Keith Jarrett PB

This absorbing biography of Keith Jarrett was written 15 years ago, so theres a large chunk of his career (and illness) missing. But its the best biography of Jarrett available. The reason it doesn't get 5 stars is that Carr over-praises Jarretts work in places. Yes Jarrett is one of the greats but not everything he's done is as magical as Carr would sometimes have you believe. Don't let that put you off though, there's a lot of interesting interviews, and information about particular recordings that I found facsinating in this book. The author Ian Carr, is a Jazz musician himself and he writes with authority on his subject. Perhaps one day he will update this volumn with the last 15 years of Jarretts career.

I agree with the first reviewer who writes that "the major problem inherent in books about musicians is that ultimately the only way to understand the artist's music is to listen to it." I see no reason why anyone would want to read this book without having listened to some of Jarrett's music. But those who have will likely be interested in this rather short biography by Ian Carr.After a short foreword, we hear about Jarrett's childhood, his experiences with his piano teachers in particular and the stories surrounding his child prodigy. In chapter two, entitled 'From Allentown to Berklee and Boston', Ian Carr writes about the struggles to get out of the boring and dead town that Keith thought Allentown was into the more jazz-suited places like Berklee and Boston. Chapter three deals with his going to New York and playing with the Charles Lloyd Quartet, the first major turning point in his career, and the next chapter tells about his experiences on playing the Miles Davis. The following chapters is more about his own persuits where he doesn't have to play in an apprentice's role.The book has only 195 pages, and that's too little to cover the story of a genius. The book quotes musicians from time to time and those quotations are much like a tv documentary without much depth. Actually the book could well be a tv documentary, because it reads like one - the story about his family relationship, his economic problems, a tour of his albums and so on. Although I have mostly critized the book, I want to recommend it to fans of Keith Jarrett. This is the only book about him, and though it's a little bit shallow, it provides a good picture and overview of his music and his personal life that fans would love to read about.

I'm not sure why the review below is so negative. Actually, I have been re-discovering Keith Jarrett and, once this reviewer complained about the reviews in the book, I was sold! Just what I was looking for to help me sort through the huge back catalogue! Mr Carr has written this bio in the time-honoured fashion. He does not heap praise on Keith Jarrett's every recording. He reviews every disc (up to the end of the eighties) as one would expect from a biographer - we can't all see an artist live whenever we want to - most of us rely on these "records" of the artist's sound, style and progress or whatever. He gives examples of Jarrett's genius and of his to-be-expected-of-a-person-like-this idiosyncrasies and lets us make up our minds about the man. It's worth reading just for the incredible circumstances surrounding the "Solo Concerts" and "Koln Concert" recordings. Recommended. Hope he updates it in the future.

Ian Carrs Biography of The life of Keith Jarrett is an informative book about one of the worlds greatest musical geniuses.But Im sorry to inform you that Keith Jarrett is not God,as Mr. Carr would have you to believe in this book.Keith Jarrett makes mistakes and has his flaws just like the rest of us but Mr. Carrs book seems more like a Keith Jarrett excuse portfolio rather than a biography.It also seems as if your reading the Keith Jarrett rolling stone issue because Mr.Carr feels as if it was necessary to extensively review all of Keith Jarretts major recordings:In my opinion to fill space.With all that is annoying with Mr.Carrs style of writing I reccomend this book to any Keith Jarrett fan or music lover who is any knowledge of Keith Jarrett.If you can get past Mr.Carrs fanatic approach to biography writing the details are interesting and informative.Since this is the only known biography of Keith Jarretts life its worth owning because YOU HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO CHOOSE FROM.