Keith Jarrett Munich 2016 2LP (Vinyl)

2020 Stereophile Magazine Record to Die For!

ECM releases the recording of Keith Jarrett's July 16, 2016 concert at Munich's Philharmonic Hall on double LP.

The album features his performance on the final night of the tour when he was at his improvisational best. Creating a spontaneous suite of forms in the moment with the assurance of a master builder - interspersing touches of the blues and folksong lyricism between pieces of polyrhythmic and harmonic complexity - he delivers one of his finest performances. An attentive and appreciative audience hangs on every note.

His elegance, restraint, freedom, austerity, richness, breadth of allusion, heartfelt depths, rhapsodic heights, passionate musical intelligence, rigorously disciplined expressiveness, development of forms invented in the moment, and concentrated brilliance - all executed with undiminished perfection of technique - are amazing, at times overwhelming. No one else does anything that comes close. No one ever has... The sound is lush: ECM at its supremely accomplished best, Steinway concert grands purring warmly and chiming clearly by turns, each of Jarrett's meticulous navigations of tonal nuance lovingly rendered. This is music of permanence.