Two events to bring Le Muse Theatre’s first
jazz season to a close, with Brad Mehldau’s trio on 8
April and Keith Jarrett’s on 27 July.
Brad Mehldau’s concert, in trio with Larry Grenadier (double bass)
and Jorge Rossy (drums), will be the only Italian
date in their European tour.
After Jarrett, Mehldau is
the musician the public loves and follows the most. His pianism combines
classical features and swing, interpretative feeling and poetic introspection,
which find their expression in his excellent technique and pure touch. He is
the new member in the piano-double bass-drums trio, and the musician who
currently uses the freshest and sharpest language in the complex history of
Afro-American music. He made his debut in Jimmy Cobb’s (his teacher) quartet
and in 1995 started recording his first trio and solo CDs.
Closing Le Muse Theatre’s first jazz season, Keith
Jarrett’s concert will be next summer’s top music event in Ancona. The American pianist does not perform many concerts
in Italy or abroad. He was the number-one guest at Umbria
Jazz in the last few years and has never held more than a couple of concerts in
Italy, at least since he recovered from a fatigue syndrome that kept him away
from stage for more than three years. The European tournée,
which actually begins in Perugia, will end in Ancona. He will perform with Gary Peacock and Jack Dejohnette, who play the double bass and drums respectively
and who, together with him, form a trio that is legendary because of the amount
of time they have been together (the first projects and recordings date back to
1983).
Eclectic Keith Jarrett is one of the greatest living
pianists. Always engaged in musical
research suspended between the past and the present, alternating between experimentalism
and strict academic interpretations of the classical repertoire, from Bach to Shostakovich, he is a complete artist who is difficult to
define. Confining him to jazz would be disparaging. With him, the typical
improvisation of Afro-American music takes all the forms of that freedom which
lets the notes fluctuate in a fluid and mysterious atmosphere, always
unexpected and surprising. His keyboard harmonises learned references to
chamber music, creating a kind of jazz which is almost meditation - a spiritual
dimension which goes beyond the virtuosities of a pure, almost perfect
technique, with skills which dominate instinct, releasing pure and immaterial
energy.
