Chris Jarrett

You know that dream in which you open a door in your house and go through and discover more rooms you never knew about?

Well, round the corner in Giove last night, after 30 years of admiring Keith Jarrett, I discovered there’s a whole ‘nother Jarrett to fall in love with. Who knew he had a brother, tucked away in Germany?

And what a brother. Jarrett is like Jarrett. He looks identical and his keyboard ‘voice’ is pretty close too. If he turned up and played a Keith Jarrett concert, nobody would notice. But he is perhaps freer, less anxious, than his sibling. He puts his stool to the left of centre and seems happy to concentrate his hands there – sometimes he hardly seemed to play a note right of the M in Yamaha – and there is a corresponding lack of melody, with the right hand preferring occasionally to splash out on the higher notes, rather than lingering to pick out a tune there.

In Giove he played with violinist Luca Ciarla. Together they were wild, dazzling, gleefully thunderous, fleetingly sweet. It was at times a soaring battle of the virtuosi, with a band to match – including an astonishing man, Vince Abbraciante, who did things with an accordion which are probably not legal.

I’d love to hear Chris Jarrett being quieter, more thoughtful and melodic – but all in all, as new-wing discoveries go, amazing.

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