Works

How do you sum up a massive catalog like Keith Jarrett's output for ECM — which, as of the mid-1990s, numbered over 50 individual discs — on one slim little CD? You can't. Even so, this collection of seven so-called "works" — four of which are actually excerpts of "works" — borders on the bizarre...the browser gets three solo piano pieces torn from Facing You, Staircase and The Sun Bear Concerts, two numbers with Jarrett's European quartet from My Song, the second movement of his string quartet, and a swatch from the organ/soprano sax work, Invocations. There is nothing from the volatile American quartet; the best solo piano recordings, the Köln Concert and Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne, are ignored; and most astonishingly for a CD reissued in 1992, there is nothing after 1980 — which means no Standards trio, etc. etc....True, the programming is unpredictable (one wonders if a mischievous Jarrett personally supervised the selection)...and ultimately, this functions only as a sampler for newcomers, who will undoubtedly want to explore Jarrett in much greater depth, based on the strength of the music here. ~ Richard S. Ginell, Rovi