In the 1950s, pianist Keith Jarrett performed at an Allentown, PA bar called the Deer Head Inn as a teenager, and it became a place important to his musical development. Forty years later, he returned to the Deer Head with recording gear and a one-off trio configuration: himself, bassist Gary Peacock, then part of his Standards Trio, and drummer Paul Motian, with whom he’d made many records in the seventies. Some of the recordings made that 1992 evening became 1994’s At the Deer Head Inn, an album much beloved in Jarrett’s vast catalog.
Thirty years after that, the now-retired Jarrett and ECM Records leader Manfred Eicher return to those recordings for another scoop, releasing the results as The Old Country: More From the Deer Head Inn. As with the previous album, the program consists solely of standards, including warhorses like Cole Porter’s “All of You,” Thelonious Monk’s “Straight, No Chaser,” Jules Styne and Sammy Cahn’s “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” and the perennial Disney favorite “Someday My Prince Will Come.” In Jarrett’s hands, these old standbys take on new life, partly due to his ability to spin fresh ideas out of well-worn melodies, and partly because this one-night-only rhythm section pushes him in directions he didn’t usually follow in the contexts in which he usually played with these guys.
Though the king of playing around the beat instead of on it, Motian performs at his most restrained, while Peacock gives the leader a run for his money as a soloist. But it all comes down to the guy whose name is atop the cover, and Jarrett doesn’t disappoint – just check out his virtuoso turn on “All of Me,” or the way he leads the band in the beautifully sympatico take on “Prince.” The show here is so good it makes us wish this and the original Deer Head could be combined into the ultimate Jarrett standards experience.
