Keith Jarrett was born on May 8, 1945. He is an American pianist and composer. He began his career playing with Art Blakey. Later, he performed with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s, he has led groups and performed alone in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music. His improvisations use styles from jazz, Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.
His album The Köln Concert, released in 1975, is the best-selling piano recording in history. In 2008, he was honored by the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame as part of their 73rd Annual Readers' Poll.
In 2003, he won the Polar Music Prize. He was the first person to receive this prize for both contemporary and classical music. In 2004, he also received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize.
In February 2018, he had a stroke and could no longer perform. Another stroke in May 2018 caused partial paralysis and made it impossible for him to play with his left hand.
Early life and education
Jarrett was born on May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to a mother whose family is from Slovenia. His grandmother was born in Segovci, near Apače in Slovenia. His father was mostly of German heritage. He grew up in the suburbs of Allentown and was exposed to music early in life.
Jarrett has absolute pitch and showed exceptional musical talent as a young child. He began piano lessons before his third birthday. At age five, he appeared on a television talent show hosted by swing bandleader Paul Whiteman. At seven years old, he performed his first formal piano recital, playing pieces by composers like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Saint-Saëns, and ending with two of his own compositions. His mother encouraged him to take classical piano lessons with many teachers, including Eleanor Sokoloff from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Jarrett attended Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, where he learned jazz and became very skilled at it. He developed a strong interest in modern jazz and was inspired by a Dave Brubeck concert he attended in New Hope. He was invited to study classical composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, but he was more interested in jazz and declined the offer.
After graduating from Emmaus High School in 1963, Jarrett moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music and play cocktail piano in local Boston clubs.
Career
In 1964, Jarrett moved to New York City, where he performed at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village. Art Blakey hired Jarrett to join The Jazz Messengers. Jarrett's first recording that was sold to the public was on the Messengers' live album Buttercorn Lady. However, there were disagreements between Blakey and Jarrett, and Jarrett left the group after four months of touring.
During a performance, Jack DeJohnette noticed Jarrett and recommended him to his band leader, Charles Lloyd. The Charles Lloyd Quartet had recently formed and focused on free-form music that was made up as they went, along with smooth rhythms. They explored styles similar to some psychedelic rock bands on the West Coast. Their 1966 album Forest Flower was one of the most successful jazz recordings of the mid-1960s. The group performed at The Fillmore in San Francisco and won the support of local audiences. They toured the United States and Europe, including shows in Leningrad and Moscow. A concert at London's Royal Albert Hall was attended by The Beatles. The band was featured in Time and Harper's Magazine, which helped make Jarrett a well-known musician in both rock and jazz. The tour also created a lasting musical connection between Jarrett and DeJohnette.
Jarrett began recording music as a leader of small groups, starting with a trio that included Charlie Haden and Paul Motian. His first album as a band leader, Life Between the Exit Signs (1967), was released by Vortex. A second album, Restoration Ruin (1968), was described by Thom Jurek of AllMusic as "a unique part of his work." On this album, Jarrett played few piano notes and performed all other instruments, including singing, on a folk-rock album. Another trio album, Somewhere Before, was released in 1968 on Atlantic Records.
The Charles Lloyd Quartet, which included Jarrett, Ron McClure, and DeJohnette, ended in 1968 after recording Soundtrack because of financial disagreements and differences in musical style. Jarrett was invited to join Miles Davis's group after the trumpeter heard him perform in a New York City club. During his time with Davis, Jarrett played electronic organ and Rhodes piano, sometimes sharing the stage with Chick Corea. Both musicians appear together on some 1970 recordings, including the Isle of Wight Festival performance in the film Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue and on Bitches Brew Live. After Corea left in 1970, Jarrett often played electric piano and organ at the same time. Although he disliked amplified music and electric instruments in jazz, Jarrett stayed with the group out of respect for Davis and because he wanted to work with DeJohnette. Jarrett often said that Davis had a major influence on his thinking about music and improvisation.
Jarrett performed on several Davis albums, including Miles Davis at Fillmore, recorded in June 1970 at Fillmore East in New York City, and The Cellar Door Sessions 1970, recorded in December 1970 at The Cellar Door club in Washington, D.C. His keyboard playing was a key part of the album Live-Evil, and he played electric organ on Get Up with It. Some tracks from this time were released much later.
DeJohnette left Davis's band in mid-1971, and Jarrett followed in December. Jarrett later said, "When Jack left, I knew I had to leave… Nobody knew what Jack knew and could do what he could do simultaneously. That was the end of the flexibility of the band."
In 1971, Jarrett, Haden, and Motian recorded the trio album The Mourning of a Star and two other albums, El Juicio (The Judgement) and Birth, with saxophonist Dewey Redman joining the group. Redman became an official member, and the group later became known as the "American quartet." Over the next five years, the group recorded more than a dozen albums. The quartet sometimes included additional percussionists, such as Danny Johnson, Guilherme Franco, or Airto Moreira, and occasionally guitarist Sam Brown.
Later in 1971, the quartet, with Brown and Moreira, recorded Expectations for Columbia Records, which included string and brass arrangements by Jarrett. However, Columbia stopped working with Jarrett and chose to support Herbie Hancock instead. Jarrett's manager negotiated a contract with Impulse! Records, and the group recorded eight albums for the label.
