Graham Reid | | 1 min read
In 2018 he suffered two separate strokes which have left him partially paralyzed down his left side.
He could still play with his right hand and through overdubs create his music, but at 76 that seems unlikely.
These recent events haven't been the first serious health issues Jarrett has endured.
The art here was created to accompany a piece about his beautiful album The Melody At Night, With You in 1999.
It was his first album in four years since he staggered from an Italian stage in '96 and cancelled all his upcoming concerts.
Later he revealed he was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome.
When he was able to return to playing, only in short bursts, he refined his sometimes muscular playing down to quiet and spacious essences.
As I wrote in that article, “He discovered, as many have before, that less was more. He says he detoxed from chord patterns and harmonies that came from the brain not the heart.”
The album of standards was distilled down to melodic essentials.
It remains one of my favourite Jarrett albums among so many.
So the art tells that story in simple frames.
I used the same image in the before and after panels because there was a Zen-like simplicity and quiet elegance to the album which brought to mind the Buddhist idea of being the same before and after enlightenment.
And yet everything being different.
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For other Art by Elsewhere go here.
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