The Survivors' Suite
Studio album by
Keith Jarrett
Released1977 (1977)[1]
RecordedApril 1976 (1976-04)[1][2]
StudioTonstudio Bauer
Ludwigsburg, W. Germany
GenreJazz
Length48:39
LabelECM 1085 ST
ProducerManfred Eicher
Keith Jarrett chronology
Hymns/Spheres
(1976)		 The Survivors' Suite
(1977)		 Staircase
(1977)
Keith Jarrett American Quartet chronology
Shades
(1976)		 The Survivors' Suite
(1977)		 Byablue
(1977)

The Survivors' Suite is an album by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett recorded in April 1976 and released on ECM the following year. The quartet—Jarrett's "American Quartet"—features saxophonist Dewey Redman and rhythm section Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.

Conception and composition

Regarding sound, venues, composition and orchestration, in a February 2009 interview conducted by Stuart Nicholson, Keith Jarrett stated that:

The whole music of The Survivors' Suite was written—and this is something that's perhaps not known widely at all— ... specifically for Avery Fisher Hall in New York, because I knew we were going to play there, I think it was opposite Monk as part of the festival. I knew from playing in Avery Fisher Hall many times the sound was not precise enough onstage to play fast tempos—[the sound] got blurred—so I decided to write the music for that evening. I felt it was important as an evening of music and that’s the first place we played it and it was written for that hall and then it became something we did at other places. So there was a rationale to that, but I think very few people would ever say, "Would you conceive, Mr. Jarrett, of writing for a specific hall?" I probably would say, "No." But the answer lies in the fact that I knew the hall to be very poor for certain kinds of things and if you listen to The Survivor’s Suite you’ll notice there are no fast tempos.[3]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz[4]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide[5]
Tom HullB+ ((2-star Honorable Mention)(2-star Honorable Mention))[6]

Now-defunct magazine Melody Maker voted it their Jazz Album of the Year in 1978, stating: "The Survivors' Suite is a brilliantly organized and full-blooded work which provides the perfect setting for all four talents. This is a very complete record. It creates its own universe and explores it thoroughly, leaving the listener awed and satisfied... An unashamedly ardent album, Jarrett’s very finest."[7]

Writing for the now defunct jazz magazine Jazz.com, Ted Gioia, rating the album as a single track, gave The Survivors' Suite a 97/100.[8]

The AllMusic review by Stacia Proefrock awarded the album 5 stars, stating, "Like other albums of its time, this was beginning to show the brightness, lightness, and soft edges of contemporary jazz, but the solidness of Haden's bass helps the music rooted and earthbound."[2]

The Penguin Guide to Jazz by Richard Cook and Brian Morton regards the album as a "masterpiece, with the quartet pulling together on an ambitiously large-scale piece, each member contributing whole-heartedly and passionately."[4]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Keith Jarrett

Side I
No.TitleLength
1."The Survivors' Suite: Beginning"27:21
Side II
No.TitleLength
1."The Survivors' Suite: Conclusion"21:18
Total length:48:39

Personnel

American Quartet

Technical personnel

Liner notes

Quoted anonymously in the original liner notes: "And those that create out of the holocaust of their own inheritance anything more than a convenient self-made tomb shall be known as 'Survivors'."

References

  1. 1 2 Discogs Keith Jarrett: The Survivors' Suite accessed June 2020
  2. 1 2 3 Proefrock, S. Allmusic Review accessed September 16, 2011
  3. ↑ Nicholson, S. (February 2009) Keith Jarrett Interview Conducted By Stuart Nicholson accessed May 16, 2020
  4. 1 2 Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 769. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  5. ↑ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 112. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  6. ↑ Hull, Tom (28 February 2018). "Streamnotes". Tom Hull – on the Web. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  7. ↑ ECM The Survivors' suite, Keith Jarrett accessed May 16, 2020
  8. ↑ Gioia, Ted (June 2008) The Dozens: Essential Keith Jarrett by Ted Gioia at Jazz.com accessed September 2020
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