrical piano, organ, flute
Jack DeJohnette - drums, percussion
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