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| Press Reviews |
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| Press Reviews |
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Poly, February 2010 "[Four Free] demonstrates a more impulsive part of his work, in which he leads his colleagues on to more unusaul and risky terrain. 'Four Free' turns Jazz upside down and all around." |
Die Rheinpfalz, January 2010 "Jarrett's borderless spektrum of expression and the explosivity of his comprehensive playing go beyond verbal explanation. His music 'speaks' for itself. A feeling of awe and astonishment overcomes the audience, because Jarrett's music seems brutal but so existential and 'true' at the same time." |
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Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, December 2009 (with Ismail Türker and Semir Türkkan) "... his overflowing vitality unloads itself in blustering cascades like volcanic eruptions. There are also suddenly stiller moments and spheric music-box melodies. ... The soft sound of the piano mixes effectfively with the somewhat nasal and percussive Saz - the Turkish lute - and together the 3 musicians wind up a gripping drive." |
Jazzpodium, December 2009 (Four Free - Wax Cabinet CD) "Chris Jarrett's group 'Four Free' feels at home in the world of spontaneity, plays outside of all categories, and surprises the listener with sound experiments which, in spite of all the freedom, follow an inner logic. Such unconventional, fresh-saucy and humorous music makes you hungry for more." |
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Jazzzeitung, November 2009 (Four Free - Wax Cabinet CD) "What remains dominant are Pascal Gully's precisely beaten asymmetrical meters in 'Flunching' or 'Engführung' where Chris Jarrett shows an astounding virtuosity of tempo, or 'The Simmer', a soft barcarole. Jérôme Fohrer also proves his art with a lyric bass-solo, as in the impressionistic 'Friand Poulet', so that this magnificent album has managed a successful balance of equality between 'Four Free'." |
Jazz thing, November 2009 (Four Free - Wax Cabinet CD) "[The search for a common path] is often wonderfully mysterious, sometimes a little dreamy, and then barbed and heavily experimental. This quartet always plays openly, with a shot of humor and once in a while with a marvelously seizing drive. A great album to discover and listen to carefully." |
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Jazzthetik, November 2009 (Four Free - Wax Cabinet CD) "The pianist Chris Jarrett, who lives in Germany, has put a fabulous band together. Why haven't we heard much more about this first-class pianist and composer?" |
Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, January 2009 "Chris Jarrett has a fabulous piano technique, which enables him to perform incredibly difficult compositions and improvisations. In clockwork, the left hand weaved polyrhythmic carpets with the right. Raging sound cascades, dizzyinngly racing blocks of sound with heavy tremolos and cornered, rough rhythms activated the pianist in Blues Berceuse." |
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Mannheimer Morgen, January 2009 "Chris Jarrett's tempi go beyond the usual margins of velocity. ... with his extravagant musical concept, this rebel against the pianistic establishment is sure to win more and more friends." |
Gießener Anzeiger, September 2008 "What Chris Jarrett then presented on his Bösendorfer grand was one of the very greatest concerts heard in recent months in our region." |
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Südwest Presse, September 2007 "Chris Jarrett is ... a remarkably many-faceted pianist, who, with an effortless elegance, harmoniously mixes all the styles between classical and jazz, revealing their contents through exciting contrast. Lively, sparkling cascades of sound washed time and space away only to arrive at a welcome resolution when one least expected it." |
Journal de Franche-Comté, 2006 "Those in the audience who didn't know the pianist, were immediately taken in by his virtuosity and enjoyed the music from the very beginning. It was an evening they will never forget." |
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Rhein-Zeitung, 2006 (Rehearsal of Chris Jarrett's "Quarterfinales - Divertissement for 11 Strings and Conductor/Referee") "Most probably until now, no one else has set football to modern classical music. To begin, Jarrett, in the double role of referee and conductor, whistles for playoff. An attack begins directly. The strings move in complex modernistic musical figurations towards the challenging team's goal. One can hear the goal being made: Then the conductor shows through whistle and card what the next game-situation will be: ballplay, loss of ball, challenger attack, opponent goal. The functioning principle? The strings have learned seperate motives, which the conductor can demand according to his tactical considerations - this, through colored cards and typical hand signals. ... Mr. Jarrett knows exactly how he wants the team to win the musical game." |
