Keith Jarrett and the True You

Reading jazz pianist Keith Jarrett's comments in this week's New York Times Magazine gave me the willies. He was talking about jazz that lacked soul, but all I could think of was Harvard. On the face of it, Jarrett, a '70s jazz superstar turned classical recording artist, was giving it to Wynton Marsalis and the new crop of '80s jazz virtuosos. But Jarrett's scathing commentary on the contemporary jazz scene reads like advice to Harvard undergrads:

"I think there's a horrible thing going on now, where young players haven't been told by the right people that there's more to it than marketing themselves. They expend all the energy they should be using to find their voice, or work on their voice, or listen to themselves play."

Jarrett is somewhat too syrupy here for my taste, too confident that we each have a voice of our own and something worth saying. Yet, there is an edginess in his tone that saves him from self-help literature and being anthologized in the Utne Reader. Listen again: "there's more to it than marketing themselves." This is sound advice from a man who has sold gazillions of albums.

Those of us with thick skin can even consider this prudential advice; one who does not actively market oneself may sell better than an aggressive go-getter. As tactics run, though, this is a bit questionable, best suited to those with truly powerful voices. For if you speak softly, you may need to market yourself simply to compete with all your loud-mouthed fellows.

Jarrett certainly seems sure of his own voice, which may not be surprising for a solo pianist and acclaimed improviser. Indeed, Jarrett is well known for his improvisational concerts, where he takes the stage and proceeds to make up his entire show on the spot.

What really grates my sensibilities about Jarrett is not his self-confidence, but his demands of authenticity of a very particular kind from others as well. He cannot stand imitation or derivative playing as he made abundantly clear in the Times article.

"You can't learn to imitate everyone else without a real deficit," Jarrett warns. "I've never heard anything Wynton [Marsalis] played sound like it meant anything at all. Wynton has no voice and no presence. His music sounds like a talented high-school trumpet player to me."

Jarrett trips up here by choosing to pick on Marsalis, a well-respected professional. Moreover, Marsalis' records are convincing in the way that Jarrett swears they are not. "Soul Gestures in a Southern Blue," for instance, is remarkable notably for the intensity of feeling it inspires.

Besides, if his Koln Concert is any evidence, Jarrett finds meaning and authenticity only in a surfeit of emotion and moodiness. The album, a recording of one of his improvisational concerts, is a real soul-twister, one part tear-jerker, one part elevator fodder, and one part art. Jarrett oozes presence on the album, as he grunts along with the music over and over and over again.

There is a certain pleasure to listening to the record, don't get me wrong, but it is a gooey kind of thing, like eating molasses cookies or bittersweet chocolate mousse. Over all, it is an album better suited to high school, or immediately after, when emotions run hard and deep, and we take melodrama in stride.

Two friends of mine introduced me to Jarrett the year after I graduated from high school. I was taking a year off, studying in New York, and needless to say, I was very emotional. At the time, Jarrett seemed irreducible, beyond classification, and too true for words. I listened to the Koln concert that entire spring--while walking, studying and having serious conversations.

But as time passes, one cannot help but grow out of Jarret's music. Such raw emotion is on the one hand too close to melodrama, and on the other, too close to madness. The Koln concert began to sound less and less convincing, lacking in artistic and critical intelligence. If Jarrett were not so frightened of imitation, and his recent classical recordings hint that he is not, he might find a new sort of authenticity in tradition.

The good Jarrett, the usable Jarrett, is the cagey restless artist who warns us of marketing as a waste of energy. This is fine, if somewhat imprudent, advice, and we would do well to listen up. Unfortunately, there is a worthless side to the man as well, the Jarrett who counsels us to beef up our presence. In fact, this bad Jarrett comes dangerously close to contradicting his better self; after all, his presence, (and we take his grunting as evidence of it) is not all that different from self-promotion.

Noah I. Dauber's column appears on alternate Tuesdays.