Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music

Rating:
Summary: A Somewhat Shallow Biography Of The Great Pianist
Review: I agree with the first reviewer who writes that "the major problem inherent in books about musicians is that ultimately the only way to understand the artist's music is to listen to it." I see no reason why anyone would want to read this book without having listened to some of Jarrett's music. But those who have will likely be interested in this rather short biography by Ian Carr.

After a short foreword, we hear about Jarrett's childhood, his experiences with his piano teachers in particular and the stories surrounding his child prodigy. In chapter two, entitled 'From Allentown to Berklee and Boston', Ian Carr writes about the struggles to get out of the boring and dead town that Keith thought Allentown was into the more jazz-suited places like Berklee and Boston. Chapter three deals with his going to New York and playing with the Charles Lloyd Quartet, the first major turning point in his career, and the next chapter tells about his experiences on playing the Miles Davis. The following chapters is more about his own persuits where he doesn't have to play in an apprentice's role.

The book has only 195 pages, and that's too little to cover the story of a genius. The book quotes musicians from time to time and those quotations are much like a tv documentary without much depth. Actually the book could well be a tv documentary, because it reads like one - the story about his family relationship, his economic problems, a tour of his albums and so on. Although I have mostly critized the book, I want to recommend it to fans of Keith Jarrett. This is the only book about him, and though it's a little bit shallow, it provides a good picture and overview of his music and his personal life that fans would love to read about.

Rating:
Summary: A Somewhat Shallow Biography Of The Great Pianist
Review: I agree with the first reviewer who writes that "the major problem inherent in books about musicians is that ultimately the only way to understand the artist's music is to listen to it." I see no reason why anyone would want to read this book without having listened to some of Jarrett's music. But those who have will likely be interested in this rather short biography by Ian Carr.

After a short foreword, we hear about Jarrett's childhood, his experiences with his piano teachers in particular and the stories surrounding his child prodigy. In chapter two, entitled 'From Allentown to Berklee and Boston', Ian Carr writes about the struggles to get out of the boring and dead town that Keith thought Allentown was into the more jazz-suited places like Berklee and Boston. Chapter three deals with his going to New York and playing with the Charles Lloyd Quartet, the first major turning point in his career, and the next chapter tells about his experiences on playing the Miles Davis. The following chapters is more about his own persuits where he doesn't have to play in an apprentice's role.

The book has only 195 pages, and that's too little to cover the story of a genius. The book quotes musicians from time to time and those quotations are much like a tv documentary without much depth. Actually the book could well be a tv documentary, because it reads like one - the story about his family relationship, his economic problems, a tour of his albums and so on. Although I have mostly critized the book, I want to recommend it to fans of Keith Jarrett. This is the only book about him, and though it's a little bit shallow, it provides a good picture and overview of his music and his personal life that fans would love to read about.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Subject - Very Readable Book
Review: I'm not sure why the review below is so negative. Actually, I have been re-discovering Keith Jarrett and, once this reviewer complained about the reviews in the book, I was sold! Just what I was looking for to help me sort through the huge back catalogue! Mr Carr has written this bio in the time-honoured fashion. He does not heap praise on Keith Jarrett's every recording. He reviews every disc (up to the end of the eighties) as one would expect from a biographer - we can't all see an artist live whenever we want to - most of us rely on these "records" of the artist's sound, style and progress or whatever. He gives examples of Jarrett's genius and of his to-be-expected-of-a-person-like-this idiosyncrasies and lets us make up our minds about the man. It's worth reading just for the incredible circumstances surrounding the "Solo Concerts" and "Koln Concert" recordings. Recommended. Hope he updates it in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Keith Jarrett is not God.
Review: Ian Carrs Biography of The life of Keith Jarrett is an informative book about one of the worlds greatest musical geniuses.But Im sorry to inform you that Keith Jarrett is not God,as Mr. Carr would have you to believe in this book.Keith Jarrett makes mistakes and has his flaws just like the rest of us but Mr. Carrs book seems more like a Keith Jarrett excuse portfolio rather than a biography.It also seems as if your reading the Keith Jarrett rolling stone issue because Mr.Carr feels as if it was necessary to extensively review all of Keith Jarretts major recordings:In my opinion to fill space.With all that is annoying with Mr.Carrs style of writing I reccomend this book to any Keith Jarrett fan or music lover who is any knowledge of Keith Jarrett.If you can get past Mr.Carrs fanatic approach to biography writing the details are interesting and informative.Since this is the only known biography of Keith Jarretts life its worth owning because YOU HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO CHOOSE FROM.

