Challenging free jazz is gradually modified with songbook and stride influences and builds up to boogie-woogie...As usual with a Jarrett concert - and this is one of his best - the suggestion of something important being created masks its accessibility. Fun with audience flattery on top.

The first half of The Budapest Concert is challenging, as its knotty improvisations sometimes require rigorous attention. That said, the more melodically redolent back half welcomes even casual listeners. Jarrett regards this as his current "gold standard" for live improvisation, and given its reach and focus, it's difficult to argue with him -- especially now.

Sometimes, it is easy to overlook the enormous creative challenge Jarrett set himself; each concert a tabula rasa, starting free from predetermined ideas or goals, by spontaneously creating a concert recital from the depths of his musical imagination in front of paying audiences in the most prestigious concert halls in the world. So, no pressure then.

As on Munich, he opened with a long, impulsive free improvisation that eschewed melodic suppositions (“Part I”), followed by a more concordant section (“Part II”) and two spontaneous forays into increasing ly complex rhythmic and harmonic expressive ness (“Part III” and “Part IV”). Throughout the first disc, one can hear Jarrett’s signature vocalizations—the seemingly unconscious exposition of the music he’s hearing in his head.

I find it incredible that after all these years, and having listened to and enjoyed so many live recordings, that I can listen to a new release by the pianist and still be overcome with amazement. Budapest Concert is as inspirational as any of his solo outings, still sounding as fresh and spontaneous as if I had just been introduced to his music for the first time. There's an energy, a power, a life-force that emanates out from the music itself, at times intensely beautiful, at times insanely dramatic, but always completely and genuinely incomparable.

He returns with a delicate ballad/lullaby full of poise and grace; Part VI is a moment of magic - a shot of contrapuntal boogie-swing...fiendishly clever and joyous...His encores are a radiant Answer Me, My Love and a gorgeously melancholic It's a Lonesome Old Town that takes its time to build to an operatic intensity.