Keith Jarrett - My Song (1978 Japanese ECM/Trio Records Vinyl LP)

Keith Jarrett - My Song | Vinyl LP - 1978 ECM Records / Trio Records Japan (PAP-9101, Trio Jazz Mania series)

• The second album by Jarrett’s European Quartet, with Jan Garbarek on tenor and soprano saxophones, Palle Danielsson on bass and Jon Christensen on drums, recorded at Talent Studio in Oslo in November 1977. All six compositions by Jarrett.
• One of the most popular records in the ECM catalogue, featuring the title track “My Song”, a melody so direct and immediately beautiful it became one of Jarrett’s most requested pieces. Reached number 17 on the Billboard Jazz chart.
• 1978 Japanese pressing on ECM via Trio Records, same year as the original release. Trio Jazz Mania series, made by Trio-Kenwood Corporation.

In the mid-1970s Jarrett was running two quartets at the same time, alongside his solo piano concerts. The American group, with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, drew on free jazz and gospel. The European group, with Garbarek, Danielsson and Christensen, did something different. The music was lyrical, spacious, melody-driven. Belonging, the first album with this quartet in 1974, established the sound. My Song, recorded three years later at Talent Studio in Oslo, refined it. Jan Erik Kongshaug engineered, and the room and his approach to capturing it are as much a part of the record as the playing. Everything has space around it. Garbarek’s soprano and tenor carry their own particular tone, wide and slightly vocal, with a sustain that sits in the air after each phrase. Danielsson and Christensen provide time without imposing on it.

The six compositions are all Jarrett’s and they work like songs in the literal sense: each has a melody you can carry away from the record. “Questar” opens with a searching nine-minute piece built on tenor and piano interplay. “My Song” follows at just over six minutes, the album’s centrepiece, a hymn-like theme that sounds simple until you try to work out why it moves you. “Tabarka” is more rhythmically complex. “Country” on Side B is the shortest track at five minutes and has the most open, folk-influenced feel. “Mandala” builds gradually. “The Journey Home” closes the album with the longest piece, ten and a half minutes that bring everything together. Manfred Eicher produced. Jarrett took the cover photograph himself. This copy is the 1978 Japanese pressing on ECM via Trio Records, part of the Trio Jazz Mania series, manufactured by Trio-Kenwood Corporation. Same year as the original release.