| Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne | |
| Type: | live |
| Artist: | Keith Jarrett |
| Cover: | Solo Concerts.jpg |
| Released: | November 1973[1] |
| Recorded: | March 20 and July 12, 1973 |
| Venue: | Salle de Spectacles d'Epalinges (Lausanne, Switzerland) Kleiner Sendesaal (Bremen, Germany) |
| Length: | 128:13 |
| Label: | ECM 1035–37 ST |
| Producer: | Manfred Eicher |
| Prev Title: | Fort Yawuh |
| Prev Year: | 1973 |
| Next Title: | In the Light |
| Next Year: | 1974 |
Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne is a live solo triple album by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett recorded at the Salle de Spectacles d'Epalinges in Lausanne, Switzerland and the Kleiner Sendesall in Bremen, Germany on March 20 and July 12, 1973, respectively and released on ECM November that same year—Jarrett's debut solo live album for the label.[2]
Jarrett played in the US with his American quartet between the two European solo concerts.
In 1974, DownBeat ranked the album as the best jazz recording of the year[3]
The AllMusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 5 stars, stating, "Despite the length, the music never loses one's interest, making this an essential recording for all jazz collections".[4]
Ted Gioia calls it Jarrett's "masterpiece"; "two titanic improvised performances".[5]
According to Mikal Gilmore in Night Beat, "with Bremen-Lausanne and the subsequent Köln Concert, Jarrett found his niche, freely mixing gospel, impressionist, and atonal flights into a consonant whole".[6]
Bill Dobbins notes that the (short) encore on the third side, a boogie-woogie inflected ostinato, owes much to Duke Ellington's New World A-Comin.[7]
Writing for the now defunct jazz magazine Jazz.com in December 2007, Ted Gioia rated the track "Bremen, Germany, July 12, 1973, Part I" 100/100, stating:[8]
Jazz musicians have always emphasized improvisation in their work. But few have taken this reliance on spontaneous creation to the lengths Keith Jarrett has assayed in his solo concerts. He pioneered the (still rare) concept of an entirely improvised piano recital, wholly inspired by the muse of the moment. But if the concept is exciting, Jarrett's execution of this ambitious idea is even more impressive. The ECM recording of Jarrett's 1973 Bremen concert represented the first attempt to capture this type of work on tape and present it on record. This disk may not have sold as well as The Köln Concert from 1975 or matched the scope of Jarrett's massive Sun Bear Concerts (originally released on ten LPs) from 1976, but for sheer musicality and inventiveness it is hard to top the recital in Bremen. Here is piano music that is rich in complexity, subtle in detail, and completely free of cliché. One of my desert island disks.In 2023, Pitchforks Mark Richardson described it as a "career-defining jazz masterpiece" and wrote that the "structural coherence of these lengthy improvisations across two one-hour sets is astonishing" and "where Jarrett's improvisational skill and talent might suggest music described as 'effortless,' some of the beauty of his solo piano work is that you can hear the exertion."