Keith Jarrett - Sleeper: Tokyo, April 16th, 1979 (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Recorded in April 1979 in Tokyo but not released until 2012, this live concert album from Keith Jarrett's celebrated "European" quartet earned a place on The Guardian's list of the five best jazz releases of the year and was also included on the JazzTimes.com contributors' poll of the top 50 releases of 2012.

Recorded LIVE April 16, 1979 at Nakano Sun Plaza, Tokyo. In 1979 came the tour of Japan from which Personal Mountains and now Sleeper were drawn and, the following month, the New York concerts at the Village Vanguard that generated the Nude Ants album. And then the story was finished. As Ian Carr was to observe in his Jarrett biography, The influence of this quartet is out of all proportion to its brief life. Musicians on all instruments have been influenced and inspired by Keith Jarrett s work in general, but also by this quartet in particular. The European Quartet ceased to exist when it was at the height of its creativity. Sleeper confirms that this was indeed the case. – ECM Records

This enthralling double album is a previously unreleased concert set from Tokyo in 1979 and features Keith Jarrett's "European quartet" of Jan Garbarek on saxes and flute, fellow Norwegian Jon Christensen on drums and Swedish bassist Palle Danielsson. The band made their last studio album, Belonging, on the same trip – this one covers many of the same vivid Jarrett originals, and is the better set. But you don't need to know that history to hear the band's exuberance over Jarrett's teasing yet hard-rocking vamps, Garbarek's brusque power and the rhythm section's energy and freedom. Personal Mountains is a 20-minute tour de force of shifting harmonies and chord-punching Latin grooving. Innocence drifts in freefall until it becomes a softly swaying love song. So Tender has the shape of a standard ballad (audibly not to Garbarek's liking) but then loosens. Oasis sounds like an Ornette Coleman lament, and New Dance is probably as close as any of these performers came to playing a mainstream jazz-calypso like Sonny Rollins' famous version of Don't Stop the Carnival. There's lots of free-improv, too, but the range of this remarkable group played a big part in its enduring influence on contemporary jazz.

The double album Sleeper contains a previously unreleased live concert by Keith Jarrett's European quartet from the '70s, recorded at Tokyo's Nakano Sun Plaza on April 16, 1979. Together with saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Palle Danielsson, and drummer Jon Christensen, Jarrett performs seven of his own compositions: "Personal Mountains," "Innocence," "So Tender," "Oasis," "Chant of the Soil," "Prism," and "New Dance" – the latter song being the shortest here at seven minutes, while "Oasis" clocks in at over 28 minutes! As a companion piece to the live albums Nude Ants and Personal Mountains (both recorded the same year, even though the latter album was only released in 1989), Sleeper offers another noteworthy document of the creative interplay between these four musicians.

Tracklist:

01 - Personal Mountains
02 - Innocence
03 - So Tender
04 - Oasis
05 - Chant Of The Soil
06 - Prism
07 - New Dance

Recorded live on April 16, 1979 at Nakano Sun Plaza, Tokyo.
Engineered by Jan Erik Kongshaug. Mixed in 2012 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo.

Musicians:
Keith Jarrett - piano
Jan Garbarek - tenor & soprano sax
Palle Danielsson - double bass
Jon Christensen - drums


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