Budapest Concert

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... — The Times, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 12th Mar 2021
Catalogue No: 0739330
Label: ECM

Jazzwise

Editor's Choice

December 2020
AllMusic

Editor's Choice

October 2020
Jazz FM

25 Best Jazz Albums of 2020

1. Part I

2. Part II

3. Part III

4. Part IV

5. Part V

6. Part VI

7. Part VII

8. Part VIII

9. Part IX

10. Part X

11. Part XI

12. Part XII - Blues

13. It’s a Lonesome Old Town

14. Answer Me

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The second complete show to be issued from Keith Jarrett's 2016 European tour - following on from the widely-acclaimed concert released as Munich 2016 - this double album documents the pianist's solo performance at the Bela Bartok National Concert Hall in Budapest. This version is on two LPs. Jarrett, whose family roots reach back to Hungary, viewed the Budapest concert as akin to a homecoming, and the context inspired much creative improvisation. Where Jarrett's early solo concerts shaped a large arc of music over the course of an evening, the later concerts have generated suite-like structures, comprised of independent "movements", each of them a marvel of spontaneous resourcefulness. Creative energy is applied also to familiar songs given as encores, "It's A Lonesome Old Town" and "Answer Me", transformed in the Budapest concert.

Reviews

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.

October 2020

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.

December 2020

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.

March 2021

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 increasingly complex rhythmic and harmonic expressiveness (“Part III” and “Part IV”). Throughout the first disc, one can hear Jarrett’s signature vocal izations—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.

Budapest Concert

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Budapest Concert

2 Vinyl Records

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