Keith Jarrett - Last Solo

Rating:
Summary: buy the cd instead
Review: Although I very much admire Keith Jarrett's volume of work in performing solo improvisational piano concerts, I have never had the opportunity to see him in person. This DVD is, I suppose, the next best thing. When Jarrett plays, he does not sit passively at the keyboard. Instead, he literally throws his entire body into the effort, alternately standing and sitting and sometimes nearly crouching, his expression an ever-changing mask of fierce engagment with the music he is making. This DVD is a remarkable look at a remarkable musician.

Rating:
Summary: Looking at a genius at work
Review: Although I very much admire Keith Jarrett's volume of work in performing solo improvisational piano concerts, I have never had the opportunity to see him in person. This DVD is, I suppose, the next best thing. When Jarrett plays, he does not sit passively at the keyboard. Instead, he literally throws his entire body into the effort, alternately standing and sitting and sometimes nearly crouching, his expression an ever-changing mask of fierce engagment with the music he is making. This DVD is a remarkable look at a remarkable musician.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous on DVD
Review: I have only just received my DVD of this Jarrett concert and I do believe that Jarrett's playing is truly great. His improvisations are quite beautiful and there is plenty of stuff to listen to over and over again. I can only hope that more great jazz concerts like this are released on DVD so that these great musicians can be seen and heard all around the world.

Rating:
Summary: _ahmad haroun_
Review: i want to watch solo pleas

Rating:
Summary: Jarrett plays like a man posessed
Review: Keith Jarrett, always riveting as a solo player, goes out into contrapuntal country for a long walk and takes us with him. His inventions on this date are thick with harmonic richness and complexity, and his familiar lyrical moments are peppered lightly throughout, though mostly saved for his gorgeous rendering of Somewhere over the Rainbow'. The lasting feeling I got from his long first movement was one of heaviness, of deep searching- where the sections barelled on in a through-composed pursuit of some kind of resolution. It's best to just listen to it the first time, I feel, because his performance demeanor is quite antic, to say the least. The twisted faces, the squirming, writhing body movements and the incongruous tension in Jarrett's whole physical aspect is quite distracting from the music itself- if you are not ready for it. After a few viewings, all of this began to make sense to me, however, and I hold a new found respect for this man who is cleary dedicated- body, mind and spirit to the act of spontaneous music-making.

Rating:
Summary: buy the cd instead
Review: The music is wonderful but the direction is awful. On this 92 minute DVD more time is spent looking up Jarrett's nostrils that at the keyboard.
An improv concert is not significant because of the particular sequence of Jarrett's facial contortions. It's the music, man. The music! So why all the face shots?
Now I'm familiar with Jarret's antics, and the verbailizations hardly interfere with my appreciation of the music, but I won't buy another Jarrett solo DVD without some assurance that I'll actually get to watch him play the piano.
(Actually there are a couple nice shots, but I wouldn't buy this one again).

Rating:
Summary: failure to perceive
Review: Those who love Jarrett's music but don't like this DVD have to be loopy. People complained that there is too much of his face. If you had a DVD of Shakespeare, would you want to look at his writing hand the whole time? They don't realize who Jarrett is. He's one of history's greatest geniuses. If you don't want to see what his face looks like, then you really don't care about him or his music. You may think you do, but you don't. His body contortions are some of the strangest things I've seen--they are a performance in themselves. I didn't think people could look like this before watching Last Solo. Until you see him play, you can't really have any idea of the intensity with which he approaches his music. It can't be imagined. We're not talking about painful struggle. We're talking about ecstasy and transcendence. You have to realize who these negative reviewers must be. Do you really think the people entrusted to produce Keith Jarrett's last solo concert would be anything but masters of their art?