BELONGING

Given that the great Keith Jarrett has just turned 80, I can think of no more touching birthday tribute than the Branford Marsalis Quartet recording their own version of the pianist's 1974 classic quartet album Belonging (ECM), which famously featured contributions from notable peers of that golden era of European/American contemporary jazz: Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson, and Jon Christensen.

In a recent Guardian review of the new Marsalis Quartet album on Blue Note, Neil Spencer suggests that the original Belonging by Jarrett represented a liberation "from electric-era Miles (Davis) (whom he played with) for the organic sound of Jarrett’s European Quartet, where Norwegian sax player Jan Garbarek starred. These were happy times, clear from the '70s band’s joyous playing, most strikingly on 'As Long As You Know You’re Living Yours,' a jaunty, funk-influenced number that Donald Fagen eventually admitted he’d pinched for Steely Dan’s Gaucho."

"Here time becomes space." —Gurnemanz (Parsifal, Act One)

Sometimes I've attempted my own piano improvisations à la Jarrett, riffing on phrases from his Sun Bear Concerts, Tribute, and The Köln Concert—but I'm happy to say that Marsalis and his quartet truly deliver at the highest level in paying homage to a sound that, for me, represents the most exultant freedom in all of music.

Indeed, listening to Keith Jarrett often feels free of time itself, dancing in its own sphere of magic where nothing exists before or after it. It is the sound of eternity—light shafts in sacred spaces where notes can fall like gentle tears, while at other times becoming more earthy and reassuringly groovy, drawing on gospel influences that feel like returning home (to paraphrase Randy Newman).

Three tracks in particular from the new Marsalis tribute album had me suspended in a blissful trance—"Blossom," "Long As You Know You're Living Yours," and the title track, "Belonging"—as I could hear saxophonist Marsalis and his Quartet assimilate Jarrett (and his Quartet) into their souls in the ultimate musical thank-you to a titan of the form.