Each member of the quartet played different instruments. Jarrett played soprano saxophone, recorder, banjo, percussion, and piano. Redman played musette, a Chinese double-reed instrument, and percussion. Motian and Haden played a variety of percussion. Haden also used his acoustic bass to create unusual sounds, including using a wah-wah pedal on one track. Albums such as Byablue and Bop-Be, recorded for Impulse!, featured compositions by Haden, Motian, and Redman, rather than Jarrett's own music, which had dominated earlier albums. Jarrett's compositions and the
Lawsuit against Steely Dan
After the U.S. rock band Steely Dan released their album Gaucho in 1980, pianist Keith Jarrett filed a lawsuit against the band for copyright infringement. The title track of Gaucho, written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, was similar to Jarrett’s song “Long As You Know You’re Living Yours” from his 1974 album Belonging. In an interview with Musician magazine, Fagen and Becker were asked about the similarity. Becker said he admired Jarrett’s composition, and Fagen mentioned they had been influenced by it. Following the publication of their comments, Jarrett pursued legal action. As a result, Becker and Fagen were required by law to credit Jarrett on the song and to provide him with publishing royalties.
Idiosyncrasies
Jarrett often makes loud sounds, sometimes like moaning, while he plays music. He is physically active during jazz and improvised solo performances, but these vocalizations usually do not happen when he plays classical music. Jarrett has explained that his vocalizations are based on how involved he is, not what he is thinking, and they are more about interacting than reacting. In an interview in 2015, Jarrett described the involuntary sounds he makes during performances: "It's potential limitlessness that I'm feeling at that moment. If you think about it, it's often in a space between phrases, [when I'm thinking,] 'How did I get to this point where I feel so full?' And if you felt full of some sort of emotion you would have to make a sound. So that's actually what it is – with the trio, without the trio, solo. Luckily for me, I don't do it with classical music."
Jarrett does not like audience noise, especially during solo improvised performances. He believes extra noise affects his inspiration and distracts from the cleanness of the music. Cough drops are often given to Jarrett's audiences in cold weather, and he has been known to stop playing and ask the audience to cough together. He has also complained onstage about audience members taking photographs, and has performed in the dark to prevent this.
Jarrett is against electronic instruments and equipment, which he has called "toys." His liner notes for the 1973 album Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne state, "I am, and have been, carrying on an anti-electric-music crusade of which this is an exhibit for the prosecution. Electricity goes through all of us and is not to be limited to wires." He has mostly avoided electric or electronic instruments since his time with Miles Davis. However, in October 1972, he played electric piano and regular piano on Freddie Hubbard's Sky Dive.
Cultural references
A 2025 movie called Köln 75 describes Keith Jarrett's 1975 concert at the Köln Opera House.
Keith Jarrett was mentioned in Season 5, Episode 6 of HBO's The Sopranos, which aired in 2004. The episode is titled "Sentimental Education." In it, Tony Blundetto says he plans to "pipe in a little Keith Jarrett" as part of his ideas for a massage studio.
Keith Jarrett was also mentioned in Season 2, Episode 6 of FX's Atlanta, which aired in 2018. The episode is titled "Teddy Perkins." During this episode, Darius points out a picture in Teddy Perkins' home and asks if the other person in the picture is Keith Jarrett. Perkins confirms that it is.
Personal life
Jarrett lives in an 18th-century farmhouse in Oxford Township, New Jersey, in rural Warren County. He used a barn next to the farmhouse as a place to record and practice music.
For many years, Jarrett followed the teachings of mystic George Gurdjieff. In 1980, he recorded an album of Gurdjieff’s compositions called Sacred Hymns for ECM. His ancestors were Christian Scientists, and while he agrees with the main ideas of the faith, he does not follow all of its rules. He also identifies with the Sufi tradition and mystical Islam.
In 1964, Jarrett married Margot Erney, a former classmate from Emmaus High School. They reconnected in Boston and later married. The couple had two sons, Gabriel and Noah, and divorced in 1979. He later married Rose Anne (née Colavito) in 1980. They divorced in 2010 after 30 years of marriage. Jarrett has four younger brothers, two of whom work in music. Chris Jarrett is a pianist, and Scott Jarrett is a producer and songwriter. Noah Jarrett, from his first marriage, is a bassist and composer. Gabriel Jarrett, also from his first marriage, is a drummer who lives in Vermont. Keith Jarrett is currently married to Akiko Jarrett.
Throughout his career, Jarrett’s race has been a topic of discussion by media and activists. He has said he is often mistaken for a Black person. In a 2000 interview with Terry Gross, he described an event at the Heidelberg Jazz Festival in Germany, where Black musicians protested him for something similar to cultural appropriation. He also shared a moment when Black jazz musician Ornette Coleman approached him backstage and said, “Man, you’ve got to be Black. You just have to be Black.” Jarrett replied, “I know. I know. I’m working on it.”
In a September 11, 2000, interview with Terry Gross, Jarrett explained that chronic fatigue syndrome required him to make major changes to his piano. He adjusted the keys to make them easier to press so he could continue playing.
In February and May 2018, Jarrett suffered two strokes. After the second stroke, he became paralyzed and spent nearly two years in a rehabilitation facility. He now walks with a cane and can play piano with his right hand, but he remains partially paralyzed on his left side. He is not expected to perform again. In an October 2020 interview with The New York Times, Jarrett said, “I don’t know what my future is supposed to be. I don’t feel right now like I’m a pianist.”