Keith Jarrett: Everything That Lives Laments (1975 version)

Jarrett had recorded this same piece in 1971, but this version is longer and richer. The opening section, played in a free tempo, takes on a funereal stateliness. The ensemble plays with great control and sensitivity, but the quality of sound Haden extracts from his bass deserves special mention. Then, shortly after the two-minute market, the combo settles into a lilting groove over a quirky six-bar chord pattern, where what sounds like the start of the turnaround (because the listener is expecting an eight bar structure) is actually the return to the top of the forma clever device that is very effectively employed here. Jarrett would soon leave this band behind, and start afresh with his European quartet, but this recording testifies that his American combo ranked among the finest jazz groups of the mid-1970s.