Back to Vienna

While listening to Craig Taborn‘s solo piano CD, Avenging Angel, and chastising myself for thinking of Keith Jarrett so many times, I got the itch to give Jarrett’s Vienna Concert a spin.

It’s a 1992 ECM album of solo piano, just two long pieces. I can’t remember specifically why I bought this CD, as opposed to any other Jarrett piano disc, but I vaguely recall a side comment in a jazz magazine about how proud Jarrett was of this particular recording. Jarrett concurs with this note in the liner card: “I have courted the fire for a very long time, and many sparks have flown in the past, but the music on this recording speaks, finally, the language of the flame itself.”

Not to be dramatic or anything.

“Vienna, Part I” does shine.  The first third of the piece is built from the richly comforting gospel music Jarrett is so good at. There’s a slow bassline in there that’s every bit as delightful as that one riff that I think made The Köln Concert so famous.  From there, he shifts into a phase of stone-cold chords, blocks of concrete descending amid periods of temporary quietude.

Shortly after the halfway mark is when things suddenly spark. Jarrett comes out of a quiet pause with a fast, fiery rhythm in an odd tonality that then shifts further off the rails, gathering, brewing, intensifying. After about four minutes of this, he bursts forth, splashing madly up and down the keyboard while still keeping the same chaotic tonality intact. Those last six words are crucial. He’s taken this mood, this moment, and driven it outward, a wider radius that turns out to be perfectly comfortable and appropriate, a necessary conclusion.

Then the mad keyboard fluttering — fast but always in more of a ur-Jarrett rhythm than a Cecil Taylor spattering — slowly gives way to a pure major key, and from there, Jarrett downshifts back into big, grand chords that manipulate the heartstrings, a grand finale of seven or eight minutes.

There’s a characteristically indulgent side to the finale, but Jarrett does earn it. It’s a cooldown at the end of a magnificent race. Was it truly his best solo work at the time? I can’t say; I’ve delved only the surface of his solo concerts. (I haven’t heard the Sun Bear Concerts, in particular.) But I do feel like Vienna is monumental in a way few other musicians can match. Köln is the pop hit; Vienna might be Jarrett’s deeper, less appreciated masterpiece.

Speaking of underappreciated masterpieces — I notice The Survivors’ Suite is available on eMusic and probably on other legitimate download sites. Go get it. Recorded with Jarrett’s classic quartet (Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian), it’s an epic piece that’s unique in Jarrett’s catalogue. That’s a story for another day.

Taborn Alone

Craig Taborn — Avenging Angel (ECM, 2011)

Craig Taborn takes a studious approach on his first solo piano album, taking advantage of the chiming acoustics of an auditorium in Lugano, Switzerland. It’s a seeking process. You can understand what French critic Vincent Bessières means when he says (quoted on ECM’s site) that Taborn takes an approach “where improvisation blends into real-time composing.”

For example, “The Broad Day King” opens with the right hand playing pedal tones, individual notes that Taborn lets ring slowly while the left hand explores matching chords. Late in the album, “Forgetful” hands us a lovely jazz ballad, starting in tentative, primordial form, then blossoming beautifully. The intensity peaks early than halfway through the eight-minute piece, but the rest rides a lovely, gentle arc that’s just as rewarding.

It’s very hard not to think about Keith Jarrett, because the shallow similarities are there: solo piano, improvised on the spot, recorded in Europe, ECM, minimalist album cover …

About the cover. Yes, the hushed, soft image is partly just ECM being ECM, but this kind of sparsity seems apt for an album of solo improvisation. You see it on some Jarrett albums, or Henry Grimes’ Solo, for instance. It represents a blank canvas, giving the listener visual space to explore. Maybe that’s why Avenging Angel strikes me as participatory, as if you’re welcomed inside Taborn’s head has he explores, reaching outward to find the music waiting to be produced from this exact moment of time, place, and presence.

Taborn’s explorations are more varied and intricate than Jarrett’s. There’s a lot going on in a Jarrett improvisation, but he tends towards songlike forms, building harmonies around one tonal center. Jarrett can be dazzling, and there’s no denying the grandeur of his work, but there’s a formal sheen to it.

Taborn’s approach reflects the more “outside” tendencies of his jazz career. He does stick to his ideas on each piece, rather than going schizophrenic, but he wrests out the possibilities with more finesse and adventure than Jarrett. And when Taborn does lock into an idea and ride it out, he certainly shows off some dazzling technique of his own.

At the same time, Avenging Angel is very much a jazz album, especially when it comes to the faster tracks. You get a patient jazz stroll on “Neverland,” two hands in dialogue, wandering about tonal centers. There’s also “Gift Horse/Over the Water,” which uses the left hand in a more traditionally jazzy rhythm but also sneaks in some quick unison phrases and one nifty ostinato, over which Taborn splashes some strident chords, possibly the album’s most Jarrett-like moment. It’s spirited jazz that would make a good first listen if you’re trying to win new converts for Taborn.