Staircase is a double album of solo piano improvisations by Keith Jarrett, recorded in a Paris studio in 1976 and released by ECM the following year. Where The Köln Concert and the other solo concerts of those years unfold before an audience as long continuous streams, this session was made in the studio and divided into four suites. Staircase, Hourglass, Sundial and Sand are each built from shorter parts, and the set has a more concentrated, inward character than the concert albums.
The session took place in May 1976 at Studio Davout in Paris, with Roger Roche as engineer and Manfred Eicher as producer. It came one year after The Köln Concert and was Jarrett's fourth solo piano album for the label. Jarrett is the only musician, and every piece is credited to him. The cover design is by Barbara Wojirsch, with a photograph by Franco Fontana.
The first disc holds the three parts of Staircase and the two of Hourglass. The title suite rests on a steady syncopated pulse, with melodic figures stacked one above another rather than spread across the keyboard, and its third part lasts little more than a minute. Hourglass opens with a short, lively first part, then turns into an elegy of almost fourteen minutes carried by clear, flowing arpeggios. The second disc contains Sundial and Sand, in three parts each. Sundial seems to stand still while it moves, as a shadow on a dial does, and Jarrett can be heard singing along with the piano. Sand closes the set over three parts lasting about nineteen minutes in all.
Writing at ECM Reviews, Tyran Grillo described Jarrett treating his melodies "as if they were bricks to be laid", and heard in Sundial music that is "frozen and highly animate". Not every critic was won over. In AllMusic, Richard S. Ginell praised Jarrett's "lovely tone and flexible touch" but found that "the repetitions finally begin to grate" when ideas run short. He wondered whether the pianist needed a live audience to spark his solo playing.
This is the 2CD edition on ECM Records, catalogue number ECM 1090/91, of an album first released as a double LP in 1977. The first disc carries Staircase and Hourglass, the second Sundial and Sand.
