Neil Shah - Pianist/Vocalist/Composer

Keith Jarrett performed his first solo piano concert in North America in nearly a decade last night.

Ticket Stub: Keith Jarrett at Carnegie Hall - September 26, 2005

Carnegie Hall was packed. The lights went down and we observed a lone piano sitting on stage. As he’s known for, Keith began the evening just improvising freely. It was like he was painting with the notes of the piano. He started off with a bombardment of short and extremely fast two-handed runs. He tended to keep the pieces at about ten minutes in length. Lush ballads, bluesy riffs, and eastern melodies all found thier way into his improvisations. It was the aural equivilant of tragedy and triumph roled into ten minute masterpieces.

Keith in the 1970’s - Photo by Wolfgang Frankenstein

It was an incredible evening. He played 4 beautiful encores, including a foot-stomping blues in F. He also played his own standard “My Song.” I wonder if ECM will release this concert? They mentioned that it was being recorded. If it does eventually makes it’s way to a record release, it probably won’t be for another couple years. But no recording can capture the magic of seeing this concert in person. I’m deeply moved and inspired by the experience.

Keith today - Photo by Wilfried Hösl

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2005 at 1:19 pm and is tagged music, events, photos. Follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed and Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.