Rating:
Summary: All Fluff and No Music make for a Very Dull Book
Review: The major problem inherent in books about musicians is that ultimately the only way to understand the artist's music is to listen to it, a point made all too clear in this biography by Ian Carr. Despite the obvious co-operation of the artist and his friends (who were interviewed for the project) Carr never really seems to get inside the head of this brilliant, but still enigmatic musician. Instead, the reader is left with dozens of nagging questions, some of which, admittedly, are so personal as to be none of anyone's business, but which the typical gossip-monger (who inevitably makes up a substantial percentage of the biography-reading public) will feel cheated by the conspicuous absence of.

Recreational drugs, for example, don't even exist as far as this book is concerned, which is understandable for Christian Scientist Jarrett, but doesn't seem too likely so far as the rest of the jazz world goes. We get none of the typical rock star road stories from his days at the top with Charles Lloyd or Miles Davis, although its hard to believe he saw no wild excesses in the music business during the late sixties. Nor does Jarrett seem to have been much of a womanizer, which is certainly to his credit of course, but anyone hoping for explicit details about wild orgies with groupies will be disappointed. Serious musicians might have at least appreciated transcriptions of some of Jarrett's more famous pieces, but he scotched that idea too.

Of course Carr can only work with the facts he's given, but some other questions are never satisfactorily dealt with: What drove this poverty-stricken young Allentown native into so poor-paying a field as jazz? What's the real story behind his reputation as a 'difficult' man to work with? And why does this brilliant pianist and captivating improviser so often pursue projects which undercut his own strengths, playing soprano sax, or recording volumes of standards and classical music?

Instead of answers, what we get is Carr's copious reviews of several of Jarrett's major albums (although many others are ignored altogether and are only mentioned in the Discography ' perhaps the highlight of the book, even though the songs are listed without the names of the composers). The 200 page chronology of Jarrett's life splits after the Sun Bear set, so that his most inventive and commercially successful period falls within the first hundred pages. After this the book really drags, perhaps most especially for those (dare one suggest the majority?) who aren't really quite as excited by his later forays into jazz standards and classical performances.

Carr is most effective in communicating the musical philosophy of this dedicated artist, who creates music by achieving a kind of transcendent emotional consciousness. But what kind of man he is when he's living with us in this world, we don't really find out.

Rating:
Summary: All Fluff and No Music make for a Very Dull Book
Review: The major problem inherent in books about musicians is that ultimately the only way to understand the artist�s music is to listen to it, a point made all too clear in this biography by Ian Carr. Despite the obvious co-operation of the artist and his friends (who were interviewed for the project) Carr never really seems to get inside the head of this brilliant, but still enigmatic musician. Instead, the reader is left with dozens of nagging questions, some of which, admittedly, are so personal as to be none of anyone�s business, but which the typical gossip-monger (who inevitably makes up a substantial percentage of the biography-reading public) will feel cheated by the conspicuous absence of.

Recreational drugs, for example, don�t even exist as far as this book is concerned, which is understandable for Christian Scientist Jarrett, but doesn�t seem too likely so far as the rest of the jazz world goes. We get none of the typical rock star road stories from his days at the top with Charles Lloyd or Miles Davis, although its hard to believe he saw no wild excesses in the music business during the late sixties. Nor does Jarrett seem to have been much of a womanizer, which is certainly to his credit of course, but anyone hoping for explicit details about wild orgies with groupies will be disappointed. Serious musicians might have at least appreciated transcriptions of some of Jarrett's more famous pieces, but he scotched that idea too.

Of course Carr can only work with the facts he�s given, but some other questions are never satisfactorily dealt with: What drove this poverty-stricken young Allentown native into so poor-paying a field as jazz? What�s the real story behind his reputation as a �difficult� man to work with? And why does this brilliant pianist and captivating improviser so often pursue projects which undercut his own strengths, playing soprano sax, or recording volumes of standards and classical music?

Instead of answers, what we get is Carr�s copious reviews of several of Jarrett�s major albums (although many others are ignored altogether and are only mentioned in the Discography � perhaps the highlight of the book, even though the songs are listed without the names of the composers). The 200 page chronology of Jarrett�s life splits after the Sun Bear set, so that his most inventive and commercially successful period falls within the first hundred pages. After this the book really drags, perhaps most especially for those (dare one suggest the majority?) who aren�t really quite as excited by his later forays into jazz standards and classical performances.

Carr is most effective in communicating the musical philosophy of this dedicated artist, who creates music by achieving a kind of transcendent emotional consciousness. But what kind of man he is when he�s living with us in this world, we don�t really find out.