Sleeper: Tokyo, April 16, 1979

Not everyone will like the music on this previously unreleased two-CD set Keith Jarrett performed at a concert more than three decades ago. Jarrett has always been on the cutting edge, and the cutting edge isn’t always a comfortable place to be, for musicians or for their audiences. This music required something of those who made it, and it requires something of those who want to really hear it. But Miles Davis knew what he was doing way back in the way back when he chose Jarrett as his new keyboard player just as Davis himself was stepping into some new cutting-edge jazz realms. You can hear the creative restlessness of Jarrett’s spirit all over this set. The improvisations and the interplay between Jarrett and Jan Garbarek on horns, Palle Danielsson on double bass and Jon Christensen on a variety of percussion instruments are richly textured. This is no “sleeper,” however, if you approach it thinking you can doze through it without attentive wakefulness. This album re-awakens a great old concert to a brand new day, and if you snooze you will lose when it comes to hearing all that’s going on as these top-flight musical innovators play off and with one another.