Keith Jarrett, Miscegenation & the Rise of the European Sensibility In
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Keith Jarrett, Miscegenation & the Rise of the European Sensibility in Jazz in the 1970s Gerald Early Abstract: In the 1970s, pianist Keith Jarrett emerged as a major albeit controversial innovator in jazz. He succeeded in making completely improvised solo piano music not only critically acclaimed as a fresh way of blending classical and jazz styles but also popular, particularly with young audiences. This essay ex- amines the moment when Jarrett became an international star, the musical and social circumstances of jazz music immediately before his arrival and how he largely unconsciously exploited those circumstanc- es to make his success possible, and what his accomplishments meant during the 1970s for jazz audienc- es and for American society at large. By the late 1960s, when pianist Keith Jarrett was establishing his international reputation as a pro- fessional jazz musician, jazz itself was facing a crisis. The crisis, for both players and critics, was twofold: First, was jazz technically exhausted? That is to say, after the stylistic innovations of the post–World War II generation of artists–like saxophonist Char- lie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s bebop revolution; Jimmy Smith “squabbling” on the Ham- mond organ;1 bandleader Sun Ra, saxophonists Or- gerald early, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1997, nette Coleman and Albert Ayler, and pianist Cecil is the Merle Kling Professor of Taylor in free, avant-garde jazz music; and Miles Da- Modern Letters and Editor of vis and his minions in modal jazz, “freebop,” elec- The Common Reader at Washing- tric jazz, and jazz-rock–was there anything else that ton University in St. Louis. He is jazz could do? What was left for a saxophonist to the author of A Level Playing Field: achieve after what John Coltrane had done with his African American Athletes and the instrument? What more could a trumpeter do after Republic of Sports (2011), One Na- tion Under a Groove: Motown and Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, and Freddie Hubbard American Culture (rev. ed., 2004), but repeat with variations what these musicians had and This is Where I Came In: Black done? Or as black writers/intellectuals Ralph El- America in the 1960s (2003). lison and Albert Murray questioned, had jazz even © 2019 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_a_01743 67 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed_a_01743 by guest on 02 October 2021 Keith Jarrett, progressed after Duke Ellington?2 Had classified by record companies and record Miscegenation not Ellington in fact already done every- stores as popular music? If jazz ceased & the Rise of European thing that the modernists were claim- to be popular music when it ceased to Sensibility ing was so progressive or free? Since jazz be primarily dance music, then what did in Jazz prided itself on the originality of its great it mean to be art music?6 Was jazz now soloists, the questions by the end of the mood music used for background, wheth- 1960s were: Had originality and virtuosi- er for romance or for film? If jazz artists ty reached its limits in this form of music? in the 1960s were striving to be literally as Was there anything new to be mined? Was noisy as possible, with ever-increasing ex- jazz, like so-called classical music, which perimentation with dissonance, atonali- many felt faced the same problem, dead to ty, and, ultimately, electronics, then sure- its own future, condemned to mere virtu- ly many jazz musicians did not wish their osic variations of its past? Jazz could con- music to be relegated to the background. tinue to produce styles and forms of mu- But inasmuch as it aspired to art, jazz was sical fusions, its own type of artistic sec- increasingly becoming an art form that tarianism matching the sectarian fury of was no longer relevant. Protestantism, but had the music reached As philosopher Theodor Adorno has an endpoint? Protestantism had not really pointed out, one of jazz’s strongest claims come up with any concept better than the as the music of the twentieth century Trinity; was jazz going to come up with was that it was modern, even that it de- anything better than Parker, Ellington, or fined the sound, the aesthetic of moder- Louis Armstrong? nity. Jazz was, above all else, the sound of As pianist Paul Bley put it in 1974, “If the new. After all, it was jazz musicians, you accept the fact that everything left to record companies, and critics who used be done has been done and been done well, terms like “progressive jazz” and “mod- then in terms of improvising in the jazz id- ern jazz” to characterize how current, iom, there are only a few little corners that how much in the vanguard, certain styles were overlooked that are still workable.”3 of jazz after World War II were supposed What were these “few little corners”? to be. But with the rise of rock music and The second aspect of the crisis facing its various offshoots, jazz could no longer jazz was social obsolescence. Was the make that claim of being the most pro- music still relevant to the audiences that gressive or modern contemporary music. made jazz matter in the past? The answer Rock, with its electronic and amplified in- was not quite no–there were still students strumentation, its anarchist pretensions, and counterculture, antibourgeois-yet- its blatant sexuality, was not only literal- affluent types who enjoyed it–but cer- ly a bigger noise than jazz, but it was also tainly jazz was tending toward being an far more exciting as a performance art, art form that was no longer popular, par- as a visual spectacle. Moreover, as rock– ticularly with large swaths of the young.4 with performers like the Beatles and Bob Indeed, the fact that jazz was considered Dylan–moved away from being a teen art music at all posed a problem for a mu- dance music (or a dance music at all), it sic that had once been played by dance began to challenge jazz on its own turf bands and enjoyed a period of astonish- as a listening music. In short, by the late ing popularity during the big band era.5 1960s, jazz was not, for many, the music Swing music may have been a distortion, of the modern, although it was still try- an aberration, a mistake. Was jazz not ing very hard to be that. As audiences for supposed to be popular music? Was it not jazz shrank and venues for playing jazz 68 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed_a_01743 by guest on 02 October 2021 disappeared, the question arose: Who that jazz’s attempt at “the reconciliation of Gerald needs jazz? art music and music for common use [Geb- Early Like other forms of popular music, jazz rauchsmusik], of consumability and ‘class,’ has long had an internal conflict over com- of closeness to the source and up-to-date mercialism. Ardent fans and many jazz success, of discipline and freedom, of pro- musicians across eras have complained duction and reproduction” was never hon- about commercialism ruining the authen- est.7 In other words, jazz’s attempt at being ticity or essence of jazz, although there has a synthesis of both popular entertainment always been disagreement over what ex- and high art always made it inauthentic as actly made jazz authentic or true to itself. a form of music. Jazz musicians would not Jazz has had various schools of adherents: have expressed it in this way at the end of some believe that true jazz is Dixieland or the 1960s, but it was something that many New Orleans style; others favor swing and of them may have intuitively or subcon- the big band era; while others prefer be- sciously felt. Was jazz reaching its limits bop or cool or soul jazz or the avant-garde. because it was too ambitious in trying to For those who believe that jazz’s authen- be for both the masses and the elite? Was it ticity rests in a particular era or style, the inherently fraudulent and overly self-con- rest of jazz is simply noise or, worse still, scious in what it had to offer as art? a kind of declension or even decadence. At this moment of identity turbulence But even as jazz feared the corrupting forc- and philosophical self-examination, es of the market, it desired the social and against the backdrop of a supercharged economic relevance that the market could consumer society, one of the major jazz bring to the music. Jazz musicians wanted musicians to emerge was Keith Jarrett, not just cult fans but a broadly appreciative whose presence offered solutions to the audience, people who could understand crisis as well as another set of conflicts. and enjoy the music for its own sake. This led many older jazz musicians to denigrate To be sure, authenticity in jazz was al- rock as technically inferior, inauthentic ways tied to race. Is jazz black/African music and, of course, to dismiss the taste American music? The obvious answer of the audiences who preferred rock and would be an emphatic yes. Black Amer- teen pop music. If jazz could not keep a siz- ican musicians, from Louis Armstrong able audience, it wanted to keep its status. and Duke Ellington to Charlie Parker and The fact that jazz was undeniably superi- Miles Davis, have been the major inno- or in a technical sense to rock and teen pop vators in this art form.