Home : Plato's Words : August 2001

August 2001

I didn't see any concerts in the month of July but I listened to a lot of recorded music. It's fun to go through stacks of CD's and rediscover recordings that you haven't listened to in awhile and somehow that's just what I did this July. I listened to a lot of Keith Jarrett for one. I have a classical recording that he is on with Michala Petri playing the recorder while he plays the harpsichord. The recording features six Bach sonatas. I initially bought the CD because Keith Jarrett is on the recording and thought it would be fun to hear him play something other than a jazz standard or an original composition. These sonatas really are beautiful and I think that even listeners who don't think they like Bach's music will enjoy these duets.

When I listen to "STANDARDS LIVE" with the Keith Jarrett trio from 1985, it always feels as though I am in the audience too; such is the nature of a live CD, when the audience responds you are really there with them with the trio playing right there in your living room. "TOYKO '96" is another live recording with this trio that I hear with amazement every time I listen to it. Both of these CD's have some of my favorite standards on them; songs like Stella By Starlight, It Could Happen To You, I'll Remember April, Never Let Me Go, The Old Country, and others. If anyone needs to be inspired musically speaking, I think these recordings will do the trick. One other great Keith Jarrett trio CD is "BYE BYE BLACKBIRD". This is the trio's tribute to Miles Davis. They begin with a forward in the liner notes: "Miles was a medium, a transformer, a touchstone, a magnetic field: the authentic minimalist (where, although there were so few notes, there was so much in those few notes) . . . Miles always came from the silence, the notes existing in a purity all their own . . . "we are now left with a large hole in which every improviser should (must) question his/her purity of desire, for without a touchstone there is no reflective surface . . . in every age we need touchstones to keep the path illuminated enough that we don't forget it is there (because we are so enamored of 'our' ability). Miles never forgot the music; we will never forget Miles".

Another artist that I seemed to have listened to several times in July is Bill Frisell, one of my favorite guitarists. "GHOST TOWN" is a recording from 2000 on which he plays everything; electric and acoustic guitars, 6-string banjo, loops and bass. I always find Bill Frisell's approach to music "quirky". There seems to be much humor in his playing that at times makes you smile in spite of yourself while at other moments he grabs you emotionally with his seemingly simple colors and textures that are truly breathtaking. On this CD he includes an old Hank Williams tune "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", the standard "When I Fall In Love" and several of his own pieces to create this pastiche that completes the Ghost Town theme.

I think that is it for now, quite uneventful really, just the way I like summer. Time to work in the garden, to go cycling, and time to learn some new tunes…Some of those new tunes you might hear if you come to THE EVERGREEN CUTURAL CENTRE on Saturday September 8th in Coquitlam B.C. (1205 Pinetree Way). I will be there in concert with Lou Mastroianni on piano, Kerry Galloway on the electric bass and Jack Duncan on percussion.

Karin