Just finished watching the C4 docu on Jarrett: it was ok I thought, as insanely reductive TV arts progs go - obv. authorised and arselicking, w/ no dissenting voices, but at least there was no Stanley Crouch either (who crops up on that recent Electric Miles DVD w/ Jarrett, Corea, Holland, DeJohnette etc. to once again slag off Bitches Brew etc. ) Jarrett, needless to say, is v. convinced of his own genius, and the sight of him still twisting and gurning away at the piano while noodling out some half-arsed standards improv is the v. stuff of The Fast Show's Jazz club. Despite previous w/ Nucleus, his own jazz-rock fusion group (that predated Bitches Brew?) Ian Carr, the interviewer, didn't challenge Jarrett's typically dismissive attitude to the 'fun' 'funk' of the Miles group - KJ famously didn't get on w/ the musically 'unsophisticated' Michael Henderson - whereas the cheerfully beached Chick Corea still obv. digs that stuff and it's electronic DIFFERENCE to the same old acoustic ho-hum
The footage of the American quartet, w/ Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, was, however, breathtaking - seemingly one of the few playing situations where Jarrett didn't always get his own way, or was put to some kind of test, not least by the awesome Redman who drily remarked that his previous experience w/ Ornette Coleman was a lot more free, "if you know what I mean..." Seeing Charlie Haden strumming his bass like a big guitar was worth staying in for, too
The footage of the American quartet, w/ Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, was, however, breathtaking - seemingly one of the few playing situations where Jarrett didn't always get his own way, or was put to some kind of test, not least by the awesome Redman who drily remarked that his previous experience w/ Ornette Coleman was a lot more free, "if you know what I mean..." Seeing Charlie Haden strumming his bass like a big guitar was worth staying in for, too
