1973 · Album
Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne
Recorded March 20 and July 12, 1973 (Lausanne and Bremen) · ECM · Produced by Manfred Eicher
Two Cities, One Pianist Alone
Jarrett alone at the piano, improvising two nights of live music that became a landmark of solo jazz.
Keith Jarrett is the only musician on this recording, and that is the whole point. Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne documents two separate evenings in 1973, one in Switzerland and one in Germany, with Jarrett at the piano improvising without a net. There are no sidemen to lean on and no written charts. Everything you hear is a single pianist deciding, in real time, where the next phrase should go.
The Bremen performance, recorded at the Kleiner Sendesaal, and the Lausanne concert at the Salle de Spectacles d'Epalinges were released together on ECM in November 1973, Jarrett's debut solo live album for the label. The music moves between gospel-tinged vamps, dense left-hand figures, and long lyrical lines that sometimes sound almost folk-like. Some stretches are rhythmic and insistent, others loose and searching. It is not background music, and it asks for attention.
For listeners new to Jarrett, this is a strong entry point, and AllMusic reviewer Stacia Proefrock gave it five stars, as did Pitchfork and DownBeat. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings also rated it highly. It sits among his most celebrated records, though he went on to make many more solo and trio albums, so it is best heard as an early marker of the approach that defined much of his later career.
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Keith Jarrettpiano
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