Beware of the sound!
Ty-Guy | 03/07/2006
(1 out of 5 stars)
"First, let me say I am a big fan of Keith Jarrett's trio work. I have many of them, including the Blue Note box set, and I thoroughly enjoy them. His "vocalizing" has not bothered me nearly as much as it clearly does some people. And my comments about this album are NOT about the vocalizing (although it is significantly worse than on many other Jarrett recordings).
The sound of the music itself is absolutely abysmal, in my humble opinion - VERY compressed (i.e. little dynamic range), very poor tonal quality and clarity, etc. I could go on and on. I was shocked, to be honest, as the sound of his other recordings varies from very good to excellent, and the sound of ECM recordings in general is excellent. I don't know what to say beyond this. I found no reason to listen to this music, when I have so many other alternatives from Jarrett's trio. Maybe I got a bad copy somehow? I don't otherwise know how to explain the fact that others have not complained about the sound. Maybe ECM has fixed whatever problem there may have been? This CD was recently purchased, however (winter of 05/06)"
Absolutely Fantastic
Jonathan E. Sindelman | 12/26/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is amongst my favorite performances by the Jarrett/DeJohnette/Peacock trio. They are in peak form throughout, particularly in terms of their interplay, and the music is particularly touching for this band. For Miles is beautiful and genius. It won't make sense, at least the parts not dominated by Jarrett's melodies, if you're not comfortable with the sort of abstract stuff that Peacock and Dejohnette did apart from Jarrett around the time. (Usually with other ECM artists, like Paul Bley.) But it's well worth getting comfortable."