Since 1971, Keith Jarrett has been signed to ECM, which has proven to be one of the strongest and most productive relationships between an artist and their label ever. On the 16th July, 2016, the American pianist was performing the final concert of his summer tour in Munich, the stronghold of producer Manfred Eicher. On that evening, Jarrett gave the Bavarian audience an improvisational torrent, which he does so well. However, unlike these same exercises which he has performed over the decades, he delivers them here in short segments. Gone are the 20/30-minute-long tracks like on the famous Köln Concert of 1975, the Sun Bear Concerts of 1976, the Paris Concert of 1990 or the Vienna Concert of 1992! Those from Munich 2016 are separated into twelve parts and give an overview of the multifaceted tastes of their author, a (quite literally) “extra” “ordinary” musician, who can make his instrument swing like the old masters, but can also express himself with musical phrases which are rhythmically and harmoniously very complex, even daring. Over the course of the 86 minutes of Munich 2016, a juggling of silences is favoured over frenzied notes, before a bluesy motif falls away to reveal a chamber music miniature. As the minutes unfold, Jarrett continues to toe the line separating jazz and classical music. He ends this unparalleled tour de force with a fresh take on three classics (Answer Me My Love by Nat King Cole, It’s a Lonesome Old Town made famous by Sinatra and Somewhere Over the Rainbow straight out of The Wizard of Oz), which flawlessly bring this ocean of sound to an end. It is also funny to note that this particular Munich concert will be remembered for reasons beyond the music. After his cover of Over the Rainbow, and in the middle of a standing ovation, some of the audience members were taking pictures of the pianist. Furious, he grabs the microphone and says: “I’m not going to talk about the assholes who are aiming their smartphones at me. I just have one question for them: why did you come?” © Marc Zisman/Qobuz