Rhein-Zeitung, 2006 "Not only is Jarrett a grandiose piano-man; he can tell "Tales of Our Time" - 9 small stories, which show the whole range of his abilities, and document his influences and musical preferences. First, he blows a Balkan Blues into his public, and then ballade-like piece. Little animals creep through his flat, which, having been carefully observed, are now set ingeniously to music with his finger-play. ... The transitions from piano to forte or from elegic to energetic, are made with sleep-walking security. The second encore was magical. The last notes leave the instrument like pearls. They echo away - infinity is calling. The audience is stupefied and they show thanks with a grand ovation for these 2 shining hours of piano music." |
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Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, 2005 "Certainly, the sharpest profiles of the evening were delivered by the pianist Chris Jarrett. The American can forget himself while hammering the keys on the very left of the keyboard for minutes, or misuse the strings with a wine bottle, Lübeck marzipan, and heavy tape: Whatever he does, he seduces magnificent sounds out of the instrument." |
Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 2005 "His music absorbs moods, feelings, passions and catastrophes and sets them directly to sound. ... and all this in a breathtaking tempo, his technique is grandiose." |
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Salzburger Nachrichten, 2005 (Chris Jarrett Trio) "Instead of walking the paths of the straight and the expectable, new musical perspectives are searched for and found again and again. The piano and the Arabic lute communicate with comfort. As stoic pulse-maker, Shakir Ertek (drums) holds their playful fantasies together. ... Jarrett and his musicians were successful where so-called "world-music" often fails: in making the fusion of Western and Eastern colors and rhythms sound effortless." |
Salzburger Volkszeitung, 2005 (Chris Jarrett Trio) "The originality [of the members of the Chris Jarrett Trio] is based on their unquenchable search for connections and similarities between the Orient and the Occident, but without giving the after-taste of a schoolmaster's lecture. Groove was created through transparency and reduction, homogenity through dialogue and tight-knittedness. Brilliance and virtuosity were displayed only when necessary. ... Almost no piece bore resemblance to another; instead, the concert had the structure of a theater-piece which put all the scenes and music-stories into place. The result of all this was an ocean of musical color, which intoxicates the listener." |
| Südwest Presse, 2005 "His performance was set at a high-risk level - powerful, sharp-edged, and eruptive. He often played at an insanely fast speed, overrolling typical expectations with polyrhythms and all sorts of musical alienations." |
Südkurier, 2005 "[The panist showed] ... that in qualities like musical wit and capability, and in spontaneity, he stands no step behind his brother. His feeling for structure and his expressiveness were not to be overheard." |
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Nordwest-Zeitung, 2004 ("A Dreamed Life ...", a motion picture by Karl-Heinz Heilig) "Top cast for the movie by Heilig: Grammy prize-winner Michael Brammann and pianist Chris Jarrett in the service of good cinema." |
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| a tempo, 2004 "Now, he proved to the pupils how alive music can be; and how direct, voiced, story-like, and deeply communicative. Sometimes simple, but often so complex, that the hearer gets confused, must be on his guard, and feel sensitively at once." |
Jazz Podium, 2004 "Chris Jarrett connects impressionism with the song-like; classical with jazz; folk with chorales; and minimal-music with free explosions. All this with ease, through a technique that sets no apparent boundaries in high-speed playing and (in spite of a hard attack) in dynamics." |
| Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 2003 (Chris Jarrett Trio) "With his New World Music, Chris Jarrett not only managed to balance two instruments (piano and the arabic oud), but also the musical reconciliation of Islam and Christianity." |
Stuttgarter Zeitung, 2003 (Chris Jarrett Trio) "The musicians presented their New World Music as brilliantly well connected to each other, attentive and with an exciting melodic invention." |
| Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung, 2003 "A pianist with an astoundingly wide scope." |
Jazzeitung "He possesses a rare virtue as a jazz pianist. With two hands, Chris Jarrett leads the listener to believe that a whole orchestra is playing." |
| Tageszeitung Berlin "Jarrett shows how deep, warm and full a piano sounds - his "pictures" soak you up..." |
Mitteldeutsche Allgemeine "His music fits into a smoky jazz club as well as into an exclusive concert hall or a studio for experimental music." |
| Jazz Podium "The pieces excite through the vitality and contrast of the improvisational flights, as well as through the aesthetical logic of the playing." |
Weser Kurier "Chris Jarrett's compositions are shaped by improvisation, the joy playing, jazz rhythms and breath-robbing technique." |
