Keith Jarrett too Jack DeJohnette, who kicking the bucket on their formidable partnership to this day, bring together forces for an early on too unique collaboration. This beingness the tail destination of Jarrett’s electrical stream alongside Miles Davis, Ruta too Daitya marks an archivally of import transition into his imminent acoustic pilgrimages. “Overture Communion” captures our attending from the showtime alongside a funky, wah-wahed electrical piano, warmly guiding us into the album’s exciting, however somehow ever plaintive world. The championship rail shakes things upwards alongside a spate of paw percussion equally Jarrett flutes a to a greater extent than abstract improvisation than the 1 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 exactly that they don’t verbalize to each other equally complementarily. Thankfully, Jarrett’s render to flute, this fourth dimension of bamboo variety, puts us correct dorsum into the conversation. DeJohnette takes upwards a criterion drum kit for “All We Got,” a cutting that runs around inwards circles, fifty-fifty equally it rouses us alongside its gospel-infused aesthetic. Jarrett finds himself acoustically redrawn inwards “Sounds of Peru.” Piano too paw drums operate magically this fourth dimension around equally the couple 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 create the drums skirt the periphery, but frolic inwards the territory proper. There is fifty-fifty what amounts to a percussion solo equally Jarrett coos inwards the background alongside 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 peradventure its linearity is somewhat limiting to a instrumentalist alongside 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 alongside “Pastel Morning,” a beautiful meditation on the electrical piano. In the absence of punchy distortion, it sounds around similar a vibraphone, its gentler capacities allowed to float of their ain accord.
The album’s championship is a curious one, too offers at best a rather opaque X-ray of the conceptual skeleton it sheathes. Ruta too Daitya cry to 2 island-continents, remnants of the mo cataclysm to befall the groovy isle of Atlantis. Both were populated past times races of titans, known equally “Lords of the Dark Face” equally a agency of indicating their ties to dark magic. If nosotros are to believe Madame Blavatsky, who inwards her mo book of The Secret Doctrine outlines their genealogical significance inwards her mystical, albeit highly racialized, trouble organisation human relationship of creation, the Egyptians inherited the cosmological legacy of the Ruta Atlanteans, equally supposedly evidenced inwards the similarities of their Zodiacal beliefs. Whatever the origins, at that topographic point is much to ponder inwards Ruta too Daitya. The sensitive pianism for which Jarrett is then 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 practiced too plays alongside an addictive feel of abandon. DeJohnette, meanwhile, enchants alongside a melodic approach to his kit, peculiarly inwards his role of cymbals.
This isn’t an album I would necessarily recommend to those exactly starting their Jarrett or ECM explorations. For what it is—a coming together of 2 destination musical minds—its importance is a given. While peradventure non equally consistently inventive equally other likeminded projects (see, for example, the phenomenal Charles Lloyd/Billy Higgins seek Which Way Is East), it is sure enough to a greater extent than hitting than miss, too strikes this listener alongside the ambitions of its musicians’ make every time.
Splitting his fourth dimension betwixt the electrical too acoustic pianos too a fleck of organ, Jarrett teams upwards alongside drummer/percussionist Jack DeJohnette inwards a serial of experimental duets, his entirely electrical session for ECM. The all-acoustic championship release ranges all over the lot, from tootling on a bamboo (?) flute to the energizing barrelhouse gospel riffs that would blossom inwards the solo concerts. Tellingly, at that topographic point is picayune inwards this collaboration that predicts what Jarrett too DeJohnette would create inwards their Standards Trio of the '80s; rather, it anticipates the exotic Third World side of Jarrett's American quartet similar a shot inwards the futurity too adds a finishing flourish to his jazz-rock period. Indeed, the most memorably percolating playing past times 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 alongside Miles Davis. As such, this is a valuable, underrated transition album that provides peradventure the final glimpse of the electrical Keith Jarrett equally he embarked on his notorious (and ultimately triumphant) anti-electric crusade.
All compositions past times Keith Jarrett too Jack DeJohnette except equally indicated
Recorded at Sunset Studios, Los Angeles, CA, May, 1971
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Track listing:
1. "Overture/Communion" - 6:00
2. "Ruta too 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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