6. Keith JarrettChanges

Once I was away from home, and there was only one record store, and it only had ECM records. So all I did for months was buy ECM records. One record led to another, but it was all happening concurrently, so I was going into extreme free jazz, and into fusion, and all that stuff. I basically had every single Jarrett record, I had the Sun Bear concerts, the 10LP box set. I had everything. But Changes in particular had something about it that was very single-minded. They made Standards Volume One and Volume Two on the same day that they made Changes, and Changes was an improvised record. The way Gary Peacock is sitting on this one note thing, and DeJohnette is driving it really subtly, it reminds me of The Necks before The Necks. It’s got this propulsive thing, and I love that. It’s the explorative playing on top of a driving rhythm. And that’s something that I’ve always loved. I like to explore that in my music, too.