Keith Jarrett - Expectations (1972 Japanese CBS/Sony Vinyl 2LP)

Vinyl: VG+/VG+
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: None

Our grading system explained here.
Photo is of the actual item.

Keith Jarrett - Expectations | Vinyl 2LP - 1972 Japanese CBS/Sony (SOPW-75 76)

Expectations was Keith Jarrett's attempt to put everything he had on the table at once. Recorded across three sessions in April 1972 at Columbia Studio E in New York, the album shifts between configurations constantly. "Vision" opens with 46 seconds of solo piano against a string section, then "Common Mama" drops into a driving, percussion-heavy groove with Jarrett doubling on soprano saxophone and Airto Moreira pushing the rhythm alongside Paul Motian. Sam Brown's electric guitar runs through tracks like "Sundance" and "The Magician In You" with a raw, overdriven tone that sits closer to rock than anything in Jarrett's catalogue before or after. "Nomads" fills the entire third side with Jarrett on organ, Redman blowing hard on tenor, and the rhythm section building a long, slow arc that only resolves on its own terms. The range is the point. Jarrett was 26, fresh out of Miles Davis's band, and writing like someone trying to document every musical impulse he had before the opportunity disappeared.

The opportunity did disappear. George Avakian, Jarrett's manager and producer since the Charles Lloyd days (and the same man who signed Miles Davis to Columbia a generation earlier), had secured the deal, but Columbia dropped Jarrett shortly after release, reportedly in favour of Herbie Hancock. It remains his only album for the label. The core personnel here (Jarrett, Redman, Haden, Motian) went on to record together as the American Quartet on Impulse! from 1973, producing Fort Yawuh, Treasure Island and Death and the Flower. But Expectations is where that group first recorded as a unit in the studio, and it catches them at their most expansive. This is the original 1972 Japanese pressing on CBS/Sony, catalogue number SOPW-75 76.