Sun Bear

 

 

Keith Jarrett's Sun Bear Concerts album has for years been a tremendous influence on me.  And still is.  It's a live album, recorded during Keith's November 1976 solo tour of Japan.  To call it an album is almost misleading or a disservice, as it is in actuality a 6-CD box set.  I consider it to be a monumental work.  So much of Mr. Jarrett's solo work has served as a true north for my own solo work.  Sun Bear is indeed a key example of this.

It was originally issued on LP by ECM Records in 1978, but the full performances were not available until the expanded CD release of 1989.

Each disk was recorded in a different Japanese city, and the composition titles reflect that.  The compositions are all long-form and range from 31 to 43 minutes in duration.

For me, these pieces run the gamut from emotionally melodic to turbulent and borderline dense.  

Keith's solo work inhabits that rarefied and magical gray area of music that is neither jazz nor classical; yet draws equally from both worlds to create and establish what I'd consider to be an entirely new genre.  That's one of the main qualities about it which I love.

Here's Osaka, Part 1.

-kk

More background is available here.  You can order it on CD here.