THEN I'LL BE TIRED OF YOU

For me, Keith Jarrett is the greatest living musician on the planet, albeit one unable to play anymore due to suffering a stroke.

I'm sure others will have their own ideas about the lofty title I've granted this pernickety piano player but when it comes down to it, who else has the ability to distill the pure essence of what music really is all  about each time he sits down at the piano the way he does.

There's simply a timelessness to his music that is the very definition of freedom to my amateur ears. It belong to no one generation, decade or century, only the very moment in which it is being played, which some of us have enjoyed the privilege to witness as audience members.

Oh sure, at some point all of us KJ fans have had our moments, throwing our hands up in the air and sighing, even groaning Jarrett style, exasperated at his pretentious longeurs and endless improvisations but such is the price we must pay for the exalted heights of ecstasy that he provides us with on a frequent basis.

For what is that feeling of total connectedness to the moment with his music making that I find so irresistible? Surely it's as close to some kind of enlightement via the music of the spheres as any of us will find on this earth of ours right now.

I'm reminded of that great scene in Powell and Pressburger's 'A Matter Of Life And Death' where various characters defend and prosecute the virtues and vices of American/Anglo culture up in heaven.

Well, if it's up to me to hold up my example in the high court of culture to prove my bold claim of Keith Jarrett being the greatest musician then I literally have too many examples to draw from which is surely testimony to his incredible legacy secured over sixty years of performance and recording.

But such is my arrogance on this matter, that I will refer you all to the first video that came up on my YouTube search, thrown up by the algorithm gremlins, I guess.

You see, even A.I. knows a genius when it hears one.