(Reprinted from the March 2021 issue of Downbeat magazine)
In the summer of 2016, pianist Keith Jarrett set out on a solo tour, concertizing extemporaneously in some of the greatest performance halls of Europe. ECM, his label since the 1970s, was on hand to document this history in the making: Munich 2016, the first album from that cache of live recordings, dropped in September 2019. By the time of this release, Jarrett had suffered two paralyzing strokes, throwing into doubt the future of his pioneering, 50-year career.
The second release from those 2016 shows, Budapest Concert, serves as a poignant companion piece to the first. Recorded at the Béla Bartók Concert Hall in Hungary almost two weeks before the Munich date, the album unveils Jarrett’s evolving musical conception for that tour. As on Munich 2016, he opened with a long, impulsive free improvisation that eschewed melodic suppositions (Part I), followed by a more concordant section (Part II) and two spontaneous forays into increasingly complex rhythmic and harmonic expressiveness (Parts III and IV). Throughout these tracks, which comprise the first disc, one can hear Jarrett’s signature vocalizations—the seemingly unconscious exposition of the music he’s hearing in his head.
On the second disc, these vocalizations diminish as Jarrett falls into a stretch of gentle melodicism, expounding on a sonorous motif (Part V); a boisterous bop head (Part VI); a regret-filled ballad (Part VII) and a heart-searing meditation (Part VIII). As on Munich, Parts IX and X signal a return to the dark, ponderous free expression that opened the concert, and Part XI, an unhurried waltz, tempers the frenzy of these two preceding tracks. For the finale In Budapest, Jarrett resolved the musical epic with a growling 16-bar blues (Part XII), before closing with his oft-played encores—“It’s A Lonesome Old Town” and “Answer Me, My Love”—an almost unbearably tender farewell.