Keith Jarrett

Jarrett has cited pianoless jazz combos as a major early influence, and Ornette Coleman's quartet was the paradigm case: when Jarrett formed his own working group he recruited Charlie Haden and, later, Dewey Redman — both veterans of Coleman's own bands — and Coleman's pointed remark that Jarrett was 'playing church music' stuck with him as a description of where his own music was headed. The result was an American Quartet built on Coleman's model of collective, harmony-free interplay rather than a soloist backed by accompanists.

listen: upstream & heresource: Ethan Iverson interviews Keith Jarrett — on Ornette Coleman, Paul Bley's 'Footloose!', Bach, and pianoless combos ↗share

1959

Lonely WomanOrnette Coleman

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1973

Fort YawuhKeith Jarrett

listen forCompare the loose, voice-like rubato of Coleman's 'Lonely Woman' with Jarrett's 'Fort Yawuh,' cut live with Haden and Redman in 1973 — both let melody and group feel set the harmonic direction in real time, with no fixed chart pulling the soloists back to a chord chart.

Davis heard Jarrett in a New York club and hired him in 1970 to play electric keyboards alongside Chick Corea, putting Jarrett inside the modal, groove-anchored aesthetic Davis had been developing since 'Kind of Blue' — long stretches of static harmony that reward patience and repetition over constant chord movement. Jarrett has repeatedly named the two years he spent in that band as formative to how he thought about space, groove, and improvisation once he returned to acoustic piano.

listen: upstream & heresource: Miles Davis official site ↗share

1959

So WhatMiles Davis

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1974

Long as You Know You're Living YoursKeith Jarrett

listen forSet the two-chord modal drift of Davis's 'So What' against the long vamp Jarrett's European Quartet rides on 'Long as You Know You're Living Yours' — both let one harmonic area stretch out for minutes, building tension through rhythm and repetition rather than through changing chords.

Jarrett has said that hearing Paul Bley's trio album 'Footloose!' in his Boston apartment 'changed everything about what I thought could happen,' praising how 'Paul took the piano and made it impossible to disregard as a horn.' Bley's spacious, tempo-free trio conception — where piano, bass, and drums improvise as a single floating conversation instead of soloist-plus-accompaniment — gave Jarrett a direct working model for the rubato, form-free interplay he'd later chase in both his own trios and his unaccompanied solo concerts.

listen: upstream & heresource: Ethan Iverson interviews Keith Jarrett — on Ornette Coleman, Paul Bley's 'Footloose!', Bach, and pianoless combos ↗share

1965

Ida LupinoPaul Bley

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1978

My SongKeith Jarrett

listen forPut Bley's unhurried, almost pulseless reading of 'Ida Lupino' next to Jarrett's 'My Song' — both drift through a long, singing melodic line with the rhythm section breathing around the piano rather than driving it forward.