Though he hasn’t performed since 2016, thanks to a pair of strokes in 2018, Keith Jarrett’s music lives on in a steady stream of concert releases. His latest New Vienna holds a certain significance – it’s a return to the city in which he recorded his landmark LP Vienna Concert. Like that album, New Vienna features Jarrett in his perfect element: solo, with no sheet music or setlist – simply improvising the moment he takes the bench.
Traversing through a series of short pieces (unlike the double epics of the first Vienna album), the pianist hits on every aspect of his multi-faceted playing. The haunted, beautiful balladry of “Part V” leans into his classical training, the notes falling from the keys like perfectly timed rain. Gently but firmly, the music floats beautifully through the lush chords of “Part II,” surrounding us with the reverberation of the muses. “Part VIII” shifts from the concert hall to the bawdy house, its bluesy runs and fiinger-snapping rhythm promising illicit pleasures just behind the curtain. Like a baby giraffe walking for the first time, “Part I” greets the world with a stiff, awkward, but wonderful gait, picking up steam as it strides confidently forward. Though written as it unfolds, the quietly swinging “Part VII” sounds composed, like a long-lost standard we can’t quite recognize but still feels intimately familiar – a vibe the crowd greets with its longest and loudest applause yet.
Jarrett ends the show with an actual song: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” a perennial favorite of his and a welcome presence at many of his shows. His ability to draw new feeling out of the familiar notes is as inspiring as his skill at spontaneous musical creation. Jarrett may tread the boards no more, but clearly his concert archive shows no signs of running out of high quality performances.
