Notes from Keith Jarrett’s, “Spirits” Album (Anal Cunt)
Notes from Keith Jarrett’s, “Spirits” Album
On the album Spirits, Keith Jarrett plays 18 instruments, using bare-bones multi-tracking to record. These are Keith’s notes on the making of the album.
“These tapes were made in my studio in New Jersey without an engineer and without anything but cassette recorders. They were recorded during the month of May-June, 1985 with no purpose other than allowing them to happen; filling a need.
The music was not recorded with the intention of release to the public. During the month or so that the project lasted, I would go into the studio every day and “make” something. There was no “studio” feeling at all because I was alone with the instruments “at home”. These instruments have lived with me for quite some time and there is a Pakistani flute (originally a nose flute) that I bought in Sweden in the 60’s that plays a central role in these pieces. There also was no program to follow and, by far, most of the pieces were not written at all. Some of them that sound written were, also, not written. Spontaneity is what I worked with. Some flute and drum tracks were recorded “flute-first”, others “drums-first”. There were no rules followed in sequencing or arranging. When it felt finished it was finished.
Occasionally, when I added one more track, I would listen back and realize it was one too many. Since I could be in complete control I avoided controlling anything (including the recordings themselves). If there is such a thing as cosmic music, that music should certainly be in touch with the earth, which is the largest part of the cosmos to which we have access. What if so called “ethnic music” or “primitive” music really has been cosmic all along? (We’ve been wrong about other things). We see our mistakes in the name of progress. What if there is only one channel left for remembering this since religion has condoned it in order to survive? What if this channel is “art”, because in its deepest sense, its moral sense, it is participation, not separation. What if art is the only way left to penetrate the armor we’ve built up to eliminate seeing our true nature. What if progress is a hot air balloon, and keeping people alive longer means nothing when there’s so very little inside?
There must be something to do. Prayer is the doing of being. It is not asking, it is creating. There are already too many questions that cover up the only important ones. We must do something. We must be something. We must will something. Musicians occupy an interesting place because music can penetrate, even against opinions, as long as it is heard. Electronic music for the moon is just more “progress-filibustering”. We try to cover up the less and less we are by wanting more and more we haven’t got. What are we? There’s a question. We must give up something to know the answer: our blind assuredness, our naive “hope” for the “future”, our identity, our personality. It’s not like a treasure hunt. We are the treasure, but we don’t want the responsibility of caring for it. Our most intimate truths are the universal mysteries. We think that after solving the next problem everything will be all right. (”Let’s see, if I could afford a synthesizer, I could be a great musician”)
………one more thing, one more thing, and then……..
We need to find the strength to feel what we feel: to be what we are. There’s a small sacrifice involved: we must give up what we thought we knew. That “giving up” is the state of surrender (or possession) in which positive, creative music can be made. Anything else is a continuation of our conditioned assumptions. When you drop your attitude towards something, you can see what that thing is. But, first, you must know it in every possible aspect. “Knowing” and “Seeing” (understanding) are totally different in quality. Then, you may enter and drop your pile of goods, separate no more, vital to the core; like the earth; like the cosmos.
I cannot say what I think is right about this music; I only know the “rightness” of it. I know it when I hear it. There is a release, a flowing out, a fullness to it that is not the same as richness or musicality. I can talk about it in this way because I do not feel that I “created” this music as much as allowed it to “emerge”. It is this emergence that is inexplicable and incapable of being made solid, and I feel (or felt) as though not only do you never step in the same river twice, but you are never the same when stepping in the river. The river has always been there, despite our polluting it.
This is a miracle, and in this day and age we need it.
At least I do.” - Keith Jarrett
Source: www.last.fm
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