Splitting his time between the electric and acoustic pianos and a bit of organ,
Jarrett teams up with drummer/percussionist
Jack DeJohnette in a series of experimental duets, his only electric session for ECM. The all-acoustic title number ranges all over the lot, from tootling on a bamboo (?) flute to the energizing barrelhouse gospel riffs that would bloom in the solo concerts. Tellingly, there is little in this collaboration that predicts what
Jarrett and
DeJohnette would do in their Standards Trio of the '80s; rather, it anticipates the exotic Third World side of
Jarrett's American quartet immediately in the future and adds a finishing flourish to his jazz-rock period. Indeed, the most memorably percolating playing by both musicians turns up in the electric numbers, where
Jarrett utilizes the distinctively funky, wah-wah, fuzz-tone approach on electric piano that he developed with
Miles Davis. As such, this is a valuable, underrated transition album that provides perhaps the last glimpse of the electric
Keith Jarrett as he embarked on his notorious (and ultimately triumphant) anti-electric crusade. ~ Richard S. Ginell