May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins Passes Away at 95
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
The critics choice for Historical Album of the Year is At The Deer Head Inn: The Complete Recordings.
(Photo: Courtesy ECM)The first half of the last decade of the last century could be considered “peak Jarrett” to those who became hopelessly enamored with that particular pianist up to that point. At The Deer Head Inn was maybe the third or fourth album of Keith Jarrett’s that this writer had purchased when it was released in 1994, and to this day it remains one of my favorites. So in 2024, when ECM unveiled The Old Country, featuring eight additional selections from Jarrett’s one and only recorded appearance at the little jazz club outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, my only thoughts were: 1) Wait, there was more music from that gig? and 2) Why on earth has it taken 30 years for us to listen to it? Of course, it’s infinitely better late than never, and ECM has rewarded the long wait with a good thing: a boxed set of both albums across four LPs, a monumental work that has been recognized as such.
By any metric this album qualifies as historical, but for Jarrett it is also unusually biographical. He was born and grew up in Allentown, and at age 16 he got the call to sub for the regular pianist, Johnny Coates, at the Deer Head, essentially his first gig as a professional. Jarrett became a regular fixture at the club, often playing drums in Coates’ trio as well as piano and other instruments (he recounts in the original liner notes for The Deer Head that Stan Getz once offered him some work after hearing him sit in on guitar). It was not long after when Jarrett first heard the Bill Evans Trio at the Jazz Workshop in Boston. The rhythm section for that show featured Paul Motian, the indelible drummer from Evans’ most famous band, and a young bassist by the name of Gary Peacock. And the ensuing years saw the interweaving of the careers of these three unique jazz artists: Jarrett would start his own trio in 1966 with Motian and bassist Charlie Haden, while Motian and Peacock, after their time with Evans, found themselves in a trio with another pianist: Paul Bley, an important influence on Jarrett. And then Peacock, along with Jarrett and drummer Jack DeJohnette, eventually became the longstanding trio that has carved out its rightful place as one of the most acclaimed and beloved piano trios in all of jazz.
The backstories are what make Jarrett’s September 1992 benefit gig at his hometown club with Peacock and Motian rather poignant and nostalgic. And yet, it was also something entirely new, for the three of them, for all their shared history, had never actually played together in the same group. And ultimately, the evening proved to be something exquisitely rare: the only instance that trio would ever play together, made absolute by the passing of Motian in 2011 and Peacock in 2020. Jarrett himself has retired from public performances after suffering a series of strokes in 2018. But the complete Deer Head recordings serve to sustain the spirit of these exceptional musicians.
Perhaps that gig Jarrett once saw of Evans with his two bandmates came to mind that evening. The original album began with Miles Davis’ “Solar,” one of the signature pieces of the Evans Trio from 1961’s Sunday At The Village Vanguard (Riverside). Hearing Motian’s wispy ride pattern behind Jarrett’s later rendition certainly evokes the former. In similar fashion, the new release includes two more Evans staples: Cole Porter’s “All Of You” and “Someday My Prince Will Come,” recordings on which Motian also played. It’s surely not a coincidence all three tunes are also linked to Davis, the erstwhile bandleader to both pianists.
It also seems like Jarrett might have been reminiscing about his own history with Motian, especially in light of the fact they had not played in 16 years. In what must surely be an homage to their reunion, Jarrett launches into a spirited solo intro of another Porter tune, “Everything I Love,” something that he recorded with Motian and Haden on Life Between The Exit Signs (Atlantic, 1966), their very first trio album.
As the pianist eases into one of his trademark chorales at the end of “I Fall In Love Too Easily,” the drummer continues to play, unfazed by the custom of ceding the spotlight solely to Jarrett in that moment. Other times Motian is almost minimalist in his approach, not swayed by the wide range of Jarrett’s demonstrative inspiration, locking instead into Peacock’s quarter note with laser precision that seems to allow Jarrett to flow with abandon in and out of that ultra-clean pocket, astutely interjecting with some impeccably timed drum fills or unexpected breaks. This works to perfection on Jarrett’s original blues, “Chandra,” and on “The Old Country,” where Motian and Peacock could not be more in sync or swing harder. The latter tune was a reprise from Jarrett’s first live recording with Peacock and DeJohnette, this time less expansive and more intimate, ultimately creeping into a feel-good ending vamp à la Ahmad Jamal.
The new tracks and reissue have been a splendid chance to revisit my own favorite personal moments from the initial release: Jarrett’s “Looney Tunes” quote near the end of his solo on “Solar,” his slow descent into free-jazz madness on “Chandra,” his headlong plunge into the solo on “You And The Night And The Music,” his puckish rewrite of the second half of the melody to “Bye Bye Blackbird.” These are the moments that made me a Keith fan, and here’s hoping this new addition and reissue can help others hear — as Jarrett so mused in his liner notes — “what jazz is about.” DB
Onstage, Rollins would move about restlessly, thrusting his tenor sax in the air as he blew.
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