Barber / Bartok / Jarrett: Piano Concertos

   in Piano International (Jul, 2015)
These archival live recordings from the mid-1980s were released to mark Keith Jarrett’s 70th birthday. The benchmark account of the Barber Concerto is John Browning’s blistering interpretation, but Jarrett’s version is powerful enough. His Bartok Third is fine too, in which he gets under the skin of the Hungarian’s wistful, romantic swansong in a beautifully lyrical rendering. The disc is particularly poignant as it remains his only recording of either work, the consequence of a skiing accident that occurred shortly after the Saarbrucken concert. An improvised unaccompanied encore for the Tokyo concert is included as a bonus track and affords a window on Jarrett’s core activity as a jazz creator. …