Whisper Not is the concert that brought Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio back to records after the pianist's three years away from the stage. A debilitating illness had kept him from performing, and this Paris date from July 1999 was the first trio recording issued after his return. Across two discs and fourteen standards the group sounds renewed, with ballads pared down to the melody and bebop tunes taken at full speed.
The trio, together since 1983, is Jarrett on piano, Gary Peacock on double bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. The concert was recorded on 5 July 1999 at the Palais des Congrès, in front of an enthusiastic audience, and produced by Manfred Eicher. During his illness Jarrett had completed only The Melody At Night, With You, a solo album recorded at home and built on the plain melodies of standards and folk songs. He told Jazziz that it changed how the trio played ballads: "I discovered I was actually getting more from less."
That shows in Benny Golson's Whisper Not, Billy Strayhorn's Chelsea Bridge and Thelonious Monk's Round Midnight, treated as compositions first rather than as springboards for improvisation. The uptempo half of the programme goes the other way. Bud Powell's Bouncin' With Bud and Hallucinations, Dizzy Gillespie's Groovin' High and Clifford Brown's Sandu are bebop tunes written to launch a soloist. Jarrett phrases them like a horn player. Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams turns to jaunty stride piano, Poinciana rides a light Latin groove, and Cole Porter's What Is This Thing Called Love stretches past twelve minutes.
Writing in the International Herald Tribune, Mike Zwerin called the group "perhaps the best jazz band of the nineties" and heard their swing as "elastic to the breaking point". BBC Music Magazine judged it "one of the most ebullient and brilliant albums of standards he's ever released". In Italy Musica Jazz named it album of the year, and in France it received a Diapason d'Or and a Choc du mois from Jazzman.
This is the double CD on ECM Records, catalogue number ECM 1724/25, first released in October 2000 and running close to two hours.
